After the chaos of yesterday, we are just happy to potter around the village of Sospel, enjoy this glorious sunshine and just be….
Many of the streets the buildings are only a meter or so apart so it is definitely one of those places where it is pretty essential to get on with your neighbours but seems a nice social town with plenty of folks enjoying the sunshine and outside tables and chairs of the bars and cafes by the river….
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A beautiful day as we leave Montauroux behind and make our way back down to the coast with Antibes and Nice in our sights – well that was the plan.
However the reality was indeed somewhat different as first Antibes attempted to sabotage things with no parking anywhere near the centre, in the end though we found parking in a residential street near the Juan les Pins area, south of the main old town and took a nice stroll along the promenade above Plages Golf Juan, Pont de Lys and Juan les Pins – all three beautiful white sand beaches with dog bans!….
Too hot to attempt to cross to the otherside of the headland and find Antibes Old Town and we also wanted to visit NIce today so time wasnt really on our side. So we made our way back to the van and headed off for Nice….
Well there was an hour and half of my life that I will never see again as we followed fruitlessly every road sign for parking to be confronted at the last moment with a height barrier – much of Nice’s parking appears to be underground and as we ended up on the outskirts (still no suitable parking) for the third time, we gave up and joined the motorway heading east towards our park up for the night.
The bonus and saving grace for the day was the motorway Aire and viewing point perched high above Monaco (where there is definitely no parking) affording fab views to the Principality below…
That is as close as we are going to get…. Returning to the motorway for a short distance until we took our turning up into the mountains following the hairpin bends all the way up and backdown again to our Aire in the small valley village of Sospel….
In time for a nice stroll around the village in the slightly cooler late afternoon sun – more of that tomorrow.
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After yesterday’s long walk and coupled with the fact that it is hot outside, we decided against another drive and long walk, opting instead to spend the morning doing bits and bobs around the van and then in the afternoon, driving the short distance to a lakeside car park, with a view to taking a walk along the shore.
It didn’t turn out to be much of a walk as there doesn’t appear to be much of a footpath around the lake but we did however enjoy the change of scene and shelter from the full sun and for Tilly the opportunity for a potter and good sniff….
Then having discovered a laundrette not far from the Aire we spent a delightful but necessary couple of hours doing and waiting for said laundry, before returning to the Aire ahead of what looked like a massive thunderstorm which seemed to echo around the hills for a quite a while, before shedding a few tears for about half an hour and carrying on on its merry way. Shame really, the van is so dusty it could do with a proper downpour – now it just looks all smeary!
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Overcast for most of the day, still warm but in fact a bit of a relief for the walk we have planned today.
After a slight detour to take a look at Chateau del Colle Noire – famously redesigned and owned by Christian Dior from 1950 and still owned by Parfums Christian Dior it wasn’t easy to get a look but….
We then started the 3 mile climb up to the old town of Montauroux, which sits at about 1300m above sea level, using a network of quiet residential lanes and footpaths to wend our way to this historic old town with it’s narrow cobbled streets…
Some of the streets were barely 2m wide, with others (closed to vehicles) not even that – I’m so glad I left the van down on the Aire. It was quite quiet on this Sunday afternoon, though a few people sat outside the cafes or pottering around the table top sale in the main square…
After a little mooch, we wandered along the deserted streets to find the ruins of Chapelle St Bathelemy….
And to admire the views from either side of the town….
Before we had had our fill and it was time to start to make our way back down, this time sticking to the quite lanes as the footpaths had been rather sketchy on the way up….
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Time to move on from our little campsite on the coast….
We make the short drive to the other end of St Aygulf and find parking on the edge of Frejus and start with our first beach (and as it turns out the only dog friendly one!) – Plage du Pacha – just a little further on than Plage St Aygulf visited on the 8th….
After a little paly and relax we wander along the wide promenade to Plage de la Base Nature….
Around Port Frejus – catching a couple of Bears enjoying their morning coffee…
A glimpse of Old Town Frejus up the river and one of the many beautiful splashes of colour along the promenade…
Next a string of 3 beautiful sandy beaches – Plages de Frejus, Republique and Sablettes….
Here we merge into St Raphael with the stunning Notre Dame de Victoire, completely hidden from the promenade by new buildings…
A quick lap around a few blocks in the centre to make sure we aren’t missing anything – very nice but no so back onto the colourful promenade we go….
Plage de Veillat in the centre looks absolutely stunning, before we end our journey at Plage Beau Rivage just before Port St Raphael and wend our way back along the seafront to the van….
A lovely walk along these 2 resorts both mostly modern but clean and appealing all the same. After allowing the van to cool down a bit we are off heading inland for the weekend, hoping to avoid any weekend madness on the remaining busy stretch of this coast – namely Cannes, Nice and Monaco.
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