Today was a huge contrast to yesterday. We woke to cloudless blue skies and sunny Provence was back. We had planned an early start for our journey to the Med. We had a few exciting seconds early in the day when the rental car windshield fogged up for some mysterious reason at the worst possible time and Ken was entering the autoroute by Braille. The rest of us were frantically trying to figure out the car's climate control system. We drove down on the autoroute and had our first glimpse of the Mediterranean at about 10:30 AM. We stopped in Le Lavandou to walk the beach, dip our toes in the water and enjoy the atmosphere. We made many stops to look at the views ending in Cavaliare-Sur-Mer for lunch. We chose a spot overlooking the water and the food was excellent. There was much sampling of each other's choices.
Then it was on to St. Tropez. The boys admired the boats while Val and I cruised through a few of the shops. We have several friends who are new grandparents and it is a good thing they weren't with us. The children's clothes over here are adorable. One great thing about bike touring is that there is nothing in the shops that tempts me as I wouldn't want to carry it on my bike. So no purchases. Then we all reconvened for ice cream and more wandering about the harbour to choose our next yacht. It was a very relaxing day.
Once we left St. Tropez we returned to Provence via the back roads. It was an adventure on the D roads and a fantastic road trip. We went through little towns that were clinging to hillsides. We had a sunset that was really spectacular...no pictures as the road was so narrow there was no place to pull over. Very special to see though. It was a great drive. I wouldn't have wanted to do it on the bike though, very narrow and very hilly. Then back to the villa and a surprise at the door, a basket of grapes from Gilles and Cerise, the owners of the property. Yummy. We put together an eclectic dinner, with wine of course!
