We had pre-booked breakfast for this morning in our Marseille hotel, so we rose early and took the lift down the restaurant to fill our boots! We were shown to a prime spot – a lovely table in a quieter part of the restaurant, with large comfortable seats and nobody squeezing past to top up their plates.
The breakfast was one of the best I’ve had in a hotel! There was a huge range of fruit, pastries, chesses, meats, juices, cooked items, breads etc, and it was all really fresh and tasty!
After returning to our room to finish packing, we checked out and booked a taxi with what turned out to be a particularly grumpy driver! We’d asked him to take us to our rental car pick up point, which was near the train station. He dropped us at the station, near several car rental places. As I looked out for ours, he snapped something in French about them all being there, took his fare and drove off. It didn’t take us long to realise that what we were looking for was not there, but a 10 minute walk away (hard work with all our luggage, hills and high temperatures)!
Thanks to Google Maps, we found our way to Enterprise quite easily, and the picking up of our rental car was quick and easy. It’s a only a Renault Clio, but has a surprisingly big boot, so, luggage stowed, we went on our way.
The drive to our accomodation for the week (just north of St. Tropez) was only about an hour. As we couldn’t check in until 3pm, we decided to make a detour and visit Toulon on the way. A quick look at Trip Advisor gave us the idea to go up another cable car above the seaside town. It was only just over 7 EUR each return, and a much longer journey than the one in Barcelona. It had a partially glass floor, which took some getting used to (especially as we travelled over quite a deep gorge)! It was rather tight in the tiny space – they really crammed you in!
The views from the top were spectacular, and we spent a lovely hour pottering around the hill top and taking photographs.
However, my head and heart were already in the pool at our accommodation, so I hurried Tom on and we continued our journey, finding it easily once we used their instructions instead of SATNav!
Booking the place had taken some blind courage. We found it on cottages.com. It sounded perfect (and was considerably cheaper than any other accommodation in the south of France), but had no photographs. I had done some googling and found it elsewhere, so thought I had some idea of what to expect. However, when we arrived it was nothing like the website I’d found, so we wandered in with some trepidation!
It was not needed – this place is absolutely perfect (if a little rough around the edges in places). It is the “Granny flat” of a stunning house and is spacious and traditional (including the wiring!!).
Behind the main house is a fabulous, 12m infinity pool that overlooks the wooded valley. This, for me, is absolute heaven and I will certainly be spending many many hours in there this week!
We unpacked the car, checked the cupboards for supplies, then created a shopping list and headed back out to the nearest supermarket (which is only about 10 minutes drive). Supermarkets in other countries are always one of our holiday highlights, so we took our time to have a long peruse!
Back at the cottage / apartment, we quickly unpacked the shopping before heading to the pool for a good chunk of the evening, from where we watched the sun begin to set.
It’s great to have an oven, so we had a proper cooked tea, drank too much wine in celebration at our brilliant accommodation find, then climbed into bed for a good sleep in this peaceful and very dark spot!
