My sister Anna and her family have had several holidays in this area of the South of France, and every time come back raving about the “Sparkly Beach” at Le Canadel. When we booked our accommodation for this week, we deliberately found somewhere within a short-ish driving distance of it, based on her strong recommendations! After a chilled day yesterday, we were ready to set out and experience the sparkles!
We set off a little later than planned, but well sun-lotioned and packed for a day at the beach. The traffic was busy on the main route, but SATNav recognised this and offered an alternative, which we happily took. Oops. Poor Tom. The road clambered through the mountains and was incredibly narrow with massive ditches (and sometimes massive drops) at the side. Not what you want when you’re in a strange car, on the opposite driving side to normal, and on the wrong side of the road! He coped brilliantly and we took our time, frequently stopping to let bolshy, fast drivers whip past in the opposite direction, taking up three-quarters of the road!
In one of the little towns / villages that we passed through, Tom spotted a sports shop. We were on the hunt for a parasol to keep him in the shade on the beach, so parked up and pottered in to no avail. However, there was a huge ELeclerc around the corner, which provided us with a really good parasol, some nice picnic lunch and mustard for Tom (to have with his steak this evening).
From here, the road wound up and over the mountains next to the coast, affording incredible views of the coast as we drove over the tops.
We manged to find a parking spot not far from the beach, and headed to the rockier end (recommended by Anna as the best snorkelling spot). The beach was surprisingly quiet and we easily found a little area and set up camp, with towels down and the new parsol erected. The water looked rather inviting, so I was straight in. It took a moment to register the extent of the sparkliness, before beckoning to Tom to come and join me quickly! The sand below the water is, quite frankly, incredible. The ridges are lined with silver, sparkling grains as if someone has tipped a massive tub of glitter into the water! It is utterly mesmerising!
Along with the epic sparkliness, the sea is the most clear that I have ever swum in. Even well out of our depths, we could still clearly see the bottom! We spent a while snorkelling, spotting a wide range of shapes and sizes of fish, before heading back to our towels to dry off and munch some bread, cheese and lovely fresh melon.
After a bit of chilling (and reading for me), we headed back in to continue our snorkelling adventures. The fish seemed more numerous this time, with big shoals of both small and larger specimens, so much so that about 2 hours had passed before we even realised! We dried off and walked back to the car.
Tom, quite understandably, wanted to take the more straight forward route back. Unfortunately, everybody else seemed to be leaving the coast at the same time, so we had a slow crawl back as far as Sainte Maxime, where many people turned off and we sailed the last section of the journey (although it still took about an hour and forty minutes in total, instead of just an hour).
Once back, I braved the washing machine again to get rid of the strong saltiness of our swimming gear. It has been a rather unpredictable beast – already turning one of my white dresses grey, and randomly pumping out large amounts of steam – but I think I may have finally tamed it!
I headed back outside to discover a European praying mantis settling itself on my hat! It’s the second one we’ve seen in France (the first appearing on a bag of crisps on the conveyor belt of a supermarket a few years ago, majorly freaking out the young employee!). I took some photos, then picked up my hat to deposit it carefully on a plant. As soon as it felt itself moving, it went into classic mantis “boxing” mode. I wish I’d kept my phone with me to get a video!
We were just about to start tea when Pascal (the son of the house owners) popped around for some drone advice from Tom. Now, anybody who knows Tom will know just how long he can spend talking about drones, so it’s now 9pm and tea is finally almost ready!
Tomorrow promises more exploring of the coast, with plenty of camera / video droning opportunities for Tom (I don’t mind this sort – it’s like photography!).