Set off bright and early, well bright anyway, and headed southeast towards Aix-en-Provence on the relatively short (just over two hours) trip to the south coast, staying near St Raphael for a week.

We left in windy, cloudy weather and a quite chilly 17 degrees. Very windy conditions for the first hour but by the time we were half way the clouds had cleared and the temperature had risen to 24 degrees, that’s more like it.

Toll charge 7€40, we stopped for coffee en route, next toll 15€60.

From St Raphael we travelled along the ‘route des golfs’ passing several nice looking courses (which we won’t be playing this time) and had a gorgeous last ten minute drive along the coast road through Agay and duly arrived at the small caravan site we had emailed with our booking. Great initial impressions – restaurant with terrace, bar, shop and swimming pool, just across the road from a small sandy bay.  They had a list of people they were expecting but our name wasn’t on it!  The chap said they had one pitch left and took us to have a look – oh dear – the site was small, which we knew, but the caravans and tents were crammed close together and the pitch we were offered was in a small corner, in the dark, under trees. Basically we didn’t like the look of it – or how we’d get the caravan onto it.

The options didn’t seem very attractive – either try and get the caravan onto this small, dark, pokey pitch or drive away and try to find another caravan site. We walked across the road to look at the sea and think about it – which is when we saw a sign for another site only 150 metres up the hill. The sign looked tatty but you can’t always judge a book by its cover! We walked up to have a look and loved it. No shop, restaurant, bar or swimming pool but lots of sunny space in a woodland setting – so for the first time this trip we rejected our planned caravan site and found an alternative!

The only downside is that the cost is 19€ per night instead of the camping cheque rate of about 15€, also no wi-fi. However, the owners, a lovely older French couple made us very welcome and told us to put the caravan wherever we liked. This site is almost adjacent to the other one near the beach and we can use their shop anyway, so we ended up in a win-win situation – doesn’t happen often does it………….

It’s lovely to be back by the sea and we are looking forward to exploring the area.