Hits and Misses

You can never expect everything to fall perfectly into place when travelling. In fact, for every wonderful, spectacular, unforgettable moment, you can easily expect there to be a negative point, a missed opportunity or something otherwise going wrong. Think of it like Newton's third law : For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What's important is to always make sure the positive outweighs the negative, and that's what you'll remember years from now. Here is a rundown of today's hits and misses.

Walking along the dykes between saline ponds

Wild flamingoes!

Hit : Camping in Salins-de-Giraud, a place where we feel like the only people in the world, and waking up next to a perfectly calm salt flat filled with hundreds of flamingoes, all squawking in unison while I walk along the dykes between the pools, coffee in hand, avoiding errant grasshoppers and praying mantises.

Miss : So. Many. Mosquitoes. Last night, we closed the screens but kept the doors open to keep the van cool, but thousands of mosquitos swarmed the place while we ate dinner. Skip forward a couple of hours, and Mario has to quickly exit through the front to close the door while keeping the bug screens in place, lest we let the same thousands of bugs INTO the van with us! Now, thousands of mosquitoes were trapped between the screen and the door. The door was audibly buzzing next to me while I cooked dinner!

Hit : Driving up the Rhone river Delta to Arles, and truly discovering the landscape that inspired Van Gogh to paint his cypress trees, sunflowers, and field of golden rice, ready to be harvested. His whole palette of paint is splashed across the landscapes as we drive.

Miss : Attempting to navigate using Google maps(which in itself is a serious plus), and discovering that the turn we needed to take happened WAY before Google's satellites picked up our location, and so now we pass that turn, crossing a bridge INTO the historic center of Arles, when really, we wanted to park ANYWHERE ELSE. Arles in a medieval town, with twisting, narrow streets, barely wide enough for a car, let alone a monster of a campervan. Thankfully, that learning curve was shallow enough, and I managed to get Google to direct us back OUT of the city safely and directly to that parking area just across the river. Insert a deep sense of relief here.

Walking through Arles	The Amphitheatre in Arles
View of the town from the rooftop	Play of light and shadow in the corridor
Corner restaurant in Arles	Parked across the river from Arles

Hit : Finding a little restaurant tucked away at the far end of the plazza surrounding the Roman Theatre in Arles, one of many Roman ruins we wandered past and toured during our visit. The ardoise outside listed a ratatouille with Camargue wild rice, a dish we wanted desperately to try while still in the area, so we took a seat right at the start of the lunch service, hungry and ready to order.

Miss : Being told by the waiter, after taking orders from 2 other tables, that firstly, the ratatouille is not ready yet, but also that something has just occurred in the kitchen, and that our order might a little slow coming out. This is not usually a problem, but when he added that is could be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half, we got up and left! Disappointed and still hungry, we made our way to another, much busier, square, and were drawn in by the daily specials of another restaurant, which included a local dish of stewed bull(Arles is known for its bull-fighting, as well as its bull sausages and stews). Chalk this one up as a hit, as ultimately, both our meals were very tasty, and from the tables full of patrons all around us, we had made a good second choice for a place to eat lunch, and left with bellies full and smiles on our faces.

Miss : We detoured up to Aix-en-Provence, in search of wine. Still in Provence, we wanted to taste the rosés that this region is known for. Following the suggestions in our trusty Lonely Planet Guide, we headed down narrow, winding roads to Chateau Simone, and were greeted by a woman who called us into a small historical kitchen. Upon entering, we promptly found out that Chateau Simone does NOT do tastings, nor tours, nor are we allowed to wanders the property and take pictures. It is a private family residence, and despite an arsenal of signs point to the office, the parking, the wine caves, the only thing you can do at Chateau Simone is buy some of their small production wines. And they are not cheap, either! We quickly turned around and left, but were very disappointed in Lonely Planet, who normally provide such good advice and suggestions.

Hit : Again turning to Google, I search for nearby vineyards while we slowly make our way south to our next destination. Somewhere near Rousset, I find a glimmer of hope near to the road we are travelling on. We detour across a one-way bridge into a cute little hillside village, and discover the Rousset wine co-op, producing great wines from all the local vineyards, which makes for high-quality products at low prices. Not only that, but the women inside are more than happy to talk about their products and pour us very generous samples. We chat about travelling in a campervan and the areas we've driven through, and the details of making a good rosé wine in Provence. We leave with 2 bottles, plus some of their locally-pressed olive oil, and a bottle opener, which was missing from our kitchen kit that came with the rental. Of course.

Here comes the storm clouds!

All washed out

Miss : Spotting a massive storm on the horizon and realizing that we are going to drive straight into it. Rain falls in sheet on us, the wipers are set to their highest speed and we can still barely see, and we drive through rivers of rainwater flowing down the cross roads of the villages we pass through.

Hit : Experiencing the crazy storm from the comfort of the cab of our campervan, and not while out hiking, or biking, or touring Arles...I sneak into the back to grab some snacks, and we drive on, just more slowly and carefully.

Miss : Arriving at the campground and seeing how cramped French campground really are. Though there is grass and trees, the sites are almost as narrow as parking spots, and so you have little to no privacy from your neighbours. Not only that, we are on the furthest spot of the campground, up in a little corner where we have to throw our power cable over a wall where one of the staff will come and plug us in.

Hit : Realizing that far-out campsite is the most private of them all, with a view over a treed area and not another camper. Regardless of that, the other campers, though perhaps uninterested, are quiet, polite and keep to themselves. By 10 pm, everyone is locked up in their tents and trailers, be it asleep or whatever, and I feel guilty for playing music quietly in my own camper, for fear of disturbing the quiet!

So you see, for all the negatives that I might force myself to list here for the purpose of telling a story, what I will remember the most from the day is the beautiful drive to Arles, parking across the river and walking into the city, touring Roman ruins then having a great, and local, lunch. I will remember the women in the Rousset wine co-op fondly, and recollect of how good the rosés were, but also how happy I was to get a bottle opener. And I'll forever remember the rain, because the storm that brought it slammed into the rest of the Côte d'Azur, pounding St-Tropez with so much lightning, we thought it was strobe lights from some show. And that memory will live in my mind for a long time.