Our Trip

Our first stop on our trip was at Hyères, and it was a cold and windy day. The trip there was eventful enough going by the sea and seeing the waves raging..but it did not prepare us for the visit we were to have.

We first pulled into town, not really knowing what we wanted to do or see, all I knew was I was ready to stop driving. We found the only open cafe (due to the Christmas holiday) and got a hot cup of cafe and two hot chocolates and began to ponder the plan. We decided just to head down the historic district and see what we may find. We were walking about when we noticed this old man kind of following us, for no apparent reason. We'd vear off some path and down some road and then there he would be again! And again! He finally started telling us where to go, in French but very provincal so I could barely understand what he was saying but I got the jiist of it. So we began to follow this bizarre little man's directions (it did cross my mind a time or two as we seem to go nowhere...he's just leading to a place where we'll be robbed) but we'd go on, we loose him up these emensely steep hills only to find him at the top of another one ahead of us. Where at that time he'd give us further instructions. This went on for some time till we ended on this path that sure looked like someone's decrepid old driveway of years ago, but we plugged on.

After clearing a path we could see what the old buggar was talking about a beautiful castle of old in ruins, quite lovely. We headed in it's direction only to be bombarded by wind that could equal a hurricane! At times it was difficult to walk and we were blown backwards! Here is a pic of Nicholas and Abigail taking a breather from walking against the wind as well as clinging to the rock for dear life for fear of being blown down the mountain.

Here is a shot of part of the castle that is left after the winds. It was really cool to see and as I said really cold so as you can see from the next picture we took refuge in the castle for a break from the rentless wind.

Finally after we made it to the peak of this increasingly steep mountain we did get a wonderful view of the city. We took some time to enjoy our find...not even sure if the place had a name or not but it was more the adventure of having found the place and getting there than the actual place.

And when finally walked back downhill, who do you think was there waiting on us? That's right! The same little old guy. Quite content that we followed his directions...we neared him and I went to say thank you for the treasure we'd seen but he was content and he went back into his house and never popped back up.

And that was the first stop, we kept plugging along.....we passed through Toulon, it was too big and confusing to try and we couldn't find anything that drew us there so we went straight on to Marseille.