Extra Security?

Checking In
So we have a real trying decision. The flight is 7:30 a.m., and the British Midland internet site says we need to be there an hour early, but the BAA pages are saying because of extra security, we'd better be there at least 2 hours early - Jeez, 5:30, that means leaving home at 4:45 latest - hardly worth going to bed really! On the other hand, I've been to Heathrow at five in the morning - it's dead - well it's just opening for business, but check-in staff usually opt for a lie-in and don't turn up till 6. So we compromise. Turn up about 6, and pretend we didn't know. Turned out well, the check-in staff were awake and no queues. Security was slightly tighter than usual - they actually checked there were cameras in my camera bag - twice, that hasn't happened for years - apart from that, sailed through and still ended up waiting an hour and a half for the flight to be called.

Now, I haven't flown with BM for some years, but I remember that on morning flights they used to serve what passed for a decent breakfast - you know, scrambled egg, sausage, mushrooms and bacon, with a buttered roll and coffee. Not marvellous, but passable at 8 in the morning. So I hoped breakfast would be reasonable. Turns out BM still believe in breakfast and put me in the right mind to face the day!

Checking Out a Car
So an uneventful flight to Nice and arrived mellow after a good breakfast. It was raining a little, so a quick walk and bus ride to Terminal 1 and through immigration. Now to spot the car rentals, and there they are, all the usual ones, and a couple of distinctly French ones. Not a queue in sight, except one. Who am I booked with? You guessed it. This is out of season at 10:30 on a Sunday morning and there are 2 clerks and 15 people in front of me - God help us when they're busy.

It takes 45 minutes a get to the front of the queue to find that they don't have my reservation. I have a fax of confirmation, but without the reservation they can't let me have a car at the agreed price. I'm told I should have booked earlier. The happy breakfasted feeling is rapidly wearing off, and it's turning into 'one of those days'. I pointed out that I can phone their UK office from home and pick up a car in the US 24 hours later with no problem. My confirmation fax is dated a week ago, do phones and faxes work slower in France? This should have really upset a true Frenchman, but as the clerk looked first generation Chinese immigrant, he agreed this was probably the case.

So an hour and a half after landing, with hand-written rental contract in hand, we go for the mystery tour round Nice airport to find the parking lot. Minor point, the people in front of me in the rental queue are on the same bus, and as I've just spent 15 minutes negotiating with the desk clerk, it suggests the buses aren't that frequent. The gentle rain has now taken on monsoon proportions as the bus dumps us by the collective car rental lots - no need to guess whose parking lot is farthest from the bus stop! Our papers are inspected and keys produced, and with a Gaelic shrug, we're pointed to the corner of the lot and told we've got a grey Citroen. Now there's grey and there's grey, but black isn't grey. Ok in bright sunlight, it's black with a hint of brown - but grey - never. I resort to trying the keys in locks until I find a car that fits the keys - maybe I picked up the wrong car? I make a mental note that Enterprise should join Dollar as a company I don't rent cars from. And the final irony, they forgot to charge me for two months, and when the bill did turn up, it was £20 too much!

The Trials of Getting There
Now thoroughly wet and disgruntled I nose the car out of the lot and towards the A8 auto route. I'm beginning to realise why I normally take my car to Europe and drive automatics when in the States. It's not driving on the wrong side of the road that's the problem, it's the manual gear shift. With all the hassle I forgot to ask for an automatic. I get 'gearbox dyslexic' when the shift is by my right hand rather than the left. I'm facing the next 12 days of selecting 3rd when I want 1st and generally getting the gearbox back to front. Groan.

Still we're heading for St. Tropez, the rain has stopped, the sun has come out, I haven't stalled the car by being in the wrong gear yet, and for being a diesel, it goes pretty well. Nothing is going to upset or annoy me again - ever. Then there's an automatic auto route toll booth blocking the road! It wants 15 francs and 35 centimes. Now I was warned about these, they're supposed to take notes and plastic. But this one wants exact change in coins. Have you ever tried to escape from a toll booth with a queue of cars behind you? You get out of your car and try getting some change from the guy behind. He's got the exact change and he's not parting with a penny of it. So you try the next one. This is getting embarrassing, particularly as my French isn't up to explaining I'm a stupid tourist, worse, I'm an stupid English tourist, I'm in the wrong lane, and I'm now so confused I'm incapable of reading the instructions on the machine. After about a week, someone gets out of their car, presses a button on the machine, shouts into a microphone, grabs my 20 franc note and stuffs it in a slot and a disembodied voice gabbles back. The barrier goes up. He then looks at me as I cringe in the driving seat, and says something about don't expect any change and get out of here before the barrier comes down. I get!

At Last, We Got There
La Croix Valmer turns out to be a nice little place about a mile or so from the sea. It has one high street, with a fiendishly intricate one-way system, probably the same designer as did Harrow bus station. The chalet we rented is tucked away on the side of a hill, and although there seems an awful lot of other chalets, it's all very cleverly laid out and it has an uncluttered and open feel. The chalet is quite secluded and comes complete with an olive tree and a collection of feral cats.

And so to explore, we decide not east, as that way is St. Tropez and Nice, so it'll be all flash cars and designer sunglasses - not what I came for. So west it is.

Around and About
Now I've driven round northern France before, and apart from slight suicidal tendencies in Paris, northern French drivers could pass as sane. Not so in the south. They're not so much suicidal as monstrously homicidal - as they want to take you with them! In this area, the average road seems to be is just under 2 cars wide, is perched  halfway up a mountain and has a blind bend every 100 metres. Your average Renault van driver (equivalent to the English species known as White Van Man) drives at 100 Km/hr and never slows down. He assumes that you aren't there! If you are - tuff! Ok, the main road from St. Tropez to the west is better, it's at least one car wider for the most part, but it still saves all the blind bends for the narrowest bits of road. The other difference is here we also have 30 tonne trucks driven by Gaelic White Van Man, hurtling round the bends. In the space of 12 days we saw 3 accidents, two of which looked pretty fatal and were obviously caused by idiot driving.  I'm pleased to say I still got the car back to Nice in one piece, even with this going on all round me - amazing!

Le Lavandou. A nice little port, an interesting marina, several good places to eat and a fascinating line in midget submarines. The idea was to go for a ride but it's not so easy as it sounds. They're advertised as sailing on the hour, but fail to mention which hour and what day. Being out of season there probably aren't enough punters to make it worth while, so, in the morning they pretend that the sea is too murky to make a trip, but  suggest trying again in the afternoon. If enough people are hanging about by two, say two thirty, then it's all aboard and off we go. If there's not enough, then it's still murky, come back tomorrow. Our one left at 2:30 on Thursday - it's just lucky we happened to be in town to be on it. Actually they're not submarines, they're tri-marans with a very deep and narrow central keel (and they probably take on water as well - to ride low). The keel is fitted with large glass picture windows, and there's about 20 very uncomfortable stools welded to the floor - it's all a bit claustrophobic, but at least you aren't actually underwater, and anyone severely overcome can go up on deck. Once out in the bay there's plenty of fish, lots of sand and some seaweed. Not exactly exciting, but fun none-the-less.

The Villages
Another trip was inland, round the little villages. The only snag with this is getting there.  By this time I was beginning to go off the idea of driving on any road narrower than an auto route. Still, I gave it go. So long as I keep behind someone else, it's easy - let them meet the oncoming loonies. Cars with Belgian and German plates are best. They seem even more windy than me and drive even slower. There's some really pretty places though. Just to stop and walk around. Churches with unexpectedly ornate interiors. Old ruined castles. Great little cafes and restaurants. Thoughtfully placed bench seats under shady trees overlooking scenic views. Just scenery. On the other hand, and obvious tourist attraction aside, it makes you wonder what the attraction of living in these places must be. Why live in a pretty little house, halfway up (or on top of) a steep hill? A lot less effort to live in an equally pretty house at the bottom of the hill. But it's all very well worth the effort to go and visit, impossible roads included. Rammatuelle deserves  special mention. It's a small village. It's at the end of 6 Km of road winding itself to the top of a hill - qualifies so far. It's restaurant heaven. Just about every accessible building is a restaurant. During the summer it must be packed as it was pretty full in early October. The only worrying thought is, what about all these visitors who have spent the evening wining and dining, and then trying to drive down the hill afterwards. Do they follow the bends, or do they drive down the quick way?

The farthest west we went was Hyére. A nice medium size town of compact proportions. Well the old part of town was compact, there's only so much you can stick on top a very steep hill. There's an interesting church towards the top, featuring hundreds of 'get well' pictures. The idea being if someone was ill, or, from some of the pictures, extremely dead, you got an artist to paint it all up and offer it to God. Then, miraculously, they got better, and everyone was happy ever after. Some of the pictures are horribly graphic, and you might wonder how some of the 'incidents' happened in the first place.

Whilst at Hyére, I learnt a new trick. All the public car parks are in the newer parts of town, at the bottom of the hill, and, of course they are full. Then, as if by magic, at 1 o'clock, they empty as all the locals go home to lunch. It follows that by three, the car parks are full again. But arriving just after one is a good idea, with guaranteed parking and a choice of rather nice restaurants all around. Nice place Hyére.

Of course, it doesn't all happen up in the villages, there's the beaches. Long stretches of golden sand with just the odd body lying on it. It's strange, at this time of year the beaches are pretty well empty, and the only bodies appear to be German (from the car number plates nearby). Worse, they all seemed to be large, elderly retired Germans. They look a bit like stranded walruses. Not that I have anything against large elderly Germans, I'm pretty large, and some think I'm elderly, no it's the scenery aspect that I get upset about. During the summer, (I'm told) the beaches are covered with svelte young ladies not wearing a lot.  When I get there, what do I find? Still the Mrs wants to waste time lying on beaches, so she gets her way and I get to sit in the car, in the shade, reading.

Going East
Ok, so after a few days, west was getting a bit boring, so east it is. At least the road's at sea level, and a decent width. Frejus is a nice little place and it's got an interesting church with cloisters with primitive, medieval, painted ceiling panels. Mind you, these are a bit like an 'antique' broom which has had six new handles and four new brushes. Some of the panels are so worm ridden that they are in danger of falling apart, whilst others the painting has faded to being almost invisible. So it's not so much a case of conservation as replacement. Ok, the new panels of cedar wood are 700 years younger but still cedar, and the paintings are faithful copies - but original medieval, they aren't. Also, they charge to go into the cloisters, and that's a bit pricey for what you get.

Frejus is also full of genuine 2,000 year old Roman ruins. Seems in Roman times it was quite an important place and it had a pretty impressive arena. Had? It still has, and it's still in use. Ok so the Sunday afternoon boules contest isn't what is was originally designed for, but the layout and recent fencing suggests bull fighting is a second attraction. There's Roman stonework scattered all over town, but oddly, the town museum, which is a couple of small rooms, doesn't feature the Romans very heavily, in fact it doesn't feature much really. Just as well it's free.

The car parking trick of arriving at lunch time works here as well, although the town sort of straggles out from the central hill where the medieval bits are. Once you've found a parking spot, it's a fair old walk to the old town, and, of course, it's up hill isn't it?

East, West, Where next?
Ok, we've been east, we've been west. So, St. Tropez it is. We have to go some time, just to see what it's all about, flash cars, fancy boats, and all. There does seem to be a lot of traffic driving into San Trop, and of course it turns out to be Regatta Week. The world and his wife (and/or anyone with more money than sense) are there. The car parks are full, so we end up miles from anywhere parked up by some rusting containers and a pile of old machine parts which might once have been a bulldozer. The harbour is chock full of boats, ranging from small and unaffordable to big and "... you've got to be kidding". There were a couple, about the size of small cruise liners that were just too big to fit in the harbour. They parked ostentatiously outside, so it was quite obvious where the real money was.

It really was too hot and crowded, too many people all trying to look at what other crowds of people were doing. The only ones taking it easy were those in deckchairs on their boats, and even then they were hemmed in and being watched by every person on the quay. Not my idea of quiet luxury. We take our picnic out of town and eat by the rusting containers and bulldozer. It was grotty, but at least peaceful at this end of San Trop!

At sea, sail boats paraded, whilst small motor boats from the town made a fortune by taking punters to have a look. So we had to go for the sea trip, didn't we? Hundreds of boats of all sizes bobbing about in the bay. For some, the words sail boat are inadequate, and even if I were trying to be polite, the word 'yacht' conjures up pictures of 9 year old boys wearing grey flannel short trousers, sailing little boats, 80 cm long, in Hampstead ponds. Ah, shades of a mis-spent childhood almost 50 years ago, the actual location was West Harrow pond, and yes, the boat was red. Dreams. A far cry from the rich boys toy above. It was immense, and God knows what it cost to run, yet alone buy. Nice boat tho'.

Enough of this! We're sure that St. Tropez is actually a nice town underneath, and so we're back a week later. What a change, the boats have gone, the crowds have gone, the place is sleepy and peaceful. The pastel colours and bright light which brought the artists are obvious. You can see the  attraction of the place. The shops are still as expensive, but at least you get a degree of satisfaction from noting that they are also empty. Restaurant prices have dropped, a beer which was 50 francs last week, is 30 now. Still extortionate but at least more in keeping with the rest of the area. Away from the Quay the street market is doing good business - so now we know where the locals do their shopping - obvious really.

At the end of the quay is a little castle, with turrets. A few people are sitting around in the sun, lazy and unhurried. Someone's feeding the sea gulls. Last week you couldn't move for the crowds - or at least if you tried, there was a serious risk of ending up with the sea gulls. So avoid San Trop during regatta week unless it's your deliberate intention to rub shoulders with the rich. Even then, you won't rub shoulders with the rich, you'll rub shoulders with others who came to rub shoulders with the rich. And you can be certain you'll never get invited on board unless you're a member of the club.

Home Again
It's the last day. Lock up the chalet, into the car and back in the direction of Nice. It's been a good break in the main, relaxing, not too much sun, not too hot, and with the exception of St. Tropez, un-crowded. I'm even beginning to adapt to left-hand drive cars with manual gear boxes - I haven't found myself in the wrong gear for days, and surprisingly, I'm beginning to like this Citroen. We leave all day for the return trip, so we can stop where we want. You know, a leisurely lunch by some beach, an afternoon coffee in a small town café. Great. But, the afternoon drags. We end up looking at the sea, with the airport in sight at the end of the beach, and it's still four hours to check-in. If I drive into Nice, I'll get lost, and we know there's nowhere to park. So after a while it's off to the airport anyway, as the car is due back.

All sorts of confusion at the car depot. Seems we have the wrong paperwork and they seem to think we stole the car. Fortunately the receptionist speaks good English, manages to find my original reservation, apologises for the inconvenience and off we go. For a couple of months, it even looks like I'm not going to have to pay, but no, they caught up with me in the end.

Don't try to check-in early for a British Midland flight from Nice. The land-side handling is by Air France, and they don't seem to be able to grasp the idea that someone might like to get rid of their bags and go for a wander round the airport. The BM check-in desks remained closed until just over an hour before the flight, with a crowd of disgruntled passengers hanging around waiting to get rid of their baggage. Mind you, having done the check-in bit, Nice airport turned out to be a disappointment. Big and airy - yes. But it's a desert, nothing apart from a couple of restaurants - nothing!

The plane is on time, we board, and it's apparent that there's only about 30 - 40 of us. The plane is pretty empty. Then something odd. I'm asked if I minded moving two or three rows back. I don't mind, but why? To maintain the trim of the plane. Ok, I know I'm overweight, but I'm not sure if I'm flattered by being thought of as ballast for a 737. Other than that, an uneventful trip, into Heathrow on time, the bags appear promptly, and even the mini-cab home turns up on time.

I've decided I like the South of France, provided I keep away from the busy bits. No, not true, it's not the busy bits I don't like, it's the "If you've got it, flaunt it." attitude in some places, and the snobbery which goes with it. So I'll keep this bit of France in mind for a return trip someday.

I'm a bit worried about my driving as well - am I getting windy - do I have a problem driving on narrow roads halfway up mountains? I'm sure I didn't used to have. Or is it just manic French drivers and the impending threat of death I'm worried about. Only time will tell.

Updated 01/10/03