Aug 2nd- Mont Sainte-Victoire & St Tropez

We got up early this morning to go hike a mountain and miss some of the heat. What good that did! A 35 minute drive turned into a 2 hour drive.  Google maps can be pretty useless around here. It first brought us to the wrong side of the mountain- sheer rock wall!  It then brought us to the other side in tiny farm dirt road... we asked 3 people where the damn trail started... eventually found it at 9:30a already like 25 degrees.

The hike was up pretty steep trails, eventually turning into switch backs. Eventually, you end up at a beautiful little chapel that used to be a monastery. The French sure know how to restore old buildings!  Way to go!  I wish I could’ve captured the whole thing- the very scary stairs the monks would’ve taken... it’s captured in my mind...

After the pretty chapel, the trail continued to get to the summit where a giant cross was put up. There is also a little cabin where a couple of watchmen sit. What they are watching I have no idea.  This last little bit up was pretty scary. The rock here is nothing like the Alps.  It’s more like marble- very slippery...almost like walking on ice.  We got up in a little over 1.5 hours.  We made our way down much faster as we ran a lot of the way down. Walking is almost impossible it was so steep.  We enjoyed our hike even with that heat!

After our hike, we drove to St Tropez. Little winding roads and switchbacks up a mountain with scary moments- meeting transports in corners =almost shit in pants moments.   We easily found our  bed and breakfast, got changed into our swimsuits and walked about 200m to the beach for a swim in the Mediterranean sea. Ahhh!  The water was just perfect!  It wasn’t what I had imagined though. Last time I saw this beautiful sea, the water was shades of green and blue. Not here. There are buoy lines because humongous yachts are everywhere!  When I say humongous, I mean million dollar boats... like we see on tv- one boat would feed a whole country... incredible...

We walked a ways to the marina where we watched as each yacht entered to park for the night. It was like an airport. Controllers on radios, little red boats controlling who comes in when, lines of yachts waiting for their turns. This was quite impressive!

Côte dAzur is quite different than the other parts we visited. As much as I love the ocean, I think I prefer the mountains.  Tomorrow, we plan on running along the littoral for a while with perhaps a swim midway.  Time for bed!