In the EU, life is sweet

This is a part of France that I have visited many times for a week or two during the Summer holidays as a child with my parents and more recently with my own family. And, fair to say, I have always enjoyed those holidays and have taken away fond memories. This time, however, for the first time, we remained for an extended period during the Spring in a small typical French village and the experience was very different. It was ordinary, but also somehow refreshing.

We visited several towns for the first time and revisited others, but compared with our stay in Vaucluse, we did not have the same sense of novelty and in some respects, the narrow, winding and congested roads made travelling quite wearisome at times. One day, we decided to visit Saint Tropez, a journey that should have taken an hour and twenty minutes one way, took well over 2 hours. Being April, we had expected a clear run, but  traffic congestion in the South of France is a sad fact of life at any time of the year. Perhaps, this is not surprising when looking across the landscape at the density of housing.

After 6 weeks in the Cote d'Azur region of Provence, it was time to leave for Italy and , no doubt, we were looking forward to our next and, hopefully, final move before a return to the UK.