After spending 5 months in a village, I felt I needed a well deserved trip. I'm not talking pills or magic mushrooms - I mean a mini holiday, roadtrip. As the only person left in the village with a car was Tracy, I asked her! The seven hour drive down to the south of France was long and hard, but the pay off was fantastic. We only planned on visiting for two days as Tracy was heading back to the UK. With advice taken from Kasper and Klaus (see St. Martin pages), we decided to go to La Ciotat and a small bay called Cassis (which in french means 'blackcurrrant'). They are both near Marseille on the south coast if you fancy checking them out!
  
 
 
How do you get from snow to sand in seven hours? Well: Drive from St Martin to Albertville to Chambery to Grenoble to Sisteron to Marseille to La Ciotat! As easy as it sounds, the traffic was worse than London in Grenoble and Marseille! Although it was a long drive, we played games like 'Who would you rather shag...' and 'i spy'. Anyway, we arrived at around 7pm and went straight into the sea before finding accomodation. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera out that night because I was planning on getting pissed and that's exactly what I did!
 
   
I took this picture of Tracy at a pit stop by the motorway. I like the idea of having a picnic area type thing along the motorway. They provide somewhere to relax in the countryside and I reckon they should be introduced in Angleterre, as well as the service stations.
 
 
 
From one tree to another. This is the view from the balcony of the hotel we chose!
 
 
I chose to get all artistic with this picture. It's the same one as above a few seconds later. I felt it looked better in Black & White.
 
   
After a quick swim and check-out, we drove west to the place they call Cassis. It was hot! If I remember rightly, it was around 30 degrees. We didn't swim here as it was only meant to be a quick stop to check it out before we went back to St. Martin.
 
 
   
The view from the west-side of cassis. Not a lot to say really, it's a nice place! Was still feeling hungover from the night before, so I was surprised to find that these pictures actually turned out!
  
 
    The lighthouse again!  
 
 
 
Another arty-type picture. Tracy's shades made the perfect reflection tool for the beach. I could see all the naked sunbathers and they didn't have a clue!
  
 
  This shot was Tracys' idea. She wanted to take the picture but due to my 'it's all about me me me' attitude, I took it. Well it is all about me, me, me isn't it?
 
  Another bit of the French coastline!
 
 
It was hard to leave the area even though we had only stayed there for one night. We had to drive back to St. Martin so Tracy could leave to head back to the UK. Oh well - another seven hours of driving ahead.
 
 
Tracy turned into the living dead on the drive back! When I took the picture, I looked at it and discovered she had no pupils! Wierd.
 
 
As you can see in this picture, Tracy clearly has normal eyes. She also has random moments of madness. This is one of them at around 90mph.
 
   
Nearly there! As we returned to the Alps we celebrated in joyous noises for our journey was at it's penultimate stage. I was sad to leave the beach, but then I thought sod it - i'll go to Marbella in Spain. The journey continues...