Carcassonne

From Sainte Maxime we travelled back through Marseille to St Martin de Crau for the night. On the way we stopped off to say another hello to Stéphanie and family. Krista picked up another bag of clothes, a hand knitted waistcoat from Stephanie’s grandmother and we stocked up on Josie’s delicious fig jam.
St Martin de Crau is a typical Provençal town close to Arles and we were at first excited to see that we had unexpectedly arrived in the middle of its annual Bull-fighting and horse-riding Feria. It was Saturday night and the small town was buoyed up with a party spirit, so we decided to pack Krista into her pushchair and go out for dinner. It soon became clear however that it was not so much the place for a touring family to be. While the wine and beer flowed copiously, everywhere we looked were the ubiquitous groups of dodgy teenagers skulking hopefully for a kiss or a fight on the one night of the year their sleepy town came to life. Therefore we opted for a pizza and an(other) early night. The pizza worked out fine the early night did not. Returning to the caravan we discovered that our pitch was right at the back of a place that had been transformed into a ‘Eurodisco’ for this special night. Put it this way – thanks to what must be said a great sound system and a pretty good DJ we didn’t get a wink of sleep before 2am! We had planned to hang around to see what was going on the next day but after the torturous night we couldn’t wait to get back to the tranquility we have grown used to over the past 5 months.
After one more night in a beautiful but mosquito infested campsite near Narbonne, we rediscovered our peace in Carcassonne. Here we enjoyed three nights in what we found to be a gorgeous place. Whereas ‘La Cité’ of Carcassonne is perhaps only worth one visit in a lifetime, the newer town is a good place to spend some time. It has a picturesque setting on a river and a sprawling park to run or walk in. The campsite was perhaps one of the best we have been in so far with its sunny, spacious grassy pitches. We were finally able to set Krista up on a blanket to play with her toys and she had a lovely time rolling off onto the grass to taste the mud and the daisies.