French Camping 2023, Day 22 Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

20th September 2023

Today the forecast was for crap weather. In the end, it actually stayed mainly dry for the morning and early afternoon. We headed into town for lunch. We had decided to eat at the Ambiance Tapas restaurant we had eaten at the year before. Town was eerily quiet, with a few restaurants and hotels closed for the season. It must be the recession, I am sure it was far busier last year. Last year, there were two boats doing the cruise up the Little Rhone whereas this year there was just the one. One bar/hotel we had drunk in last year after the cruise was closed this year. We stocked up on a couple of provisions including some fresh milk. We had a coffee in a small bar where we had once taken shelter from a rainstorm a few years back. We had our Zoom call with the SadGits by the church (I see a theme developing here), which we cut short from our end because of hunger pains and threatening weather.

We made it to the Tapas bar and sat inside, just in case it rained. We ordered the same mixed Tapas as last year. R chose the mixed, and me the sea food prominent one. We both had a Ricard as a pre-prandial. R wanted the glasses, not like our tall ones, but more tumbler shaped. The glasses had marks for the level of Ricard, and the water, before the ice was added.

After the meal, another walk around before heading home. We were nearly back, when the heavens opened, and the rain came in from the sea. Thankfully we had prepacked out waterproof ponchos which kept most of the rain off us.

Back at camp we dried off in the van, having shed our wet outer layers in the awning. Later, during the evening the rain came in hard, leaving puddles which needed navigating in the dark. Unfortunately, the awning was in one such puddle so one end of the canopy and the kitchen unit were flooded.

We were expecting more rain, during the night, but there wasn’t much. We had expected to pack up in the rain.