Provence

Cold, wet, windy, unfriendly and frustrating. Not words that I was hoping to describe this beautiful region of France. But unfortunately the truth of our time there.

After a busy and adventurous two weeks alone hiking and biking through the Italian Alps I finally picked Leela up from Milan airport and we made our way to Provence to look forward to some relaxed time in amazing weather and equally amazing naturist camps.

First we visited le Petit Arlane near the small town of Valensole. The day we arrived the weather was decent and still warm but then things started to immediately unravel. We had a stormy night with heavy rain but nothing that was alarming and in the morning having breakfast whilst in the van, we heard a loud crack and looked out to see that the very expensive Thule awning had collapsed. On closer inspection we saw that the support leg had completely sheared off and the awning had dropped and in doing so bent the upper swing arm and sheared off the roof mounted connection. Quite a feat in itself to cause so much damage and thus rendering it completely useless.

The rest of the day was spent trying somehow to retract it back and make it safe to drive and then beginning the insurance claim and source a replacement somewhere along our travel plan. A lot of stress that we could really have done without…

We left that campsite immediately the following day as the people working there were just unhelpful, unpleasant and the camp not much better. We booked online at Naturist Camping Verdon for a few nights as we thought we would have more chance of a replacement if we headed south and after a decent drive and arriving in very windy conditions the receptionist said that they were full. Explaining that we had booked online and had a confirmation did not move her and in a very polite yet completely arrogant manner told us to bugger off. So another unfriendly French campsite owner.

After another re-think we drove back up to les Lauzons naturist campsite after calling and reserving first and arrived whilst everything was shut for a very extended lunch. Waiting patiently we were eventually taken to a terrible pitch whilst perfectly nice ones stood vacant and told that was all they had. Take it or leave it. A pattern was developing here, was it our Austrian number plate? Surely not.

So we parked and then found out that there was absolutely ZERO phone or internet in the whole camp unless you bought their satellite wifi at a cost. Normally this would be perfect for us but as we were waiting for phone calls and E-mails to organise the insurance and replacement awning this was a large problem. I did manage to receive an email on their terrible wifi to say a company could fit a new awning the following day so we just spent a few hours at the camp and left once more first thing in the morning feeling let-down now by three different sites in the area.

Having the awning fitted the next day where the workers took very little care of our beloved home, we were able to take a short hike around the very nice Pénitents mountains. A strange stone outcrop appearing out of nowhere which has quite a tough and exposed circular walk up and over the top of them. And finally after some decent exercise we felt much better and spent the night in the ghost town of Malijai where we had a quiet evening by the river.

The next day we drove south, hopefully for the last time, and found a naturist camp just outside the Provence Capitol of Aix. It was rustic, natural, very unkempt and the owners were already D-mob happy as they were closing the camp in a few days. Thus they were also very unhelpful, although polite at least, with little facilities open and no provisions or food on offer. They even laughed at us when we asked for a Pizza from the flyer on the desk. But we had 3 nights there in vicious cold and wind and completely unable to enjoy the camp or surrounding countryside.

We tried our best to ride to Aix and take a tour nearby but the constant 70 kph winds were just battering us and the van relentlessly. We even tried to go in the pool but that was pointless and going to the shower was like taking a walk in the Artic so we mainly just hid from the terrible weather unable to enjoy any of the delights of the area.

We were dreaming of two weeks of beautiful Provence sunshine, lavender, naturism, bike rides and laying by the pool. But instead we got one week of stress, problems, atrocious weather and very unhelpful and arrogant campsite owners. Thanks Provence, that was not what we were expecting. Maybe we will have better luck next time.