Antibes - 13 September 2019

13 September

Grr! What a noisy night! There was some sort of house party nearby, with drunk sounding women cackling, then lots of singing, for hours - until the early hours. It was also hot 🥵, so didn’t really want to close the hatches. Eventually got to sleep only to be woken about 6am by noisy bin men!

Couldn’t decide where to go today, so deferred the decision by walking into the old town of Mougins. Lots of artists and celebrities lived here, including Pablo Picasso - who died here in 1973. The old town had an ‘arty’, and expensive feel to it. It was also clean, and felt ‘safe’. No boulangerie here, just art galleries and places to eat!

On the advice of the tourist information lady, we visited the old washing room and an art gallery.

So after much research and thought process, we left and went on a 15 minute drive to Les Jardins du mIP, a botanical garden of fragrances organized by scent. Was €4 each to get in. The place was deserted - apart from an organized lunch party. It was probably way too hot to be wandering around. Think it was more my ‘thing’ than Tintin’s. We spent a couple of hours looking at all the different plants used in the perfumery world. It had a fairly comprehensive booklet to refer to - all plants grouped into woody, citrus, floral etc along with what the essential oils were used for - and which modern perfumes included them.

The frog 🐸would not move off his lily pad! I guess, once again, probably not the right time of year to see everything at its best. The different smells were lovely - from the curry plants, pepper, mints, lavender, rosemary, to roses and jasmine etc!

Had a very quick lunch in Dave as it was too hot to ‘eat’ - then Tintin drove for about 45 minutes through Antibes to the lighthouse near Juan-Les-Pins - for a free park4night place. Is really good. Steep hairpin bends to get up here, but seems peaceful (for now) with a view over the Mediterranean.

We got our bikes out and rode down to a beach. It was all taped off, and no one was swimming - which we thought was odd. Other people were ducking under the tape, so we did too - and walked along the sea shore. There were so many dead jellyfish - yuk! We paddled our feet - decided it smelt like 💩- and gave up. Now at 8pm, having spoken to another English couple have found out that the storms on 10 September caused all sorts of problems with sewage flowing into the sea - hence the tape!

We rode through Antibes. It’s quite vulgar and ostentatious! I likened it to the kids story - The Emporer’s New Clothes - you know, every one thinks they should be here and love it - but in reality we’re all thinking - why!

Some huge mega yachts. Just imagine the amount of money tied up in all those boats! Eye watering!

We rode around until we came to a small pebble beach on the outskirts of Antibes - and had our first swim in the Mediterranean. Tintin went in without complaint! It was warm. Not refreshing like Guernsey waters!

However, he did get stung by a jellyfish on his hand - but can’t have been that bad because I haven’t heard too much about it!

Rode back to Dave, only about 9 miles today. The gauge inside Dave said the temperature was up to 41° - suffice to say we sat outside in the shade!

We’ve just spent the last couple of hours chatting with the English couple called Christine and Alan - and generally had a good chat about all things moho and travel related. They’ve given us names of various places they’ve stayed recently, which may help us with our planning tomorrow.

The moon is full, the lighthouse is doing what lighthouses do (revolving light overhead) - and I think there is a wedding reception going on nearby - lots of people outside and music in the background.

Oh, and I’ve just discovered I have lots of bites all over my legs - deep joy!

More photos from today