Camping Manjastre

Well here we all are, Walter, David, Catherine, Barry, Diana and me, at Camping Manjastre.    We are having a great time with lots of laughs, and plenty of wine.     And a few mishaps along the way.  But to keep it all in order, I will go back a few days and start from there.

Walter and I left the campsite in Italy, and started on our way along the motorway which runs high above the coast in Italy.    The highway with hundreds of long and small tunnels.  

All went well, until we stopped for our morning cup of coffee.   We should have been warned as we saw signs at the services which said 'no security', but no, we were too intent on that morning fix of caffeine.    A lapse in concentration and hey presto, Walter is relieved of our last 40 Euros.   Taken from the inner pocket in Walter's man bag.  Two zips.  

This is how it happened.   We walked into a very busy restaurant area, with people lining to pay for coffee.  Walter asked me, "How much money do you have left?"  To which I replied, "40 Euros" and took it out of my wallet and gave it to him.   He then put it into the inner pocket of his bag, zipped the pocket up and then zipped up the bag.  And of course someone was watching the proceedings.    Easy pickings there.   Very naive.   Luckily we had enough money to pay for our coffee.

Walter no longer likes Italy.  

We continued on our way, and arrived at the airport to collect our rental car, only to find a very long queue, and an assistant in tears, due to four men harassing her, as she would not let them have a rental car, as they did not have a credit card between them.  The men were playing to the audience too, that is all the customers  in the queue. This went on for some time, and eventually someone from another rental company came and took the poor girl away, which left the other assistant trying to deal with the rest of the customers.   He was shaking. After some time we managed to collect our car, but the four men were still there, and the girl had come back and was still trying to sort it out.   I think they called security in the end.

We set the camp up, our caravan, our motorhome and Donna's caravan, and the next evening went off to collect David, Catherine, Barry and Diana from Toulon Railway Station.  They had flown from Venice to Marseilles, caught the airport bus into Marseilles Railway Station and were to catch the train to Toulon.  All arranged.   Easy you might say.   Well we did not count on the railway line being closed between Marseilles and Toulon.   So after many mixed messages from the railway stations about which bus to catch to Toulon, and texts and telephone messages, we realised they would be stranded for the night in St Charles Railway Station, in Marseilles.   A dreadful place, with very dodgy people.  

But were we prepared for a trip to Marseilles, seasoned travellers that we are?    No definitely not.   We had left our maps and sat nav back in the caravan.   So we set off, undaunted, to travel to St Charles Railway Station, following each other (two cars), in the dark.    And surprisingly we made it easily, by Walter following the signs, and me following Walter, watching him go through a few red lights, due to concentrating on directions.

We collected a very relieved group from the railway station, and set off to travel back to the campsite (2 hours away), and of course became lost in Marseilles, so saw plenty of the dodgy nightlife taking place on all the back streets.  And once on the motorway we witnessed two very bad accidents, which threw our confidence somewhat, but finally arrived back, at 1.30 am, to a very quiet and peaceful campsite.    We crept around, had a cup of tea and collapsed onto our beds.

And the next evening we sat outside in the sunshine, and drank our beer and wine, and said, 'Het is heel gezellig', and it was too.