Collobrieres

A day in extreme heat, which is not apparent in the photographs below.  Collobrieres is in a valley so I guess the heat is trapped there. On a very hot day.  The new white gravelled car park certainly registered 37 degrees in the car when we got back into it.

We had a reasonable lunch, not perfect, under the sun awnings on the terrace at our favourite restaurant.  Even there the awnings only  kept the sun off us, but did not provide much in the way of cool shade.

We went for a walk up to the church afterwards, trying to keep in the shade of the buildings as much as possible.

I love the mixture of twisted branches and green leaves on these plane trees.  It was certainly cool under here.

We also sat for a few minutes in the coolness of more plane trees in the town square.  So ptovencial.

Raphy was fascinated with the water fountain.  Well all water fountains really.  Oh to be a four year old, when the world around is such a fascinating place of new experiences.

Back to the church.  I have been trying to take a photograph of the beautiful 3D diorma of Our Lady at the back of the church.  I think I have been reasonably successful this time. It is quite gloomy in the church so the photographs usually come out blurry. Much patience is needed.

We drove back via Pierrefeu, and only missed the turn off to Hyeres once, and had to turn back as we were heading for Nice.   This was an improvement from when we went with David, Catherine, Barry and Diana, where we took them for a tour of the run down market gardens, having missed the turnoff.

And for those people who have made the trip to Collobrieres with us, we did not go over the top of the range on the way there this time.  We felt that we were tempting fate too much.  The risk of colliding with a mad cyclist was just too great to take yet a other chance.