Bargemon

Last night we hardly got any sleep. The music went on until midnight. At 9pm the sound of the music dramatically increased and a live performer started singing. We were about 50 meters away from the venue and the bass was unbelievable. Wanda was actually vibrating. At 10:30pm the music stopped and there was a lot of talking on the microphone. They were obviously giving out awards for various things. Then it went quiet and a few cars left and then the worst thing happened. An accordion started playing and it went on and on. When it did stop there was all this cheering and then whoever was playing played the same song again. Then they did the same song but with a baseline. It was truly awful. In the end Ellie and I gave up trying to sleep. Finally at 12:10am the music stopped and then we had a flurry of cars doors whilst everyone left.
At 6am I was woken up by a scooter riding past and decided to get up and make the coffee so we could get out of here early. I’d had about an hours sleep and was completely done in.
At 6:50am we were ready to leave. I set the sat nav thinking I had around a 30 mile journey which would take around 60-90 minutes but because we are avoiding the tolls the mileage was actually 79 miles.
We set off down the hill, drove right through the centre of Monaco and picked up the coast road. Then we stayed in the coast road all the way to Nice which is a major city. We drove right through the centre of Nice. Down the main high street and over the tramlines. I was so grateful we got up early. It was now 8am. In another hour this would be mayhem. From Nice we turned right and took the exact route I never wanted to drive. Right over the Maritime Alps. We went up and over the Col du Basse at 500 meters, up and over the col du Pelade at 937 meters and then the Col du Gourdon at just over 1200 meters. Fortunately the roads were pretty straight with very few switchbacks and the gradient was steady so Wanda didn’t struggle but as time ticked on more and more cars were in the road and I felt like I was being pushed so I kept stopping to let them pass.
At 9:45am we started the decent with 15 miles left to go. And then came the tight switchbacks and we were in second and 3rd gear all the way down.
At 10:40am we finally arrived in the ancient town of Bargemon where there is a 3.5 tonne weight limit and for our final hurdle we had to negotiate the narrow cobbled roads to reach the free aire.
Here we have beautiful Mountain Views, free water and dump station and best of all peace and quiet. As soon as we arrived we closed the blinds and had a rest for 45 minutes.
At 1pm we decided to go and check out the town, so we left Wanda and turned left out of the aire heading down the road we had just come in on and towards the cobbled town square. This is the oldest part of the town dating back to the 16th century. From here we turned left through a narrow archway that was used for horses and carts and onto the oldest streets. This was once the main high street and it has tiny alleyways leading off of it to squares that went nowhere. These were probably old market place stands back when it was the main thoroughfare. The old police station is still there but is now a museum and it even has the original old prison right of the street. It was a fascinating street.
The town itself is really quite fascinating to walk around and the new roads, albeit small have been built in keep with the old town and the town has 4 museums. One of the police and jail, a fossil museum, a history of the town museum and an art museum. There is also a tiny supermarket, a bakery and butchery and various cafes. Only the cafes are open today.
We done a complete loop of the town and got back to Wanda around 2pm and then we just chilled out for the rest of the day watching the clouds move across mountains against a beautiful blue sky. We’ve been so lucky with the weather on this trip. Today it is really windy but still a sunny 16°c and hot outside. We know we can’t have many more days like this left as we push further up France and back towards home.Read more