11 July 2005 :We woke up about 9.30am., packed our stuff and went to the entrance of the hotel to drink a coffee from the auto-machine before leaving. The full of cars parking lot of last night, was completely empty! The weather was summery, with the temperature that had increased sensibly! We wore light clothes and about 11.00am., we departure. Before abandoning Avignon, we went to the Lebanese restaurant to take the cards that we had forgotten last night. Thankfully, there was somebody at the restaurant and he gave it to us.
We headed to Aix-En-Provence. The roads of southern France are in a very good shape but not as good as northern. The view is more Mediterranean, similar to Greece. About 1.00pm., we were at Aix-En-Provence. It is about a university campus that has almost 30.000 students. It constitutes an academic centre thanks to the University of Aix-Marseille, that was established at 1409. We followed the signs to the centre and were found at Place du General de Gaulle, that there is an enormous waterworks.
We sat at one of the many cafe that were there. Nikos with Vangelis were looking to find an internet cafe to empty the memory cards of their digital cameras. Unfortunately, the attempt failed… peculiar for a campus!!! About 3.00pm., we left the campus and headed to Saint Tropez, following the direction to Saint Raphael and Frejus. At the village of Le Luc we followed the country road to Saint Tropez, for 35km. For the friends of the films of Agent 007, this road is the same with the one of the chasing of the legendary agent. It is about a narrow road with many turns and a lot of traffic. Very quickly we reached the beautiful Saint Tropez… many scooters and many yachts!
It is about a peaceful small fish village, in some way jumping-off place of the rest Cote d' Azur, that as the decades were passing by, suddenly it became the favorite place of the jet set. The efforts to maintain small and approachable created a result: You may need to wait to huge lines to reach the town by car… thankfully we were with our bikes!!! We wonder at the central seafront of Vieux Port, the seafront of Jean Jaures, we enjoyed the beautiful view of the port with the many yachts…
About 7.00pm., we left the beautiful Saint Tropez and we followed the coastland and the magnificent direction next to the sea, we rode through Sainte-Maxime, Saint-Raphael and reached the Cannes. Just before, we wore our waterproof because it started to sprinkle… fortunately it didn’t last long and entering the Cannes, the road was just wet.
Don’t expect to be impressed entering the city. We decided to look for Ibis Hotel, that was in a near by road of the coast road Blvd de la Croisette. Unfortunately it didn’t have rooms, but for our good luck we found at the exact opposite hotel, Hotel Appia for 24 euro/per person! We took our stuff to the rooms, took a bath and went out to eat. We walked the road blvd de la Croisette in front of the known shops, until we reached the building that the international festival of Cinema is taking place. We ate at the Restaurant Roma, exactly opposite. The prices were very good for the Cannes. While we were eating, a sudden rain started, but thankfully stopped quickly and returned to the hotel without getting wet…