Day 21 Wed 17/5/17
The day dawned quite hot so we were up swiftly and off for a quick shower. Breakfast outdoors at the tent and then we hit the road to explore some of our haunts from our 1981 Provençal trip. First stop was Cotignac, a village near Carces, where Kay and I had our 1st wedding anniversary dinner at the Mas de Cotignac. I thought there was a market in Cotignac but I got the days confused so we just had a stroll round the very pretty centre of the village.
Next stop was Montfort sur Argens where James and I used to go to a little café for a preprandial libation, Montfort is bigger than I remember and I am not sure that I found the right café, anyway the thought was there.
Then the hunt for Mas Saint-Jean, the gite that we stayed at in 1981. We did find it but it is no longer a gite. Giovanni and Jackie Leclerc bought the farmhouse from Madame Barges in 1987 and created Domaine Saint Jean, a small wine estate. They bought the gite part of the building two years ago and are undergoing “beaucoup de travaux”.
This charming couple understood that we had stayed in the gite in 1981 and told us that we were not the first such visitors to return. Apparently Madame Barges is still alive at 98 and living near Toulon in an apartment close by one of her daughters. Virigil is now a father with 2 children of his own.
From Carces we headed back towards the Lac de Verdon stopping at Aups, where there was a market, for a walk around the town and a fantastic sandwich at a little café right in the centre of the old part of town.
Back in the car we headed for the dam which created Lac de Sainte Croix...
...and then wandered through Bauduen and had a coffee overlooking the Lac. We had considered Bauduen as a possible location for a campsite but we are very glad that we chose Les Pins instead.
In the evening we walked up to the village for a drink then dinner at L’Escapade restaurant.
91 miles today, with the top down despite the temperature reaching 26.5C. Total mileage for the trip so far is 2098 miles.
