Down the Mediterranean Coast

Stunning Little Villages.

Leaving Genoa wasn't hard, maybe some one will do a hard sell on us to make us go back, but we were happy to move on making about a 100 K's over the day to Ceriale.
The day was spent travelling down on the coast road. The Med coast's lovely clear water reminiscent of Kaikoura's coast but with a busy highway and very few options to pull over and fewer to access the beach. Remember 2000 yrs of

Difficult to get through here!

building and privatising means a lot of areas with access are not "accessible". That and the fact the road has modified the shoreline over long distances making the shore non existent
Stayed at a small camp that boasted a view and pool, but the pool was closed and the view was only from the pool area and largely overgrown by the olive grove. Had a pleasant walk through the quiet village that has found young blood and is being revitalised even if all the owners have rabid dogs barking all night. A recurring theme.

Looking along the Riviera

Set out early the next day and had breakfast on the roadside overlooking the sparkling sea. It was pleasantly warm and a nice way to spend some time. Beach access dried up altogether with the seaside towns routing traffic behind and on through. If you wanted to stop and park it was possible but a lot of restrictions on parks, mostly full, and very little opportunities for motor homes IE not made to feel welcome so kept on keeping on, all the way into France. We sailed on thru the border crossing with the

View to St. Raphael

French Gendarme taking only a cursory look in the van, presumably for refugees. Though nearly knocked the Gendarme over in my rush to open the door for him.
We immediately found our way onto a lovely stretch of motorway with a lovely aire (rest area) that sold us a baguette, having a lovely lunch break before getting going, then immediately being stopped for tolls, and so it went ad infinitum.
Compared to Italy's toll roads the French system is archaic, but fully automated. You have no idea if you're being charged forward or retrospectively. And it doesn't stop, in the course of 90 Min's, we were stopped and payed four separate amounts and another stop to get a ticket afore the next step.The toll costs more than the fuel costs for that stretch. My reading of this points to the fact that sections  are managed by separate private companies all collecting their bits. The 90mins cost about 20 Euro.

How the Other Half....

Deliberately by passing Monaco Nice & Cannes as they had the capacity to be very busy, judging from the traffic building up along the paid corridors, we ended up at a small camp just out of St Raphael with lovely beaches, full marinas, a pleasant amount of people, bike friendly, in all a delight. We even had a lovely beach just 5minutes from the camp in the Reserve Naturalistic and it was beach naturale. Little realising, we headed for a swim at the end of our beach but as we wandered  along the beach Sheryl deftly steered me off quickly to our own part of the beach. Not sure why but we were OK over there by ourselves. A bit cool for us to swim, but didn't stop others.
Spent two nights here before going on to Arles, again stopping two nights.

Concerts & Bull fights here.

Arles, an ancient town with a stunning working amphitheatre and much Roman history, albeit being predated by a busy Ligurian settlement trading in the wider Mediterranean some centuries before.
On our bikes, firstly came across a Necropolis Area from Roman times that had been huge. Time always diminishes memory and not long after Rome's fall the cemetery was being raided for the copious amounts of easily available stone for new building projects. The sarcophagi were particularly good for cattle troughs. The Theatre, Amphitheatre & Forum of Arles all used as stone quarries, severely degrading them, then what was left standing was absorbed into the town, with lean too dwellings inside and out, to the extent in the dark ages no one had any notion of what it had been, or was used for etc, all history & knowledge being mostly lost. The dark ages are called that for a reason.

What's left after some stone borrowing

What it should be like.

This is a theme through out history, what one era built would, for whatever reasons, fall into disuse (no matter how monumental and beautiful, but representing a fallen power) and before long used for other purposes, but mainly sacked for the stone, the Romans being so proficient at getting stone around the country.
Anyway archaeological scholars started turning this up in the 17th cent and then in late 1800 hundreds an enlightened decision, in this town anyway, was made to recover its roman heritage. The 3d modelling we saw of how things looked during the Roman era was amazing. If it wasn't for the lead pipes supplying their drinking water and their debauched life style we would all likely be Romans now. Arles was an education.
We have been travelling the secondary roads which are a pleasure to drive after the Italian roads, which I have previously described as rough. Arles and environs is on a huge river delta with all that goes with that, mossies, canals, bridges, lagoons, flat land, mossies and pink flamingos, well nearly pink, certainly pink bits to be seen if you look in the right places.

Lovely Lagoon, no Flamingos
Pink or otherwise.

We are now in a small camp south of Montpellier and getting our home in order before we battle onwards towards the winter less South. The camp has built their own lagoon, obviously as an attraction as we are 6 K's from the coast, and I'm guessing it does the trick for them. It's very pleasant here and as said we are happy to stay another night.
We will report further as progress is made.