Two days to Toulon

We've had our two days of travelling to get to Toulon from Andorra. Over the course of two days we haven't seen much of the coast, mainly because French and Spanish schools all finished the day before we left - we went further inland to avoid the busy coastal roads.

I've started a 'Misc & Travel Photos' set on Flickr to cover all the photos I'll take while travelling from place to place:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

We left Andorra at about 11 in the morning, after our last breakfast. It was more of a buffet today, because there were another 8 groups of people staying in the hotel. A far cry from being the only ones there, the weekend is indeed busier!

We'd made the decision to avoid the toll roads where we could, because we were banking on full days of travel anyway, and the slower roads invariably have more spectacular scenery and more places to stop and take photos.

Andorra is a tax haven: the taxes are far less than in France. So when the weekend comes around, every Frenchman and his dog comes to Andorra to shop. We passed the major shopping thoroughfare on our way out, which is basically right next to the border checkpoint (there is a full border control, because Andorra is a non-EU member). We were waved through without having to show our passports, which was different from my experience on the bus, where everyone was checked.

This was, however, not before we saw some weird and wonderful things, like a mountain vista from a winding highway, and a group of very friendly horses wandering all over the road:

Sights from the Andorran hillside

We also passed near Carcassonne. What I didn't realise was that the runway of the main airport was so close to the road you could almost reach over the fence and touch the wings:

A Ryanair plane within spitting distance in Carcassonne

Just after the Andorran border was a charming town called Ax-les-Thermes. We stopped there and took a few photos, which turned out OK as well. They have a casino, some old churches and a thermal wading pool:

 Ax-les-Thermes

The hillsides of France are a veritable arsenal of sunflower farms, vineyards and wheat fields - sometimes all right next to each other. There were many examples of each all next to the roads we travelled:

The wheat fields of France

Our overnight stop on the first night was near a tiny place called Monoblet - but it was far out of the town, out in the sticks. It was a B&B-style hotel, with gardens, an old house, and even a pool:

Our overnight stay in Monoblet

After complimentary breakfast the second morning in Monoblet, we headed towards Avignon. We had originally intended to stop at Pont du Gard, but it would have cost us €18 just to get in, which was time better spent in Avignon. I had previously found us an enormous free car park, which had plenty of spare spaces when we arrived, as well as a free shuttle in to town.

The centre of Avignon is one of the few places in Europe left with its old town city walls still intact, so we explored inside the old town for a while before we walked the other side of the river, where I took 'the' photo of the Pont d'Avignon:

The popular photo point of Pont d'Avignon

Here's my Flickr set for Avignon:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645745000524/

There was also part of the old castle ruins still intact, with marvellous views over the centre of Avignon and the countryside. We walked up the ruins and through a small garden back to the bus, and back to the car, for some more driving towards Toulon.

Before long we saw the Mediterranean on our right, but we kept on driving all the way to Toulon. The apartment we had booked was right on the waterfront, with a nice view of Fort St. Louis:

Our view of the waterfront

That was about 500km of driving over two days. My next report will be of our first day in Toulon.