The car park for Port d’Alon beach had these very majestic pine trees.

On the beach now.

We went for a little walk along the coast first before having a swim.

Chie and Erika with a very mediterranean backdrop.

Aparently a lizard tail?

We had stopped at a boulngerie on the way to the beach to buy sandwiches, but of course, being France, there wasn’t anything vegetarian. It turned out the beach had a little bar / restaurant, which offered a vegetarian sounding salad, so while everyone else ate their sandwiches I slunk off here for a bit.

Here’s my salad. This was quite nice actually - good to have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables after yesterday’s deep fried bar food.

Erika came and joined me for a bit towards the end of my lunch, and had a grenadine.

Erika and her grenadine.

The beach bar/restaurant from the outside. I thought this tree, which partly supported the canopy, was rather lovely.

Back at our “base camp”.

Back in Aix en Provence. The girls wanted to have showers at the hotel so I went out for a wander round town to try and find an aperitif. I ended up just giving up and going back to the hotel. Aix has a large university and it seems many of the bars cater to them. Including what seemed like dozens of extremely unconvincing “Irish” pubs.

The town hall.

Later on, dinner at a Lebanese restaurant.

After dinner we did a tour of Aix to find a gelateria which was still open. Erika went for her favourite combo (mango and mint choc chip!) and I stuck to old classic stracciatella.