Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Golf Among the Dinos
Next morning saw another bright, beautiful summer day. The chateau is at the top of a hill which itself is on a piece of land that juts out from the coastline just east of the town of Ramatuelle, so the Mediterranean can be seen anywhere from windows facing south and on the upper-most floor facing north. Our balcony faces south, and the view is breathtaking. In the far distance are other houses and vacation homes, and the bay is often used as a safe harbour by boats when the winds are favourable, the garden immediately below is lush and kept geometrically neat and tidy, and the lands beyond a more rich and lush green than when we were last here in winter, and the skies are clear and blue. I end up taking one of my usual panoramic shots of the scene, which I will assemble when I get home. [The results are below - the full-sized image is very detailed and is about 11MB in size, and hence too big for me to post here].

A Mediterranean Morning - Ramatuelle

There is a winding path which leads from the chateau down to the Mediterranean, and part of it is terraced as a garden. Most of it is wild, and lilacs grow everywhere. This general area is also where the wild pigs - sanglier - live, which are the reason for the electric fence around the grounds and the vineyards. Dotted along the hillside are a number of dead trees, the result of the severe dry spell a couple of years ago. They apparently need to be cut down as they present a fire hazard. The winding path was originally a donkey-cart road, where the stone and other materials used to build the Chateau -- which explains why it is a long, winding road and not a very steep grade. This is the path Erika that Erika, Jennifer, their Father and the various dogs of the house trek down every morning to the sea.

There is a local carnival ground nearby, and after breakfast we decided to take the girls over to it. We first headed over to a local pharmacy where we get some antihistamines and skin cream for Annie, who had developed a form of eczema, probably as a result of either the original PABA-based sunscreen that was used on her, or the result of the chlorine from the pool, or both. We made our way over to the carnival grounds, but we could see from a distance that it didn't look very open. At a nearby tourist information office Erika determines that the place doesn't in fact open until 8-o'clock in the evening. This is not a huge surprise as things start later here: lunch can be well into the afternoon and dinner well into the night, and most businesses in town shut for a two hour "siesta" around mid-day -- but this is typically the time we start putting the girls to bed.

Luckily for us, there is a dino themed mini-golf right next to the carnival grounds, and it is open. So we get four clubs and four bright orange balls and we played the course, surrounded by not-so-threatening-looking dinos who were mostly in need of a new coat of paint. Pretty much from the outset it ends up not being a real game of golf -- Vanessa gets it into her head that the game is essentially a form of race to see who can finish the course first, and Annie quickly dispenses with the golf club and starts throwing the ball up to where the hole is. Consequently, Annie had the most fun at a hole midway through the course where the ball had to go up a steep hill, the ball usually ending up coming right back to her to throw again. Along the way, a couple of balls need to be fished out of the drink, Annie's club goes completely AWOL, and Vanessa completes the course in record time (and actually does pretty well with the number of swings she takes too, but that was beside the point of just being to complete the course before anybody else. ;-) Afterwards, we all get together at a table with a sizable shade umbrella and have a picnic of French bread, cheese and pop/orange juice.

Then it is back to the chateau, where everybody happily heads back to the pool after a hot day out in the sun.

At dinnertime, we are treated to some red Sicilian wine that Josef brought back on recent boat-trip to Italy. While eating, it is decided to have another night on the town at St. Tropez. While the offer is tempting, I just did not feel like a night on the town as yet -- still not completely comfortable with my surroundings, and longing for a peaceful night. There is much discussion about how and what to order -- both Gord and Mike ordered a beer apiece at one club, and paid about 20 euros - per drink! They also noticed people who would sit down at a table and order bottles of champagne. While at the time it seemed excessive -- following the reasoning that if beers cost x, champagne most cost multiple times x -- Josef explained that this was in fact the way to go. Wine and champagne is what people are expected to buy, and it is more economical to buy a single bottle of something and nurse it for the rest of your intended time there.

I happily saw everybody off as they dressed up in their partying duds and zipped off to town in a couple of vehicles just before midnight.