France #2 - Valras Plage
Nothing but a beach. A.K.A. Valras-Plage
Note! For the visual guide (pictures), please check the gallery.
The question in our minds was: Will we finally reach civilization again or will the experience be the same?
There were worries because we knew that the Summer/beach season had just ended and might be that everything was be closed and we were not living at the centre of Valras Plage, but ~25 minutes away by foot.
The emotions when we arrived:
We didn’t have to share the home with the host, meaning that the apartment was ours (there was an apartment upstairs as well, which was empty though), no more host walking by every morning and evening. We didn’t mind in the last place, but still, nice to feel independent/free.
Some stuff wasn’t closed
There was a restaurant 3 minutes from our place by foot. You can’t get any closer to that we thought. And the food was okay (or was it?).
There was a pharmacy and a supermarket 2 minutes from our place
And the beach was 3 minutes to the other side. And the beach was ran over by a tractor every morning.
Only one store was closed that was close-by that we wouldn’t have cared about (some tobacco store)
And it was all fine.
Want some bread? Throw some slippers on and go and buy some fresh bread before breakfast (we did that each morning).
Want to go to the beach? Just go barefoot, why even bring slippers. It was just so easy. Saskia could come and go when she pleased, alone, that was surely enjoyable to her.
And the beach was long, one could walk for hours on the soft greyish sand and the waves were never too high, even during the windy days.
The problem is. That’s not us. If we had wanted a beach vacation, then we would have gone to Turkey or Egypt and been in a resort somewhere and just relaxed. And the following didn’t help either:
The season really was over:
The beaches were empty and whoever was there was 2x older than us (season had ended a week earlier) not that I had wanted crowds, but the option of crowds would have been nice?
The best examples of what makes you understand that the season’s over:
On the first day we took a walk to the Valras Plage centrum and found a few palm trees. Even took pictures with Reet in between them. On the next day, the palm trees were not there any more.
Also, we could see windows of some stores being covered with wooden plates for the winter.
Also, trailer parks on the other side of us, were deserted.
All the adventure parks and parks with large water slides etc were closed as well.
Not that we would have gone to the parks and would really have cared about the palm trees. Knowing that the place probably was better just a week or two before, made the place worse than it was. Yes the place wouldn’t have been for us with all those things, but at least maybe Saskia would have gotten some nice time out of it.
No mountains. There was an area where we went hiking to that had a cliff which was 150m high. And that was the maximum in the area, got one okayish pic from there.
And there was also the salt mining facility which is nothing new for us, but still went to. Reet’s still eating the salt she bought there.
There was another hike I wanted to do there as well (nothing exciting, just… something). But on the second day after eating in the restaurant and while doing the first hike. I started feeling what Reet felt in the previous place – ill. And by the evening everything that went in came out as water from the other side at random times, so now I had to take it easy.
Also, the beach was boring a hell. A long strip of sand… Never understood beaches like these. Why would anyone want a long strip of sand. Why don’t people want small beaches with palm trees behind? Or is it that the long strip is fine enough and that one can’t afford a beach that’s actually worth something?
To sum it all up. It was fine. A somewhat quiet beach vacation with nothing interesting to do even if you wanted to.
A Thief
There is also a fun event that comes in mind about Valras Plage. When at the beach, Saskia went home with Emmi, because the home was just that close. But she left all Emmi’s stuff behind. Now, Reet and I were photographing Reet, because that’s what we do. And then we looked at the baby toys and an old woman was there, cleaning the baby toys and putting them in her bag.
Of course she didn’t speak our language (english, Estonian) and we didn’t speak hers (french), so we only spoke with emotions and hands.
We think that she was trying to say was: I’m no thief, i thought that the toys were forgotten here and i live close by and want the beach to be clean so i started cleaning the beach.
I was trying to explain to her that we had other stuff a bit farther away from the toys (still away from us), why wasn’t she cleaning those things up? And why didn’t she ask if they belonged to us? And that she’s nothing more than a thief.
In any case, I showed my frustration and then she got frustrated and I think she wanted to find someone who could speak our language to explain herself to us, OR just wanted to go and explain to everyone that Dario is a bad bad man and doesn’t understand that she’s an angel. Either way, she went around and talked (and pointed towards us) with all the other groups of people who were at the beach as well (2 groups in total), but no-one was interested in coming to us, so we’ll never know if what i understood was correct or if she finally understood that she’s nothing more than a thief.
What I haven’t mentioned yet, are the animals.
A gallery has been dedicated for the animals and the animals alone here.
And I’m not talking about the cats and dogs. I’m talking Zoo and Safari park where animals are kept in their cages when they should be in the wild (or so some people think).
When driving to or staying in Valras Plage, we visited www.zoolabarben.com and www.reserveafricainesigean.fr for a few hours. What can I say. One was a zoo and the other was a safari in which the first part you could drive through, and the second part was again just a zoo. The best part was of course the safari, but then again we know that it’s still basically a glorified zoo and couldn’t compare it to African safaris. We hope to go sometime, but not during this vacation (as again, it would be too expensive for our budget… but what isn’t?... off-season Valras Plage isn’t!!!!).
To summarise France
The ideal France for some:
You’d go out in the morning with your berets on your heads and take a sip of coffee and a bite of Croissant, hold hands, and feel the love in the air and the Eiffel tower in the background.
During the day You visit the old town and all the different museums and get your spirit filled with culture.
In the evening you probably go to a Michelin star restaurant and go back home to sit in the terrace overlooking the Eiffel tower and fall asleep with your partner in your arms while doing that.
You know, live like a local.
Well, we didn’t go to Paris, because that was too far away. Instead, we went to:
a place that was close to a place which would probably have given us the option to eat a crossaint in the morning and visit a museum or two, but was too far away (Nice, 30 min away by car in an annoying traffic) to actually want to do that for more than a day (and that day you’d want to be at the beach).
and Valras Plage in off season, which even during the season, is nothing more than what Pärnu is for us (place for Estonians/locals to go to in the summer to sunbathe all day at the beach).
Must go back to France, to Paris next time, and redo the France experience, because at this point. Spain’s coast for us, has been better.
