Meeting Sandrine & Carl in Hyeres

We knew that Sandrine (a good friend of ours from our years in the UK) was visiting Hyeres (where she's from) with her boyfriend Carl, and finally managed to get in touch with her - and decided to drive down to meet them in Hyeres (or Hyeres-les-Palmiers as its full name is - quite appropriately).



So we jumped into the car, and drove down the Provencal (the A8 motorway, which goes from the Italian border, through the Cote d'Azur, to Aix-en-Provence) towards Hyeres. A mere hour and a half later, we arrived (we were expecting worse, as it looked sooo far on the map...). We headed down to the port with Sandrine's mum, where there was a market (reminded me a bit of the Brick Lane market in London, except that we were surrounded by palm trees instead of Cockneys and Mockneys ;-). Having had a look at everything from 2nd hand books, cheap clothes to local farm products - we headed down to the beach. After a very nice lunch, we relaxed on the beach for a couple of hours.



Beach life at Hyeres is quite different from around Nice (better, you could say), as the beach is much better (sand instead of pebbles!), less crowded and somehow more chilled out (with relaxed bars and restaurants by the beach). It felt a bit more like Spain than the Cote d'Azur, somehow... (in a positive way)



Having roasted ourselves in the sun for a couple of hours, we headed for the Giens peninsula - a really beautiful, peaceful place, from where you have some great views over Porquerolles (one of the islands near Hyeres) as well as Hyeres. After relaxing there for a while it was unfortunately time to get into the car and head back for Nice. We'll be back for sure - maybe we'll visit one of the islands next.