It’s great to explore new places, and it is wonderful to get to see old friends around the world, but it is extra special when you are invited to stay in the homes of friends while you travel. We were lucky enough to be hosted by a lovely couple, Charline and Julien, in Vidauban – Cote d’Azure, France. The bonus was that Charline’s parents are good friends from San Diego, who were also visiting at the time.
As a result, we got to visit and eat and drink and explore with our good friends Fred & Pascal along with their younger daughter Samantha, as well as Fred’s sister Mag (who came in from Antibe). Needless to say; the house was full of laughter, song, amazing food and a few cocktails.
Vidauban is a small town and the house we were in was a small country home, complete with chickens in the coop out back that provided fresh eggs. The house is bordered on three sides by vineyards, as a 
matter of fact the whole area is mostly rows and rows of grape vines. The weather was lovely, 
we took most of our meals outside in the backyard where we could watch folks play in the swimming pool, cook on the bar-b-q, play guitar and sing and in general, just enjoy life. Fred demonstrated his bar-tending skills with a local specialty cocktail called ti-punch, which is made with fresh lime, rum agricole and demerrera sugar. Fred never did share the exact proportions for the perfect drink, he only commented about how most people get it wrong.
There were a couple of grand outings, one day we all visited Port Grimaud, which we called the Venice of France. A great area with beautiful homes interconnected by canals. We had a excellent lunch of local specialties there and then jumped on a ferry boat to cross the harbor to Saint Tropez where we wandered the town and had Carte Tropezienne which is a sweet cake with custard in the middle.
George got a to join a game of pentanque, which is
played by throwing heavy steel balls, or boules, down a long hard dirt court. Game play starts by a member of one of the two teams throwing a small ball, called a jack, to the far end of the field (or terrain). The rest of game is all about trying to get your boules closest to the jack, and/or knocking other’s players boules away from the jack. It is good fun!
On another day Fred organized a “small hike” down to a cove close to Cassis, which could only be accessed by hiking or by boat. Well the small hike ended up being a little over eleven miles in total with the equivalent of more than 40 floors. But the cove, at Calanque d’en Vau was well worth the trek.
We had such a great time with the Hayem crew that really hated to pack up a rental car and leave, but we were excited about our upcoming visit to Brittany in Northwest France. Check back soon for our post about this next adventure…