FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Not Again!

We drove to Aix-en-Provence in the morning to enjoy the old Capital of Provence. The motorways were busy! The french were obviously on their Christmas break with many cars stuffed to the gills. This would be a good time to mention their toll system...one that inconveniently did not take foreign credit cards and which did not have any booths which took cash. As a consequence, every time we went through, we would hold up traffic whilst we buzzed the intercom and our well practiced "parlez vous anglais?" rolled off our tongues. We would then have to explain that our credit was not french, wait for an attendant to come and collect our cash, and then open the boom gate for us. Some toll collection points were massive. One in particular had over 16 booths. After that, it was open slather as everyone vied for poll position to get back into 3 lanes.

We drove back to Arles only to discover that we had punctured a tyre...again! We seem to have a habit of puncturing tyres whilst on holidays. The Europcar number we rang sent out someone fairly quickly to change the tyre over for us but unfortunately we still had to the task of finding a replacement spare tyre. The Europcar outlets in town had closed for the weekend. Richard, the owner of our house kindly rang up Europcar's freecall number for us. Europcar advised that if we bought a spare tyre that they would reimburse us. He then accompanied Malcolm on a hunt for a tyre whilst his twin 4 year old girls stayed with the rest of our family until Catriona, their mum returned.

Catriona, a fellow Australian from Brisbane, kindly took us around the town enjoying the various cultural events that were on over the Christmas period. Richard and Malcolm returned shortly after. It was a great way to spend our last afternoon in Arles and in Provence. It appeared that I had gained 2 new little friends in the twins.