November 9 - Garmin strikes again

Internet wasn't available for a few days. Right now we are in Aigues Mortes and have it at a tiny very basic little hotel/restaurant inside the walled city.

Here is post from a few days ago.

Monday – November 9th – Garmin Strikes Again
Since we had such a lovely drive along the coast of the eastern Riviera on Sunday we decided to drive on the Coast from Nice for awhile. Our final destination was Cassis a small town just east of Marseilles. Before leaving we walked to a nearby café and had coffee rather than have breakfast at our hotel for 12 Euros – that is over $15 yikes. It was raining lightly but the weather looked like it was going to break.
The night before we had discovered that directly across the street from our hotel was the local Animal Rescue Agency. For those who don’t know, Toni is very involved with this endeavor in San Francisco where she works closely with both the SPCA and Animal Care and Control. She heads up a rescue organization that rescues kittens. So we decided to visit the Nice SPCA equivalent. It was quite small and was only the branch handling cats/kittens. One person there, a young man, spoke some English. Between his limited English, our much more limited French, and sign language on all our parts we were able to communicate to some degree. Their branch handled the Chats only, another the Chiens. They neuter/spay kittens at 4 months and were very surprised to hear that Toni’s experience is that it works very well at 2 months. They charge 100 Euros per adoption.
Before driving west we wanted to visit the Matisse Museum which is just slightly north and up the hill from Nice. We turned on the Garmin and gave it a go. It didn’t give us great directions, we had several bad turns, but finally got to the Museum. It was interesting, but very small, and I have seen larger collections of Matisse in other museums.
We left the Museum around noon and headed towards Cannes. The driving was very congested and the sights not particularly spectacular, mostly hotels, condos, and apartments. We decided we’d rather see a more authentic old town so we stopped at Antibes. It is an old Roman settlement right on the water, very picturesque with small alleys, stone buildings with blue shutters, and many steps. The weather was definitely clearing and it was nice to see a little blue sky. We had lunch at an outdoor café and then wandered the streets and shops. There was a small park with a tiny carousel with one little girl passenger. We walked back to the car refreshed and really looking forward to the rest of our day’s journey. However, it had gotten later than we planned and we want to get to our destination, Cassis, before sunset. So we turned on the Garmin in order to get there the easiest/fastest way.
We should have known we were in for a problem when Ms. Garmin bypassed a freeway we could see. However, trusting technology way too much, we followed her directions. The devise clearly showed that she knew where we were and she predicted the upcoming roundabouts turns routes into tiny towns very accurately. We kept thinking she was going to direct us back onto a many “peage” (freeway in French). Wrong. It became clear she was directing us on the closest route to Cassis (that is closest as the crow flies). By now it was becoming dark. We were on little winding roads going over the local mountains through villages of about 10 houses. The biggest problem was that the roads were on sides of cliffs, with no white line down the middle, and now shoulders. On top of that our car’s headlights were not aligned properly and visibility was really poor. We struggled along this route for about two hours cursing the Garmin and the headlights. Finally as we passed a cross roads with a sign pointing to Toulon and the Garmin directing us the other way we decided we’d had enough. We turned off the damned device and headed to Toulon since I knew where that was and it was on the water east of Cassis. As we headed down the mountain and could see lights and the water we cheered. We found a freeway and were in Cassis in about 20 minutes.
Cassis is very small, at the bottom of cliffs, and I thought we’d easily find the hotel. It was a little harder that I thought but we got here finally. The hotel is clearly worn and tired but it is right on the water. It was hard to appreciate the setting in the dark. I asked about the wifi internet and wasn’t surprised to hear that it wasn’t working right now.
We checked the map just to see where we’d been directed by Ms. Garmin. I have very detailed maps of both Provence/Riviera and Languedoc/Rousillon. Our suspicions were exactly correct, Ms. Garmin had been directing us in almost a straight line towards Cassis. Had it been light we’d have seen some very, very rural and probably beautiful country. By dark it was mostly terrifying. Ms. Garmin will be living in the glove box for the rest of the trip.
We walked into town, a pretty short distance, where there are quite a few restaurants in the port area. We looked at two only, it was getting late and we were ready for dinner. After inspecting both menus and noticing that there were a lot more people in one than the other, we picked the more crowded one. The menu looked interested, if a bit sophisticated, but it had bouillabaise on it so how bad could it be? The waiter was very nice and offered to translate and explain the menu. I immediately said I wanted the bouillabaise and I should have known something was very odd when he said I needed to know it wasn’t regular bouillabaisse. He said it had fish and potatoes but not in the usual way and it didn’t have the usual “soup.” I said that didn’t matter I’d have it anyway. Tom ordered the lamb, which the waiter also explained wasn’t usual – it was slightly “candied.” Toni ordered something that could not be well described by the waiter although he said it was a pastry with goat cheese.
We were served an appetizer that looked like dessert. It was in a tiny glass container, the bottom part sort of orange and then topped with what looked like whipped cream. The waiter explained that it was creamed potatoes on the bottom topped with emulsified sea urchin. It was odd but sort of good. When our orders arrived we shouldn’t have been surprised but we were. They looked like something from the Iron Chef show. Toni’s was a long and narrow pastry that looked like something you’d have for breakfast. Both mine and Tom’s were perfectly round and had obviously been produced by a form they’d been put in and both had long black sticks of possible pasta sticking out of them so they looked sort of Asain. My “bouillabaise” was certainly not the “usual kind”. It sat in a yellow foam. The topping was yellow (I suppose from saffron) mashed potatoes on top of a number of different types of fish that had been squeezed together. Tom’s lamb was shredded and sweetened somehow and then had spinach sort of wrapped around it. All the dishes were sort of good but very odd and certainly not what we expected. I have a feeling the chef is trying to emulate some of the “cutting edge” chefs of Barcelona and Bilbao. I don’t think we’ll be eating there again.
We won’t be using Garmin again unless we really need her help in a city. We are back to using maps and traveling the old fashioned way.