End of Week 3 – Sunday July 18 – Bonifacio / Porto Vecchio

After one nights camping we were back into a hotel – this time in Porto Vecchio. We packed up the tent properly this time, although it did take us a couple of goes to get it into it's bag – maybe we're getting to pedantic now. The neighbours in the campground were impressed and gave us a big clap when we'd finished. We headed into Porto Vecchio for our two days in a hotel, but the traffic was absolute chaos and we couldn't check into the hotel until 2pm, so went to Bonifacio for lunch.

Walking along the Marina, a rather portly chef with a scruffy apron outside a small restaurant smiled at us and said “French?, English?”, we said English, so he explained his menu of the day to us and pointed to his only diners as they were having the two choices available. We decided after a short further walk that between the chef and his food that what he had to offer looked pretty good, so we went back to enjoy his lunch. Well what a treat. Apart from the food, which was superb and all home made and fresh, it was a real show. He now had 4 paying customers, so business was slow. After cooking our lunch, he was out with a baguette to entertain some childen by throwing it to the fish. After boring of that we headed back into the kitchen..... 2 minutes later he was back with a fishing rod. One of the waiter's walked past shaking his head.... “he's never fished before” This immediately became obvious, but it kept him and the kids amused for 15 minutes. At which point, the fishing line somehow turned into a birds nest, so he was back out with a big kitchen knife to deal to it. The bird's nest was handed to one waiter, while another waiter who could see the eyes on the fishing rod was employed rethreading the fishing rod. Next thing the waiter with the bird's nest had untangled it and attached it to a 5 Euro note which he had placed on the walkway to catch out anyone who bent down to try and pick it up. The restaurant must do these sort of antics regularly because all the waiters at the other restaurants were watching the 5 Euro note to see who bent down to pick it up.

It really was very entertaining and kept everyone very amused for half an hour. The chef then came over to talk to us and once he knew we were kiwis had lots of rugby stories – he had lunch with Berbizier yesterday, had met Phil Kingsley-Jones, Serge Blanco had dined at this restaurant and he obviously enjoyed his rugby because he gave me a much more indepth analysis of the French team than I ever could of the All Blacks.

We checked into our hotel in Porto Vecchio and caught up with the latest stage of Le Tour before heading out in the evening for dinner in Porto Vecchio. Walking round the town, we were amazed at the shops. Unlike Bonifacio, these weren't for us. We saw some very nice Stella McCartney shoes that had been discounted from 750 Euros to 475 – Bargain. The restaurants were also a cut above, with some very exclusive dining to be had. Anne and I found a nice little pizzeria and had a really nice meal.