Day 569 (Friday)

It was a gorgeous, warm sunny day again so we decided to go to Luceram, the hilltop town that decorates the whole town with Christmas santons (little saints) and crèches, which I think means nativity scenes. We took Kisbee to Nice Riquer where we caught the bus up the mountain to Luceram.

The views along the way were wonderful but the photos weren’t the best through the bus window. These are of L’Escarene, a town on the way to Luceram – it was so beautiful that we wanted to get off and have a look but as there are only four buses a day we couldn’t.

It took just over an hour to get there and cost just 1€50 each and it was absolutely stunning at 640 metres altitude.

As soon as we got off the bus we saw the beginning of the crèches and they were hilarious. I read a leaflet saying that there are more than 450 crèches in the town in all shapes and sizes – these were life-size

and these are on a windowsill

For a largely secular country France is really, really big on Christmas.

We had a lovely walk around the town and it really is beautiful.

We stumbled upon a museum for ancient tools and it looked like something from the Texas chainsaw massacre.

There were lots of tourists there and yet there were only two small bars open in the whole town so they were packed. After an hour and a half we’d seen everything but we still had two hours before the next bus came. We got a plastic cup of vin chaud and sat in the sun enjoying the view. We were more than ready to leave by 4.30pm and headed to the bus stop.  There were quite a few people waiting, mostly the same people who travelled up from Nice earlier. The information for the buses was erratic to say the least, the website said the bus was due at 4.45 but the timetable on the bus stop said 5pm. At 4.55pm a local lady told us that the bus didn’t stop where we were and we had to go down the hill to get it. We all set off and arrived at the other bus stop at exactly 5pm but there was no sign of a bus. None of us knew what to do and three of the younger people were flying to Sweden from Nice airport at 8pm so the mother flagged down a car and explained what had happened and these kind strangers gave them a lift.

While we were discussing what we could do we enjoyed a wonderful pink sky.

 

There were eight of us at this point so we decided to split up; four of them staying at the lower bus stop and the other four of us walked back up to the original spot. The people in the bar told us that the next bus was at 5.45 from the original bus stop to the man from Yorkshire walked back down to get the others. The bus finally arrived at 5.50 after we’d been at the bus stop since 4.30 – we have never been so happy to see a bus! I think the driver was a bit confused when we all clapped and cheered as we boarded.

 

We got back to Nice Riquer after just 45 minutes and said goodbye to our fellow bus sufferers. Kisbee was waiting for us outside the shopping mall, which housed these Christmas decorations.

Badger was very happy to see us when we got home – it was far later than we planned so we didn’t go to Le Phare – that’s three Fridays this year that we haven’t been – shocking!