Grimaud, France

Although we’d been to this part of the world before, we’ve never visited Grimaud itself, so it was a new place for us to explore. It’s also worth reminding you that this was almost a decade ago, so my memories are vague and jogged mainly by the images I’m sharing. It’s even been a few years since I edited these shots, so please to forgive me for what I suspect will be a vague, slightly description-light post. Although sometimes I’m not sure those aren’t preferred compared to my rambling missives. Of which this is somehow threatening to become one, so let’s get started.

Our first shot is a sight seen while we wandered around the town, an alley filled with building rubble and a bath.

As you’d expect, I’m always on the lookout for typical views when visiting a country, of this this shot of a lamppost with the French flag is one, I think. Especially with the older buildings in the background.

The town’s perched on a hill, so from this spot we found you could see all the way down to the sea.

The town was full of the sort of stereotypical streets you’d expect for an old southern French town near the shores of the Mediterranean.

The town is overlooked by the ruins of a castle, which I think I’ve come to expect form any reasonably old little town.

Atop another hill there was a lovely old windmill. From here we had great views, and it was nice and quiet too so we spemt a bit of time up there.

It looked quite majestic sitting up the top of the hill.

Surrounding the windmill was a bunch of old machinery, which was weathered to perfection, just how I like it.

I ended up spending a bit of time wandering around the windmill, photographing it from various directions. It was catching the sun nicely, highlighting its lovely textures.

Also up here was an effigy of Jesus. I can’t remember if there was a church nearby, although there was a large but relatively modern-looking graveyard, or if it was just here because we were at the top of the hill and that’s where people tend to put things.

We walked up to the castle atop the nearby hill for a closer look.

This also offered great views. In one direction lay the Mediterranean.

In the other was the hilly landscape of southern France, and the vista was so wide it warranted a panoramic shot, stitched together from multiple exposures.

From up here we could get a great view of the windmill we’d just visited, and the graveyard next to it.

A little more zoomed out, and you can see the gorgeous geography is resides within.

Somewhere amongst the flora of this area we found a fascinating thing: graffitied cacti. People had etches things into the leaves and stems, and this apparently left a mark. I have no idea if this is frowned upon or accepted, or what damage it might do to the plants, but it was interesting regardless.

We headed back into the town and continued exploring and soon, perhaps inevitably, encountered a town cat.

On this part of the wander we found a very quintessential French scene, a lovely old Citroën under a tree in mottled light, next to an old house.

There were a few other lovely scenes of note too. One was this drainage channel down the middle of this backroad.

There were also these vine-covered houses.

This post will end on a bit of a tangent. At some point whilst we were walking around, I caught sight of a brilliant red dragonfly of some sort, and got a bit distracted by it.

I ended up taking a few photos, inching ever closer, shooting as I went in case I spooked it off. I ended up with a few decent shots of it, which was not bad considering I was still using my standard zoom lens and not a macro lens of any sort.

But, such is sometimes the way with sets such as this, that is the point that this collection ends. I do still have some more shots from this trip to come, but for now you’ll have to wait for those. This trip was one of the last times I actually went abroad, but we’ll be visiting Italy later this summer and it will be an interesting experience to finally go back to Europe, with everything I’ve learned in the time since.

As is tradition, there are a few more shots in the gallery below.