Love Shack!

We have been in touch with a couple of our friends from back in Oz who are travelling around Europe at the moment.  It worked out that they would be in our area of France today so we were going to meet up for a few hours before they caught a train to Barcelona.

They rang yesterday to say that they could head our way a day earlier than planned, so asked if we could find them some accommodation for Friday night.

I went down to the campsite reception so see what they had available in chalets etc but it was a minimum booking of two nights for the chalets.  However the receptionist took me to see a 'cabin' we could have for one night for 36 euros!!

El and I loved it and booked it straight away!  Basically it was a tent on stilts, but right, and I mean right on, the edge of the cliff facing the med!

There was absolutely nothing in the 'tent' so we took some of our spare bedding down there and converted into a love shack for our friends!

This was the view from the love shack ...

I tried it out for comfort and promptly fell asleep!  It was so lovely in there, listening to the sound of the waves ...

Our friends arrived and we had a good old catch up.  The last time we met them was back in Manchester in May 2013 when they were over for a visit.  You can read about that meeting here.

After a few bottles of wine we escorted them under torch light to the love shack!  Oh dear, they didn't love it as much as us ... Pat was almost in hysterics just looking at it!!  Elaine did offer to swap and they could sleep in the van, but they wouldn't have a bar of it.

Here is Martin trying to get into the hut ...

Thankfully they had had a few drinks so they settled down into it OK ...

This morning we went down there to check them out (to see if they made it through the night without sidling off to a nearby hotel!).  They said they did have a sleep but wouldn't want to experience it again and the five star hotel they were going to in Barcelona tonight sounded a lot more promising!  (I think we failed in our selection of accommodation!)

We had coffee at the van then headed off down to Collioure for lunch.

So a quick background.....

We both lived in the same street back in Sydney.  Elaine worked with Pat at Roche pharmaceuticals and I played football for the same club as Martin! 

Collioure is a top spot to visit in France ...

It also helped that the weather was glorious ...

We had a lovely lunch in one of the many restaurants ...

Then it was time to go walkabout for a couple of hours ...

Just a few pics of this fab place ...

They drove us back to the van in the late afternoon, then they headed off to Perpignan railway station for the 18.00 train to Barcelona and a good night's sleep in a nice hotel!

We are enjoying it here so much we decided to extend our stay until Wednesday.