Toulon

We got to Toulon at 7AM in the morning, way tooo early for me!!! And started making our way to our hotel, which was fairly easy - walk along the sea until the main road turns left and then continue on left until you're at the hotel, not too hard right, and shouldn't take long (normally 5-10 minutes). Have a guess how long we struggled on it? How many times Mr. Special thought we were lost and turned his mobile data on to have a look (payed for it + the stupid map showed that we were in a different street than we actually were so what's the use of that?). We need a car, no question about that anymore.

So about an hours after disembarking the ferry we were at the hotel... Left all our bags there and went to town, so relieved to be rid of our bags for a day :D Found tourism information at the station and decided we must take the cable car up on the mountain where there is a reproduction centre (zoo) for big cats. A perfect place for me since I love kitties. Now had to wait for about half an hour because the cable car started running at 10 AM and it wouldn't operate at all on windy days so we decided to wait til then to make sure it is running before making our way there. We could've gotten a pass that'll give us access to the cable car and public transport, or a pass for the cable car + zoo. Since we would've had to walk to the other tourism information near the port and alltogether pay about 18 euros each for everything we decided to walk up to the cable car ourselves (15-20 mins) and get a pass from there for the zoo too for 14 euros. The cable car is quite scary when it's rocking back and forth... not the perfect place for people who have a fear of heights.

Up on mont Faron we had ham and cheese crepes to fill us up and made our way to the zoo, which was 800m walk away. On the way there we noticed loads of old vintage cars coming up the hill and parking there. An added bonus :) Never have I ever taken that many photos of cars in my life :P The zoo was my favourite part of the day because the animals were so close to you! It felt like if I just stretch my hand a bit I could pet the tiger sleeping in front of me! Wow. It was a small zoo and on the internet people were breaking their hearts about the sizes of the cages etc. but you have to be real about this... you can't build a proper jungle for every animal as much as they do need and deserve one. The fact is a lot of these animals would be or soon will be extinct without zoos because it isn't safe for them in the wild. Here they could interact with each other at least. (Read somewhere that they take in abandoned and abused animals - big cats that is - so it's the last hope the animal has). Apart from jaguars, panthers, lions, tigers, smaller wild cats etc they had wolves, raccoons and monkeys as well. Mostly a pair of animals together.

On our way back we took a leisurely stroll around the car park where all the owners of the vintage cars had set up their picnic tables and were enjoying themselves while other people took pictures of their cars :D

Back at the hotel we napped for a couple of hours and then went for a walk to town, it's a nice town, a bit shabby and full of graffity but the vibe is good in my opinion. Tomorrow we'll do some shopping :D Ha, add even more weight for us to carry. I need to get some proper looking shirts for work.... :D 

The promenade with luxury yachts parked there is a sight to see :) and the air was so nice and warm :) What more could you ask for? :)

Jazzz...

Ttyl ;)