Today we drove two and a half hours to reach a beach, where we pretty much sat and swam. We got up early by our vacation standards (8:45) to be ready to leave by 10:00 and make it to the beach by 12:30. We’ve learned from day 4 and planned to arrive before the last chairs and umbrellas are rented out for the day. And we’ve made it! We got the glorious sun a couple of rows from the sea, relatively near the bar (since that was our breakfast-and-lunch plan). Granted, we ended up having breakfast with an ice-cream bar and some chips, and lunch was another set of ice-cream bars around 15:00, as the bar didn’t offer much in the way of takeaway food, but we still count it as a success.
Karine and I discovered the joy of swimming for about 12 minutes (the time it took to swim 500 meters to the beach and back), then lounging, reading on our iPads or phones for 30 minutes to an hour, then going back to swim. It’s very relaxing. After a couple of hours, it does get old, so don’t expect our next vacation log to be from an all-inclusive resort somewhere. But it did create a nice, relaxing hiatus in our busy travel schedule. It also made me think I might be better at swimming than I remembered. The last time I swam (before this vacation) was in Nice, almost a decade ago, and the time before that, I might have been 12. From these fuzzy memories, I gathered that I don’t float and cannot do the starfish to save my life (still can’t, by the way), and I’m a slow swimmer as I don’t have proper technique. Even with these difficulties, I managed to get a slightly better time (beginner's luck) than Karine (ex-lifeguard and swimmer extraordinaire in my book) on the 500 meters. Maybe I should look into that swimming thing someday.
In any case, we’ve relaxed and had an excellent meal with a view of the sunset. Even had limoncello with vanilla. It surprised us as we wouldn’t expect such a mix to be good, but it was. We’re now recharged and ready for the hiking that’s coming in a couple of days.
