67 – Notre réunion de famille française

So, we left Mallorca and had a mostly great 2-day sail to France.  I was excited for a couple of reasons. I’ve been fascinated with France since high school (yes, we flew in a couple of years ago but this was on our boat).  But the main reason I was excited and why we chose to sail to Marseille is because our French daughter, Sabine, and her family live nearby.  We first met and (in our hearts anyway) adopted Sabine in 2006 when she stayed with us for a month as a chaperone for French exchange students.  When she left, we knew that we would see each other again, we just didn’t know when or how.  Neither of us imagining at the time that 16 years later we would sail into a harbor near her.  This thing called life is pretty fascinating sometimes!

We sailed into Marseille harbor and found a marina just on the other side of the bay in Iles de Frioul.  This was much easier to get into than the marinas in downtown Marseille and had a ferry that ran at least hourly to and from the mainland. Our first day was spent exploring the fascinating city of Marseille.  It’s such a culturally diverse city and seems to have something for everyone.  Our first stop was the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde.  This basilica boasts a beautiful statue of “Our Lady” that does indeed stand guard over the city and is the first thing you see upon arriving by sea.  The views were spectacular and it was absolutely worth the really really long walk up there even though the actual church was closed and we weren’t able to see inside.

Next, we headed back towards town enjoying all of the sights.  The old harbor is beautiful, lively and seemed to be full of people (based on the various languages we heard) from many different countries.  We walked through the many upscale shopping areas offering anything one could want.   Continuing on, we found our way to the older neighborhoods where we happened upon the outdoor farmers market and the various other shops selling everything from produce, seafood, fresh meats and prepared foods.  I know I keep repeating myself but it was absolutely fascinating.

The next day, Sabine had invited us to a party she was attending near Marseille but we couldn’t get any reasonable transport so we spent a day cleaning up the boat and exploring our little island.  The island seems to be a sanctuary for seagulls.  We hiked most of the island and loved finding the momma’s protecting their newly hatched babies.  It’s a beautiful island and I can see why it's a popular excursion from Marseilles.

Finally, it was Sabine’s day off so we caught the train to Avignon where she met us at the station. Her daughter Leah accompanied her and we all found a great little café for lunch.  Sabine showed us a little of Avignon and then drove us back to her house where we also met her son Lillian and her "real" father. Laurent, her husband was traveling so we didn't get to meet him but it was still a perfect day.  She is so completely happy and we could not be prouder of her.

We spent the night with Sabine but left early the next morning.  Sabine has just started a new career as a baker and bakers have to start work at 6am.  We caught the train back to Avignon where we explored a little before grabbing another train back to Marseille and hitting the outdoor market one more time to stock up before catching the ferry back to the boat. 

Alas, our time in Marseille was up and the wind was blowing in the right direction so we continued heading east along the French Riviera.  Our first stop was the city of Bandol.  This lovely beachside town was a great introduction to the famous Cote d’Azur.  We wandered the marina fascinated by the traditional fishing/sailing boats and the huge boardwalk along the beach.  Of course, we had to peruse their wonderful outdoor market too.

The next morning, we took off and sailed to Iles d'Hyres - the first national marine park in Europe and a must see stop we got from some sailor friends.  While technically made of several islands, we anchored and took our dingy ashore at Ile de Porquerolles.  It’s very easy to see why this island is so popular.  No cars are allowed on the island, so numerous ferries arrive each day bringing tourists from mainland France.  The island is made of a quaint little town, numerous hiking trails and beautiful sandy beaches - most of the beaches we’d seen in France were pebbles.  We wandered around town and hiked around part of the island.  It was so picturesque that we decided to spend an additional night enjoying the beautiful albeit somewhat crowded anchorage.  On our second night, Pedro awoke about 4 am – he often does just to check on our position to the other boats.  Well, we’d either drug our anchor a bit or someone else had because we were uncomfortably close to another boat.  We were both wide awake at this point, so we decided to simply pull up anchor and get an early start. Thankfully, all was fine and we sailed a few hours before dropping anchor in a wonderful cove area where we stopped to fix breakfast.

Since it was still pretty early, we decided to pull the anchor back up and continue on to St. Tropez.  This might have been the first time that the boat realized she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.  Our first thought was thank goodness that our neighboring mega yachts all had tenders or else we would have been the smallest boat in the harbor by far. Anyway, pride be damned we were in St. Tropez so we dropped anchor in the wonderful little protected harbor and took the short dingy ride into town.  Yes, St. Tropez is exactly as amazing as you’ve always heard it to be.  The colorful harbor was filled with sidewalk cafés and artists both selling their existing work and painting new masterpieces.  It's absolutely perfect!

We left St. Tropez and continued east towards Cannes where we’d hoped to get close enough to visit.  We found an amazing – and apparently popular based on the number of other boats - anchorage between 2 islands just off the coast.  It was a perfect place to relax and people watch but a little too far to comfortably take the dingy into Cannes.  At this point, Sabine and her husband Laurent had made plans to come see us in Nice so we started trying to find a marina to pull into.  As I mentioned before, our boat size was small “pommes de terre” for this area so the first 3 marinas we contacted didn’t have any more small boat slips available.  Finally, the wonderful marina of Beaulieu sur Mer (about 15 minutes east of Nice) gave us a reservation for the weekend.

The town of Beaulieu sur Mer turned out to be yet another cute town.  We arrived a day early to clean up the boat and pick up some fresh groceries (yes, and maybe some wine).  The town was a delight to explore and we even met the most adorable cat who seemed to be either the town mayor or welcome wagon as we met up with him every time we wandered around town.

We got the boat cleaned and stocked up just in time for Sabine and Laurent's arrival.  As they'd never been sailing before, we decided to go a for a day sail.   At first the wind was too light for much sailing so we stopped in a nearby cove and spent a couple of hours playing with the paddleboard and eating lunch.  Luckily, the wind picked up nicely so we pulled up the anchor and we had a great sail back into the marina.

We decided to head into Nice for dinner choosing a place that specialized in socca.  This popular flatbread like dish is made with chickpea flour and various other toppings and is native to Nice.   It's so popular that we found ourselves waiting in line to get a table at the restaurant.  However, it was definitely worth the wait.  After dinner we took a walk along the boardwalk and around the marina.  From the size of the boats, it was easy to see why they had no interest in our little boat.

The next day, we decided to go back to Nice and explore a different section.  It was so great having our tour guides.  They are such an adorable couple and we thoroughly enjoyed their company as well as the beautiful city of Nice. Way too soon, our time was up and they had to get back home.  Before they left, Sabine snuck into a gift shop and bought me a bag with the saying “Great Mom” and a necklace with 2 interlocking hearts.   Again, we parted with the promise that we would meet again and it would not take another 16 years!

 

Since we still had one more day left to stay in the marina, we decided to catch the bus for a quick visit to Monaco.  While we decided against going inside, our first stop was the famous Monte Carlo casino.  The building itself was impressive and is located just above the even more impressive (in our opinion) marina.   The entire country of Monaco is reported to only be about 2 square kilometers and I think we walked every centimeter of it.  We went up to the top where the castle sits and wondered around the village there.  The previous weekend had been the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix so it was interesting to see the bleachers still setup and from atop we could make out the course it took.   Rather than wait about an hour for the next bus, we walked to the train station and just managed to catch the express train back to our boat.  The bus ride there took about 45 minutes (it was beautiful oceanfront roads, however) but the train ride back was about 8 minutes.  The scenery wasn't as nice but it was a fun ride nonetheless.

Finally, time had come to leave mainland France behind.  We anchored out for a couple of days and visited the nearby town of St. Jean Cap Ferret and then got a good weather window with enough wind to carry us the 90 or so miles to Corsica.  We had a really good sail and made it in about 20 hours, but I'll fill you in on that next time.

Here are all of my pictures:

France 2022

Until next post!