Bonjour! Today we anchored outside Cannes and took small
boats into the French Riviera. We walked around the beach for a little while,
put our toes in the warm Mediterranean Sea and then, of course, did some
eating. Apple tart for Mike & me, homemade ice cream bars for the kids. The
beach was crowded and there were all sorts of people enjoying their day. From ping-pong playing topless grandmas to
speedo clad grandpas, there was no body shame on the Riviera today!
After our beach time we boarded a bus for our shore excursion
to the Villages of Provence. The ride was over an hour long, winding along the
coast and then into the countryside. We stopped at Seillans first. A great
village with steep hills and cobblestone roads. Every corner was like an old
world photo, laundry hanging off of balconies, multi-colored doors and shutters
and vines growing on all the buildings. We went into a little church and I was
quite pleased to see that over 50% of the statues and paintings were of women
saints and Virgin Mary. Yay girl power! We loved our tour guide who was an absolute
wealth of knowledge. I hope I can remember at least 1/10 of what she told us.
Here are some cool facts we learned:
*Seillans was once a walled city- you can still see parts of
the old wall all over the village
*Many of the houses were built up high with an archway
forming above the roads, this way people would be able to live above the wet,
filthy streets. Added bonus: it would be less likely that invaders would get
into their houses.
*All the entrances to the houses were ladders, so they could
just pull the ladder up and make it more challenging for those darned invaders
again.
*The Greeks settled the French Riviera around 6 or 7 BCE. They
weren’t warriors and they had a lot of problems with pirates. Eventually they
asked the Romans (around 1 BCE) to help them out. Villages like Seillans were
the perfect place for Romans to settle-just far enough away from their Greek
allies, to well, stay allies. Much of the architecture is influenced by the
Roman Empire.
*Another point of interest is that the butchers and bakers
were extremely important village members. There was only one butcher and one
baker per village and it was a five year stint guaranteed. For a long time the
baker was the only person in the village with an oven. If you wanted to bake
something you would have to pay the baker to use his oven. Sweet deal for the
baker (cheesy pun semi-intended).
Seillans is one of those places that make you think” if I
only had an extra few million dollars I would totally have a second house here
in the French countryside.” I just loved it.
Okay moving on to gorgeous Fayence. Fayence is a bigger
village with an upper and lower “city.” There is a beautiful church, bell tower
and some really amazing lookout spots. We had (and I quote Caroline our tour
guide) “less blah, blah, blah and more free time,” in Fayence. It had been a
long day and we were hungry. So we set off to find food. We had a couple of
distractions along the way-Mike almost bought a fancy shirt, but backed out, I
tried to translate a French menu, but all I could decipher was that there was
going to be a lot of ham and a lot of eggplant in every dish-and little things
like that. We finally ended up at a little outdoor restaurant where I butchered
just enough French to get us a table and a few menus.
That’s when I took a
moment to look at the time and see that we had less than 20 minutes to get back
to the bus. I don’t know much about France, but I feel pretty confident that
you cannot order and eat a full meal in twenty minutes. Things got a little
rough here, we ended up only ordering drinks, I couldn’t for the life of me
string a couple of sentences together, couldn’t remember how to say we only
have fifteen minutes, and so on. Time ticked on and our drinks didn’t come and
I had to go in and tell them we had to leave. The waitress was lovely about the
whole thing. Her English and my French were equally pathetic, but we both
tried. The owner on the other hand was pretty angry. I had a terrible mood dive,
forgetting that I am soooo lucky to be in FRANCE right now. I was hungry and frustrated with myself, plus
totally embarrassed that I retained next to nothing of my five plus years of
school girl French. Try as I might I could not manage to get mon petit chou or
zut alors! into a single conversation. Ah well. Once we got back to the ship I got an
attitude adjustment in the form of sugar, carbs, and a little protein to boot. I’m
my old self again.
Tomorrow we hit Florence. I’m hoping one of these other
lovely family members will take on tomorrow night’s blog. Stay tuned! A biento!
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