Today is our final full day here and although I’ll be sad to leave I’m sort of melting in this heat and slightly cooler temperatures will be a welcome respite. I must say I have the best tan I’ve ever had and I’m giving full credit to this soft, amazing Mediterranean sun. We spent the morning on a calanque boat tour which was slightly longer than we would’ve preferred. It was an hour and a half and after the first half hour we’d pretty much seen all we needed to – it was HOT! Crazy French people were taking pictures as though they’d never seen a cliff before – if they hadn’t had digital cameras I’m sure they would’ve spent hundreds of dollars (euros!) just developing the darn cliff photos. We snapped a few key shots and then sat back and relaxed. The colour of the Mediterranean was dark indigo blue against a cloudless, pale blue sky and it was just so simple and beautiful. The occasional sailboat in the distance… it’s not hard to see why people flock here. Plus, this is the only warm, beach-y place that Julia (our fair, sensitive skinned girl…) hasn’t got a heat rash! Mexico, Florida, Hawaii… everywhere else she gets one within the first few days and this temperature is much, much hotter than those places. Definitely a reason to come back!
Lunch today was so fresh – the fish we ate was probably swimming around with its little friends learning about riptides and such and then POOF it appeared on our plate lightly salted and served with lemon. Perfectly cooked too, I might add. And the sorbet… heaven in a little dish! We chose lemon, cassis (why not, we’re here!), and a chocolate mocha. The lemon was so tart that you sort of cried a bit when you ate it but for some reason kept digging your spoon back in, while the cassis was so exactly perfect with little tiny berries in it. So, so good, and so real.
Tomorrow we will check out of our place here and drive to Marseille to return our rental car and catch a train to Brugges (via Brussels). Supposedly our place there has an internet connection which should eliminate my need for ‘cut and paste’ posts! I’m really enjoying posting these trivial, day to day events because I know without doing this I would’ve already forgotten many of the little things we’ve done.
So now we’ll spend our last few hours on the beach, drink a little more wine, eat a little more cheese, crème brulee, baguettes… then pack up and head north for Belgium. Beer, chocolate and waffles!
Au revoir
PS - Just had to add this - we are on the beach and somehow Jeff found a wi-fi hot spot and we are literally basking in the sun drinking a French beer while checking our email! The girls have built themselves a rock bed and are lounging in the surf... (the beach we are on has very fine pebbles instead of sand). We are sitting next to a family that I'm guessing is Romanian or something like that because their bathing suits look like they could've been worn by Nadia Comenci (sp?) in the 1980 Olympics. So interesting... I keep waiting for them to start flipping around!
PPS - No picture posting today because I'm on the beach and too lazy. Pardonez-moi!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Well, our relaxing Wednesday made Jeff and I a little ‘rouge’ so we decided to make Thursday a ‘tourist’ day (one involving driving instead of beaching…). We hopped in the car and headed east to Nice. The drive went smoothly (thanks again to the French autoroutes) aside from a very irritating detour in Toulon that added at least a half hour to our drive and a huge headache due to crazy traffic! Once through that it was smooth sailing and we arrived in Nice with no complications aside from trying to find a darn parking spot! We ate lunch on the beach and it was beautiful but insanely hot – I actually started to feel a bit sick and had to leave the table to go and stand in the cool sea water. Later, when chatting with the waiter, he mentioned that today was extremely hot (38C) so it made me feel like less of a Canadian wimp as he repeatedly wiped his brow. Nice was interesting, and I’m glad we saw it, but it felt just like Paris but with a beach. Big city, expensive, lots and lots of fancy hotels and overpriced restaurants but still beautiful and fun. I much prefer where we are staying – it’s a smaller scale and much more quaint, and it you actually get a feel for where you are. It’s like we’re locals! We are using our French as much as we can and the kids are great at saying merci whenever they are given something. I actually had a little conversation with the strange old man living below us today. He started rambling away in rapid fire French when we walked in and I had to say that I could speak it but only a little. He slowed down and mentioned that we were sometimes too loud (perhaps because of the skipping rope used the previous day?) so could we please be mindful of him downstairs. I don’t think we’ve been very loud at all honestly, but this old man was wearing nothing but short shorts with weird leggings underneath so who’s to say what he feels is normal….
After lunch we took the kids to a playground we had seen while circling the city looking for parking. They were very excited to finally be able to climb and slide (only pity was the lack of swings) so we spent a very pleasant hour there – it was in the shade with a nice breeze so it was very manageable. We ended up sitting next to a couple from Pennsylvania who heard us speak and were excited to have someone else to converse with in English. They too had travelled with their kids a lot so it was fun to have someone to swap stories with. We finally had to leave when we realized poor Julia was bright red and requesting some cold water! Oops.
We had intended on stopping in St. Tropez on the way back (for no other reason to check on the status of P. Diddy’s yacht and do some people watching!) but we were hot and tired and made the executive decision to just get back home and relax. We had a quick snack and hit the beach, at 7 pm, which was kind of strange. We stayed for at least an hour and it stayed hot and sunny the whole time. I can’t get enough of this Mediterranean lifestyle! After getting back to our place and cleaning up we finally went out for dinner at 9 pm, very different than at home! The kids have been beyond amazing at restaurants as Jeff and I eat 2 or 3 courses each night… I have special little toys that they can only have in restaurants so they don’t mind being there at all! The benefit to these late nights is that they sleep in until 9 each morning… very civilized indeed.
I’m typing this on our bed hoping that I’ll be able to connect to the internet sometime tomorrow. Today on the beach I had my iPod and went and stood under an awning close to the restaurant where we’ve had lunch before and used their free Wi-Fi. It totally worked and I was able to check my email which was fun, although I may have looked strange pacing the outside length of the restaurant in my bikini trying to look inconspicuous. (Can’t say enough about my iPod Touch – love it!) Oh, and an aside about the beach – I think this is the most relaxed I’ve ever been. There seriously doesn’t seem to be any body consciousness here, just a bunch of people hanging out in the sun relaxing. Old ladies in string bikinis, pregnant ladies letting it all hang out, French men with big beer bellies and teeny speedos… it’s all good! I think this may be my favourite place I’ve ever visited… seriously.
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