France 2010 - Cote D'Azur
The BIG motor yachts and sailing yachts frequent this area of
the Med. You almost feel you shouldd have given the topsides
just another polish and renewed the sailcover list season rather than
four years ago.
Big Towns, Big Names and Big Numbers
Summer in the French Riviera has just big towns, Monte Carlo, Nice,
Antibes, Canne, Frejus, St Tropez (the last four are in fact in the
Cote D'Azur) associated with the big names of the film stars and
celebrities. We saw the towns but not the big names. The town each have
a certain charm about them and each have some unique feature which
makes it worthwhile to visit them but when all is said and done they
look very similar and the retail section repeats itself time after
time. We tend to stay out of the marinas with Malua and anchor in a bay
nearby and take the RIB into the marina or to a beach on a bus route to
the centre. The museum of Henri Matisse in Nice was very good indeed
because it showed his work during his stay in this particular villa
Cimiez with is muse. The Antibes museum of Pablo Picasso also covered
the period of his live while he lived in the area also with a muse
Francoise Gilot. I liked the painting of The Goat and the large
collection of plates with faces painted on them.
Iain visited Canne to see the film festival site and the hand prints
but we justed stayed away and took a long walk on the Ille Saint
Marguerite. It is a beautiful island which has been retained as a
nature park. The water around the island are shallow and afford good
anchorages so the Sunday night we arrived it was filled to capacity
however as they left to return to their home marinas we moved closer in
shore and a better location. The next day we walked the perimeter of
the island and stopped off at the Fort Royal. It housed "the man in the
iron mask" I must say its bare courtyards and cold cells must have made
it a very unpleasant place. Today it has a maritime museum which has a
relics of a Roman galleon very well preserved and presented. It well
worth a visit.
Tomorrow we visit Port de Fejus but like the other famous names John is
not in town to meet us so we will have to cruise down to St Tropez to
see if we can catch the last of the big names before everything shuts
at the end of summer for September is upon us and the chilly winds of
the north have started to blow and the last bus leaves at 6:30 pm.
Winter has arrived.
The end of the glitz and glammer came with the Mistral and the
port of Toulon.
Toulon, French Navy and the Mistral
Toulons all round anchorage has long been the harbour of choice to
shelter from the winter storms or as in our case the strong Mistral
wind. We entred after a night at the open anchorage on the Porquerolles
and looked at an anchorage recommended by a fellow cruiser but it
turned out to be too shallow for us so we headed off to the Darse
Vielle marina to find a safe spot. As we entred the port we were
greeted by nine warships on the horizon doing naval exercises plus
inumerable others tied up at the naval dockyard of Toulon. It has been
a harbour for centuries but the navies refuge since 1610. In 1793 the
young Napoleon Bonapart, an artilary officer who forced the British to
withdraw from their fort on the hill. After this success he was made
brigadier general which started his military career. The harbour has
been expanded since those times and now is the centre of the French
Mediterranean fleet. We saw them loading white UN amared personel
carriers and light tanks onto a large transport ship just outside the
marina entrance.
The Old port marina is rather run down but in the best part of town so
we checked in and tied uo stern too next to a British Moody 38. It
turned out they and a similar vessel in the marina had just traversed
the French canals this last summer and had their masts stepped at Port
Napolion where Malua is to spend the winter.
I was woken on the first night as a thunder storm came over us and
heavy rain started to fall. Fortunatly we had closed all the hatches
and portlights before it started. I was standing in the companionway
listeming to the thunder when I heard a freight train approach. It was
only seconds away then Malua, and all the other boats around us lurched
to starbord the jumped to port. Our rail was almost under the water.
Malua was throun backwards and hit the dock with a thud. The wind then
changed direction and came from the north west with 35 knots strength.
It was awsome. People say whenyou hear the train the wind is over 50
knots. Well the way it tossed Malua about I would say it was well over
that measure. Fortunatly Malua was not badly damaged so we just took in
a few more inchs of line and wated for the rain to stop which it did
soon afterwards however the wind continued for two days at well over 25
knots. Good decision to come into the marina.
While the wind was still blowing we visited the naval museum, the
markets and rode the buses back and forth around the city. Not much to
see but a great feel to the place especially the fountains and the
markets. We stocked up on food at the Carrefour for the last stretch of
our journey before hauling out for the winter
.
Follow are cruise west here...
France Rhone Area
