Travel with Dale & Margaret

St. Tropez, France, Morning

Today we arrived in St. Tropez (say Sahn trowpay) at about 7:30 on a beautiful, warm day.  I woke up about 6:30 as we entered the bay/harbor that is what seemed to be about a mile long finger of water between two peninsulas.  St. Tropez is really a peninsula that is hard to reach by road so most people arrive by water.  It is located on the French Riviera, also called the Côte d’Azur (the azure coast) which is the Southeast corner of France and Monaco.  The area was settled by Greeks and the story was much like we have heard already heard with a couple new twists regarding muslim Saracens.  The local people are called Tropéziens and they call the area St. Trop.

Margaret started coming down with some upper respiratory ailment last night and woke up this morning with a bit of sore throat and hoarseness.  She decided that she would stay back and get some rest while I went off the ship. Nothing unusual for us on longer trips but normally not because she is sick.  I had a quick breakfast at La Veranda.  The theater was packed with people at 8 am as the first tours were departing and I turned in my tour ticket in exchange for a Number 5 plastic ticket and waited for my number to be called.  It was a tender day so it took longer than usual.

By 8:30 we were off the ship and on another very nice tour bus with our red-headed female tour guide named Pascal.  Yes, like the mathematician and formerly very popular computer programming language but she made it clear that she had nothing to do with either.  She had a fairly thick French accent and gladly accepted assistance from our group when she was stuck on translations.  Definitely added a little more local flair than our excellent tour guide from yesterday who started out as a Canadian.

Todays tour was a combination of tours really.  Titled “Peninsula of Hilltop Villages” we would visit three medieval hilltop villages.  After taking the 10 minute tender ride into the port area of St. Tropez we passed by a cute little lighthouse at the harbor opening, past many huge yachts and some ordinary pleasure boats and landed at the main walk along the waterfront.   We walked about 10 minutes along the water learning about the history of St. Tropez.

The 30 minute ride took us through the countryside along a road lined with maritime stone pines that looked like umbrellas, oaks and cypress trees.  There was a vineyard here and there and lots of olive orchards.  There were also a number of nurseries that had a wealth of mature olive and palm trees for sale in containers.  It made me wonder how they could survive with roots that seemed to be only 2 feet deep at the most.

We could see the hilltop village of Grimaud in the distance as we started the drive up the windy, steep road.  That’s the whole idea of these villages.  St. Tropez was settled by ancient greeks.  Over the following centuries forts built up on steep hills so you could see the invaders from long distances, get everyone behind the walls and hope you can hold out.  The village of Grimaud is a perched village, with historical links to the Grimaldi family. Gibelin de Grimaldi aided William the Good drive the Saracens of Fraxinet out of the area in AD 973 and was rewarded with the land. The village is dominated by its 11th-century castle that has been partially restored.  The Gulf of Saint Tropez was known as the Gulf of Grimaud until the end of the 19th century.

After spending about 45 minutes at Grimaud we were off on a 20 minute drive to Gassin.  This was a lovely town with a nice church, narrow cobblestone streets, small hotels and restaurants.  It is a very quaint town that is famous for having the narrowest street in the world.  And, it really is narrow with even pretty thin people having to squeeze through sideways.  Seemed like someone didn’t follow the building code and tried to make their house bigger than planned.  We were supposed to have time to sit down and have a lovely latte at the very nice court of restaurants at the top of the city, all lining the street with nice patio seating areas but, once again, that didn’t happen.  Before you know it we were off again on another 20 minute bus ride to our next stop, Ramatuelle.

Ramatuelle was similar to the other two cities although it seemed to have a lot more shops.  By now the city was coming alive in that just like Barcelona, things happen later in the day than the states.  You could see that even on a Friday a number of locals were showing up for their breakfast at the somewhat trendy cafes.  This time we actually got some shopping and cafe time so I took advantage of it and sat down for a Rose and tapenade special where I saw another couple from the ship sipping on their lattes.  They looked yummy but went for the Rose anyway.  It was a bit too sweet for my taste, a Vin de Pays wine that didn’t match the wonderful light pink Provence style ones we had the day before.

One thing that is surprising me is how large an area the Provence region really is.  It encompasses all the areas we have been in since arriving in France and continues to another couple spots.  We found out that 80% of the wine produced here is Rose, 15% red and 5% white.  And, on the drive back to the ship there were domaines all along the road with beautiful vineyards sprinkling the country side.

Since it was now 12:30 I went straight to the ship to check up on Margaret and hopefully have lunch with her in Compass Rose.  But, it wasn’t to be.  She was still in bed and not feeling well.  Compass Rose had just closed so she ordered from room service while I had a quick lunch at La Veranda.  Since one of us needed to explore the town for the blog I went back out on the tender and explored the town for a couple hours.  The next post will talk about that adventure.

 

Marseille, France

Continuing on our tour for today our bus took us to the lovely town of Aix, pronounced simply as X.  If only all French pronunciations were that easy.  We were dropped off at a dramatic Apple Store located on a traffic circle that had a huge fountain at the center.  The Apple Store was one of their glass cube stores…quite a statement in an ancient town where almost every building was made out of the same golden colored stone taken from a nearby quarry.

We walked around town looking for lampshades for our Carmel house but we were sadly disappointed not to find anything even close.  We decided to go to a modern art museum populated with one Van Gogh, a number of Picasso’s and other artists that a man named John Planck had collected for a wealthy local man over the years.   It was a nice exhibition that had been constructed from a cathedral.  And, it was free and had great free restrooms.

That’s one thing you quickly learn about in these parts.  The public restrooms, er, water closets (WC for short) are few and far between and almost all have a person manning (usually a woman actually) them and sort of demand a 1/2 Euro tip.  Better solution?  Buy a coffee from a cafe and use their usually clean restrooms for free.  And, some are pretty interesting tours in and of themselves.

We walked around town a bit more and then settled into a street-side cafe (with free WC) with another accidental couple from the ship and had several rose’s and latte’s before walking the block to the Apple store and boarding the bus.

The bus ride back was about 30 minutes.  We then had drinks at the Observation Lounge at the top-front of the ship where we requested our fresh grapefruit juice to make our Pink Flower drinks.  We met a friendly chap named Chet and had a fun time hearing about his life and his beautiful wife named Mary Ann.  We then went to a late dinner at the Signatures restaurant and made it to bed at around 11 pm…unfortunately we noticed that Margaret’s voice was starting to get hoarse. Signs of things to come.

Marseille, France

Last night we sailed from Barcelona to Marseille (as in Marsay), the second largest city in France after Paris and the center of the third largest metropolitan area in France after Paris and Lyon.  Humans have inhabited Marseille and its area for almost 30,000 years, palaeolithic cave paintings in the underwater caves date back to between 27,000 and 19,000 BC and recent excavations near the railway station have unearthed neolithic brick habitations from around 6000 BC.

Our tour today is called Food & Wine Trails: A Country Vineyard in Provence and will be about 8 hours including a bus ride to the countryside, visiting a winery where we will have a tour and have lunch, a tour of a historic town called Aix (as in X) and then a bus ride back to the port.  Spending 8 hours on a bus ride is not exactly Margaret’s dream day but it turned out to be a wonderful time.  We had breakfast in the room.  It was a nice sunny day…we had heard that two days earlier the Mariner had this as their last stop before heading to Barcelona and that is was cold and very windy….the winds here are called the Mistrals and can blow up to 70 mph.

After turning in our tour tickets we got off the ship and met our tour guide Petra at a beautiful big, modern and perfectly clean coach.  We were VERY impressed.  This company has each driver in charge of the cleanliness of their busses and it showed.  The drive through the outskirts of Marseille was on freeways that went past houses that all looked remarkably similar…all had tile roofs and all were basically rectangular cubes and of slightly different hues of pink and beige.  We passed the largest shopping center in France that also happens to be open on Sundays which is a big deal in France.  Finally we reached the countryside dotted with vineyards and olive trees, more what we had in mind when we thought of Provence.  We reached the entrance to the Chateau Val Joanis in about an hour and 15 minutes.  The entrance had stone columns and our bus barely cleared them.

The winery tour was conducted by a pretty French girl with thick, dark haired named Jennifer.  She took us through the cellar and explained their method for distilling and fermentation.  In U.S. wineries they typically give you a little taste of something as they walk you through the wine making process, but here we had to wait, and wait, and then wait some more to try the wine.  The original owners of the winery had also planted a magnificent garden area that we were able to tour and enjoy the beautiful day (although still we had no wine to taste).   In the garden we saw many of the elements that our designer Scott had told us we must have in our new Carmel house garden including a steel arbor.

We congregated on the patio area where we were to eat lunch, and yes sample some wine, when suddenly a baby bird flew into Jennifer’s hair, probably thinking it was a huge nest!  After watching it try to escape the courtyard area we finally got to taste the white (Roussane and white Grenache) and rose (Grenache) wines.  They were both pretty good although wine does taste better when you have been parched waiting for it!  We sat on this glorious day under the plane trees and had a perfect meal with a quiche starter and chicken main course paired with both the Chateau Val Joanis’ 2012 and 2009 Syrah.  They rounded out the meal with dessert paired with late harvest wine. Yum!

Speaking of plane trees.  I had never heard of them.  They look like and are related American sycamore trees having the same variegated bark.  Napoleon planted these trees all over France because it provided shade for his troops.  So, you’ll see them lining the main streets of towns everywhere.  They tend to trim them pretty severely here so you see a lot of fairly short plane trees as in this garden although they can typically grow to between 100-165 ft tall.  We also had some time to shop in their store before heading off to Aix for a walk-a-bout.  We’ll cover this in the next post.

 

 

 

 

 

This morning we slept in a bit.  I got up at 8 and went up to the Club level and sample some of their very impressive breakfast spread.  They made me a couple great cappuccinos and I had them make one for Margaret to take back to the room.  She was just waking up and was more than happy to start the day off with cappuccino with a little Baileys.  Did I mention that they have a fully stocked bar available pretty much 24/7 and that included Baileys!

Once Margaret was up and dressed we went back to the Club and had breakfast together.  Like me she was impressed with the breakfast spread and service. You couldn’t go more than 5 minutes without one of the good looking young men and women coming up and asking if they could help you somehow. After another latte or two we were ready to go out and start exploring Barcelona.

We had heard that there was a historical museum fairly close to our hotel that had some ancient Roman ruins that were buried underneath the city as it was redeveloped so we decided to check that out.

We had been there for a day a few years back and had booked a driver who took us around to see the popular sites.  I had another day to explore than Margaret since she had contracted some type of stomach issue just prior to arriving.  But, we were still able to see all the top tourist attractions including the Sagrada Familia cathedral, La Rambla, Casa Battló, Casa Milà, Palau Güell and Park Güell. In a city most widely known for Gaudí’s modernistic architectural style – undulating walls, colorful chimneys and eye-catching building facades it can be easy to overlook the City History Museum’s glimpse into Barcelona’s past. Since we had just one morning in Barcelona we chose to check it out.

Since we wanted to get a feel for the city we decided to walk instead of taking a cab.  It was a very nice day, the city was still a little sleepy and not too hot so why not?  My iPhone gave us directions and off we went.  Things were going well until we started smelling some not so pleasant smells.  I said it smelled like a zoo or barnyard animals.  And, sure enough, right in front of us was a big sign that said ZOO.  Unfortunately, there was no way to avoid it unless we turned around and went back so Margaret told me to just breath through my mouth and we continued on. Lesson learned.

Located in the central Barri Gòtic or Gothic Quarter, the museum sits adjacent to the 13^th and 14^th century Royal Palace where, in its medieval courtyard known as the Plaça del Rei, it is believed King Fernando II and Queen Isabel welcomed Christopher Columbus upon his return from the New World.

As it was only 10:00 am, most of the shops we walked past were still closed and when we reached the museum it took us a while to figure out how/where to purchase the 6 Euro tickets, but we succeeded and soon found ourselves approximately 30 feet below the street in what once was the city of Barcino.

They had headsets with recorded messages in several languages and it was very well done.  Dating back to between the 1^st and 6^th centuries AD, the ruins were once buildings housing aspects of the Romans’ everyday life.   They include a factory where fish was chopped and salted, and a wine-making facility where grapes were pressed and wine fermented in open vats.  Hot and cold baths refreshed Roman citizens.  Well-defined pits once served as dyeing and laundering centers.

Very interesting and really amazing the amount of work that they have put into creating this exhibit. It took a little less than an hour for us to go through the entire museum which was nothing short of amazing. You could probably spend all day there 30 feet underground where we could reach out and touch history.

Our only challenge was figuring out how to exit the building.  There were mazes of displays and ropes to keep you moving from one exhibit to the next and we joked that the guard at the door was actually there to keep us in!   We finally asked where the exit was and the guard pointed to the door behind where he stood.  The centurion had rescued us as we needed to head back to the Arts Hotel, pack our bags and get to the ship!

Back above ground the temperature had gone up at least 10 degrees and there were now a lot of people walking around. This was the kind of thing that Margaret isn’t so much into.  We considered taking a cab and decided it was an excellent idea. 10 minutes later our female cab driver dropped us off in front of the hotel and within a few minutes we were having a snack in the club and going to our room to get packed.  We figured we could have a proper lunch at La Veranda on the Mariner.

We went downstairs, accompanied by another good looking student, collected our other bags and were assisted outside in flagging down a cab.  I confirmed with one of the kids that they have an intern program and use a lot of students, which we thought was an excellent idea.  Certainly gives the hotel a youthful look and all of them, bar none, were incredible.

The cab ride took longer than expected and it turns out that we should have made the trip to the ship a bit earlier as the airport busses were arriving chocked full of people in a hurry to get on the ship.  That being said, it really didn’t take that long to get through the process and we headed to Deck 11 at the back of the ship for lunch.  We went with our old standby Pouilly Fuisse (French Chardonnay) and the normal buffet fair.  It was a nice relaxing lunch with a beautiful view and we took as long as we could before heading up to our room, 885, to see if it was ready.  Of course, it wasn’t but within an hour we were all settled in our room, relaxing before the normal lifeboat drill had us crowded into a room with about 1/4 the ship and then outside on the lifeboat deck after donning our life preservers.

Before our dinner at Signatures, the French restaurant, we made our way to the Observation Loungeon the 12th floor and met Mihaela, who is a cute, bubbly bartender on the ship from Romania, and asked her if it was possible to get fresh squeezed grapefruit juice to make the “pink flower” drink that we learned about while traveling with our friend Judy on the Crystal cruise line.  She said it was possible and she would have fresh juice for us the next evening!  We were very excited.

We met a fellow cruiser at the bar named Chet and had fun talking to this character.  He quickly volunteered that he had a beautiful wife named Mary Ann but, since they just arrived, she was sleeping. He was a real hoot and we look forward to seeing him and meeting his amazing wife in the next couple of days.

Later at Signatures, the French specialty restaurant, for dinner, we met a very nice young lady named Maria who reminded us of our daughter Jenny…well Jenny with a French accent!  She was a lot of fun and we enjoyed our experience so much we decided to get a Reserve wine.  We found a Duckhorn Merlot magnum which they decanted.  We drank half, putting the other half into storage to have the next night.  It was a very nice dinner and a fun day as we looked forward to sailing to Marseille and onward.

Barcelona. Spain

The Barcelona airport was another ghost town, incredibly no paperwork at customs was required and we breezed through in just a couple minutes.  Nice!  But, it makes you wonder how they stop the bad guys from getting in.  Through all that I managed to read about 75% of Dana Perino’s new book, “And the Good News Is” while Margaret renewed her prowess playing “3’s” and “2048” on her iPad and we watched 2 movies and a couple TV shows.

After claiming our bags about 10 minutes later there were hundreds of cabs waiting in several cab lineups outside and we were off right away only to hit some traffic about halfway on the 10 mile trip to the Barcelona Arts Hotel.  Our travel agent had highly recommended this hotel which is right on the beach, beautiful and chocked full of young, good looking men and women to help you with anything you need.  Our room wasn’t ready yet at 9 am so we checked 3 of our bags and headed up to the 33rd “Club” floor, which was included with the package our travel agent Tiffany worked out for us. The Club had a panoramic view of the city and coast, a huge spread of great fresh food, freshly made lattes and fully stocked bar.  And, it was all free!  Every 5 minutes someone would come up and ask if they could help us with anything…a bit overkill but what the heck?  They were all incredibly nice and well-dressed young students.  Within an hour one of them came up and said our room was ready on the 28th floor.  That never happens at 10 am!

The room was fantastic, with a beautiful view to the South of the plentiful beaches and a nice view of the city.  Margaret got us settled in the room, I went down to the incredible pool (sorry, I forgot to take some pictures) to read my book and swim a bit and Margaret took a nap.  When I returned I joined in the napping.

Later, we returned to the Club for their tea service (not much Paleo stuff but it was still quite nice), had a couple drinks and some sweets and nuts and booked dinner at a restaurant walking distance from the hotel.  It was, quite literally, on the beach built on a boardwalk on the sand.  It was a beautiful, warm evening and there were a lot of interesting people walking along the sidewalk on the beach, beach volleyballers, a few dogs bounding across the sand, a young couple nicely kissing near the water and even a lady doing sun salutations (yoga moves) while her dog dug in the sand next to her.  The food (mussels, paella and white and red wine) was just OK, a bit salty, but the overall experience was still fantastic.

Back at the Club they had 6 different Spanish wines, all of them pretty good.  We had a glass and headed back down to our 28th floor pad, ready to hit the sack as we readied for our sightseeing in the morning.