Traipsing thru St. Tropez

---

We had breakfast in the Lido before we needed to be in the Showroom for our tour around 8 AM. I just had some potatoes and sausage and a couple of rolls; while, Sharon had some French toast. The room was packed as we arrived, and we were given our tour sticker at the door because St. Tropez is a tender port. We had to wait a few minutes while the five groups ahead of us headed to shore first.



Somehow the group after us leapfrogged ahead of us to get the next bus; and, we had to wait for the next bus to be allowed to enter the port-dock area. We could see it waiting at the red and white striped gate just a couple hundred feet away. When another bus left, there was room for this bus to come and pick us up. Our tour guide told us that her name is Pascal. She said, “Like the mathematician and philosopher; but, don’t worry, I’m not going to philosoph.” She assured us that our driver Stephen was one of the best in France.



There were advertisements to go parasailing on a billboard that showed three people descending seated together on one parasail. This is so different from when Ron and I did parasailing in Hawaii almost thirty years ago. Ruth mentioned later that she watched some people doing this and it was still something she wants to do someday.



Bridget Bardot put St. Tropez on the international map when she starred in the movie “When God Created Woman” back in 1956. She created a scandal that reached from the Vatican to the US. Provence is the name of this region in southern France encompassing the French Riviera. Here it is sunny 300 days of the year. Lavender, which is the symbol of this region is in bloom only in July, and you must travel about 2 hours inland to see the endless fields of lavender. Our tour is titled “The Villages of Provence” and includes stops in three local communities. Our first stop was in the Medieval village of Gassin, high in the hills with an excellent vantage point for viewing the vast greenness below and the entire bay of St. Tropez. The sun was rising in our face at this early hour just after 9 AM. The town is composed of many winding narrow streets and walkways, reminiscent of Santorini; but with French type houses that were not yet bustling with activity. Unusual for a Saturday morning, the church was closed and we could not go inside. We walked down a maze of walkways between buildings, all butted up to its neighbor, and many with connecting archways over the walkways. We followed a sign directing us to the restaurants, where many had businesses along the buttressed walkway on the edge of the village where there was an incredible view of the surrounding rolling green fields below. Some of the restaurants were beginning to get ready for opening up a bit later, probably around noon. There were pizzerias and cafes and some with chalkboards with handwritten specialties all in French. I didn’t notice any multi-language subtitles that you see in the bustling tourist centers. This medieval village still had the outward appearance of being a sleepy hamlet. Only some of its streets could accommodate cars, and our bus had to drop us off in a small parking lot at the edge of down so we could walk in, starting with a stone staircase. We took plenty of pictures of St. Tropez below and were truly awed by the view. We had about one hour to walk around on our own.



The next village that we visited was Ramatuella. These medieval communities really do encompass what I imagine when you hear the term “village”. It’s not like the way the Chinese used this term when we visited some “villages” along the Yangtze River, a term they use to refer to communities of 1 million people. Our guide pointed out a Patisserie that features a local favorite “La Tarte Tropezienne”. The story goes that when Bridget Bardot was filming in St. Tropez she fell in love with a pastry made by a Polish immigrant who used his grandmother’s family recipe. She urged him to promote these buttercream delicacies in its simple sugar coated donut-like shell and to call them la tarte Tropezienne. And the rest, as they say, is history. They come in all sizes from the massive pizza-pie sized ones for 30 Euro down to the baby single bite sized ones for 1.60 Euros (okay, maybe it’s a two-bite sized pastry treat for Sharon). We each got a “naturale” and a “chocolat” treat; but, we both thought the plain buttercream was by far the best. They also made some with some fruit or jam accents. We spent about one hour here as well, walking down some narrow alleyways between the houses that seemed to have a haphazard arrangement.



Our final village was to visit Port Grimaud, a lakeside village renowned as the French Venice with canals and bridges. Again, each building is built touching its neighbor, each painted its own individual color, and some even had stone facing. For 5 Euros for both of us, we took a 30 minute boat ride around Grimaud, which you really need to do to get the full impact of the size of this community and its extensive marina. Boats dock right in front of the houses. We walked over a stone bridge to get into the center of town. There were many business, and many gelaterias. Unfortunately, late October is not the summer season and all of the gelaterias were closed. A couple of cafes were open, and one offered pizza, but there really wasn’t enough time to do the boat ride, a sit-down restaurant, and the sightseeing and picture taking around the square in the hour that we had, so we’d have to wait to get back to the ship to eat and get pizza and ice cream there.



The trip back to the ship was short. While on the boat in Grimaud we’d spotted the Nieuw Amsterdam across the bay, not too terribly far away. I went up to get today’s Sudoku while Sharon got her Burger at the Dive-In to take bake to the cabin. I ordered my mushroom and tomato pizza with white-sauce, only I added Kalamata olives to the pizza, and it turned out to be the best pizza yet from HAL’s New York Pizza. Sharon was finishing her burger by the time I returned to the cabin with her chocolate ice cream. She wasn’t able to eat one side of the bun since it was apparent they had put a cheeseburger on their first leaving remnants of cheese on it. We did our Sudoku challenge; but, this just wasn’t Sharon’s day. Both puzzles allowed too many numbers to be run and Sharon’s style of annotating first only helps if the puzzles are a bit tougher.



It was another port day with a Team Trivia and mass conflict. I sat down at an available table and chairs in the back and I evidently squatted on an area staked out previously by another team. They came and sat down and one said to the other, “Is he going to be playing with us?” I knew nobody else was coming so I joined their team of three. It was so noisy at first, with music blaring in the background that we didn’t even hear the question. We somehow came up with the part of the body that can get flattened if you have an autoplastic operation. It is your ear. And the woman did know the name of the dog in “Peter Pan”. We guys were clueless. The answer was “Nana”. And we also came up with the comic book character that was married to Tess Trueheart. I don’t remember Dick Tracy as being married, but that was the answer. Into the bonus questions, we guessed 3 for the number of Cayman Islands, and we got that one right. Unfortunately, we also went with 3 for the number of books in the “Maze Runner” series… we should have gone with one more. We were conflicted with what city has the world’s largest bullfighting ring. We were torn behind what seemed obvious (Madrid), or likely because it is our next port of call (Barcelona), and so we went with Mexico City (which turns out to be right). We went with Chile for the country with a ski-lift at a higher elevation than anywhere else. I should have suggested Bolivia (because a previous question had this as an answer for the highest golf course). Oh well. We didn’t win.



Tonight was the final gala night. Sharon was already back from mass when I returned from trivia. We dressed and went down to dinner. Sharon ordered the Surf and Turf. I ordered the jumbo shrimp and brandy sauce, the sweet potato and anise cream soup and the cheese tortellini. I just can’t understand why they keep coming up with these really lame cocktail sauces when it isn’t that hard or that expensive to come up with some really good cocktail sauces, that will knock your socks off! Okay, maybe everyone doesn’t like the really high-octane stuff; but, then once you’ve had it… I’m just saying.





The Show for us was a reprise of the HAL performers’ show of Marquee. We enjoyed it again. Afterwards we made our way to watch the “Marriage Game”. The newlyweds had only been married fifteen years. The second couple had been married fifteen years, before divorcing, but remained together as best friends for the past twenty years, just that she lives in her house and he in his house. The final couple had been married 53 years. One of the more humorous points was when she was asked who her husband’s girlfriend was before she came along. Her answer was that she was his first boyfriend. Then she added, “And after 53 years I better not find out otherwise!” Fortunately, her husband confirmed this.

---