Au Revoir Riviera
Sleeping on a boat has taken a bit of getting used to. I’d imagined a gentle cradle-like rocking off to sleep, lulling me into my dreams but it is in fact quite noisy, with water splashes, creaks and groans and other miscellaneous noises happening all through the night. They tell me it gets easier the more you do it. I guess that means we’ll just have to have more boat trips to test the theory. Adding to those noises last night was the nightclub (“Trendy Discoteque” -*actual name) directly across the water, packed and pumping until 5am! These past few nights, I’ve also had a couple of resident French mozzies absolutely going to town on me. I reckon they’re going to miss me when I’m gone. I’m looking like I have some sort of disease, covered in spots from head to toe.
After a refreshing morning dip, Chelle whipped us up a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and we left Port Saint Laurent, our cute little mooring with its own lighthouse, and set sail for Villefranche-sur-Mer. Once again, God had blessed us with near perfect conditions; no wind, calm seas, blue skies. A perfect day to be out on the front deck soaking up the sun.
Al took the boat so close to the shoreline of Nice, we could see everything in clear detail, almost so close we could see what they were having for lunch. Admiring the architecture and the gorgeous promenade, we glided along the coast. Whenever we go in close somewhere, all four of us line the deck pointing wildly and sprouting successive “Look at thats..!” A giant game of Where’s Wally follows as we try to locate what someone’s looking at. “Oh yeah! Oh wow!” Then “look at that!” A castle on the hill, a turret, a chateau…it’s a smorgasbord for the eyes.
We pulled into the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer and it was like a pond. Up on the hill above us was the Villa et Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild mansion, pretty in pink and surrounded by manicured gardens. The old town, with its caramel coloured houses, weathered shutters open to the breeze, rose up from the sea on one side while more modern, low level unit blocks curved around the rest of the bay. Bright purple bougainvilleas were dotted all over the hill. We could see the mountain we had walked down the day before and with a silent pat on the back, we secretly congratulated one another again, marvelling that we were actually still alive.
In in the afternoon, just as the sun had begun it’s descent towards the horizon, bathing the bay in a warm golden glow, the four of us piled into the rubber ducky for a close-up look around the shoreline. The architecture was incredible and it was fun waving to all the locals as we puttered by. We returned to the boat for what would sadly be our last night on the high seas. Chelle cooked us a beautiful 3 course dinner, which we ate by candlelight on the back deck and reminisced about the awesome week we’ve had.
