Intro Part II (Liguria & Lake Como) Part III (Villages & Friends) "From Napoleon to the Riviera II"
Friday, 24 September. We enjoyed a lazy morning, reading and relaxing after breakfast. The ship anchored off the beach at San Tropez at 10 a.m., but we weren't scheduled to go ashore for our bus tour until after lunch. This would be our first and only "wet landing." The bow of the tender was run aground on the beach, and we had to step through just a bit of water to get to dry land. The 1:30 bus tour was guided by a local agency, not the people from IST. There were two buses since both Elderhostel groups were going. We drove around the edge of San Tropez. Our first stop was Port Grimaud, a modern day Venice built in what was a marsh by a very bold (and now very rich) developer. We toured the canals in 40-passenger boats. It is a beautiful little town. Every house is on the water, so most residents own their own boats.
The buses then took us toward the hills behind St. Tropez. Our first stop there was the town of Cogolin where we were taken to a small workshop where briar pipes are made. It was in the rear of a store selling briar artifacts and other tourist goods. Hardly anyone was interested in either the workshop or the store, and we stayed there way too long. When we finally were told to board the buses, there was a revolt. Many of the group complained that this tour was a waste of time and demanded to be taken back to St. Tropez and allowed to explore it on their own. When a poll was taken, the group seemed evenly divided, so the rebels were taken back on one bus and the rest of us agreed to continue the tour, but with the understanding that we would not stop at any more shops. Our bus then wound into the mountains to the village of Gassin where it parked near the top of a hill. We walked up to the top for a panoramic view of the Gulf of St. Tropez.
The bus continued on through the mountains to Ramatuelle, originally a Saracen village. There was no place for the bus to park on the narrow streets of the old town, so we were dropped off and told to meet in 40 minutes. We were a little upset at this point because the tour was running so late. We were supposed to have met Claude in St. Tropez at 5:30 for a tour of the Musee de l'Annonciade, and it was already 4:50. However, Ramatuelle was a very charming town with narrow streets and many old houses and arches. We also visited the old church.
It was after 5:30 by the time we were back on the bus. It turned out that we had been on somewhat of a circular loop and were actually not as far from St. Tropez as we thought. The driver took some back roads and wound up right at the waterfront by the Museum without seeming ever to have gone through the city streets until the very end. We were at the Musee de l'Annonciade before 6 p.m., and good old Claude was waiting. He had already taken one group through at 5:30 as scheduled, so we had the benefit of a smaller group than if we had all been on time. This was a museum of neo-impressionist modern art (Signac, Picabia, Matisse, Dufy, Bonnard, Vuillard, Braque, Vlaminck, et al.) housed in what had been an old chapel (1510) before the French Revolution. Although we had never appreciated modern art, nor known much about it, Claude taught us a lot in a short time and made it very interesting. Afterwards we had a few minutes to look around the waterfront. The Quay de l'Epi near the museum was full of artists trying to sell their work.
We took the 7:15 tender back to the ship. This was the last night of the cruise and of the Elderhostel tour, so there were a lot of goodbyes to be said that evening. We made a special point of thanking Claude and Denis. We were in the dining room until 10 p.m. Then we packed until midnight so we could put our luggage out before going to bed. Saturday, 25 September. We were up at 5:45. The ship had left St. Tropez around 2 a.m. and was already coming into the harbor at Cannes.. We had to retrieve our passports from the ship's purser before a quick breakfast. We caught the 7:20 tender ashore. Our tour leaders had gotten the message about luggage handling being included in the price of the tour, and our bags were waiting at the bus. The bus left Cannes at 8:00 and we were at the Nice airport before 9:00. We said our final goodbyes and headed for the car rental desk to start the next phase of our 40-day journey. |
