Saint Tropez

We left Nice today in pretty good order. The weather was slightly miserable so it was a good day to drive. We had the most orderly exit from the city that we’ve had so far. Either I’m getting better at this European driving, or people are clearing out when they know I’m on the road.

We started out on the main highway which was easy and uneventful. In order to see a little more of the coastline we switched to the side roads somewhere near Frejus. We weaved in and out of the small coastal towns, never more than a stone’s throw from the sea. It was hard to keep an eye on the road, which was necessary due to all the pedestrian crossings and roundabouts. I got to see quite a lot more as we neared Saint Tropez as we ground to a near halt and crept along the last few miles in first gear.

We found our hotel OK and checked in. We hustled in to town as the weekly market takes place on Tuesdays and we thought we could still make it. The Place des Lices was indeed full of vendors, but they were all closing up their stalls. So we switched over to our second priority: lunch. Le Café was highly recommended and seemed to be quite busy so we sat down there. I got a pretty good chicken Caesar salad, but Fiona’s roast chicken looked like it had been mummified along with King Tut sometime during Egypt’s second dynasty. I kept expecting it to get up and start fighting Brendan Fraser. I guess one of the downsides to imperfect French is the inability to complain effectively. It’s not really one of the things they teach at school or in the language software. “Where is the post office” and “my father smokes a pipe” are in there, but useful phrases like, “I asked for roast chicken and it appears that you have given me some extra desiccated chicken jerky – this is not acceptable” just don’t make an appearance.

We did stick around for dessert – we had to because Fiona was still hungry. She was shocked back to life again with a good strong cup of French coffee. This one was apparently stronger than usual, resembling the semi-solid coffee drink that my sister Linda brews up. But it all turned around with our choice of the St. Tropez specialty, Tarte Tropezianne. It was beyond good. We were dueling each other with spoons to get at the last few pieces. It’s essentially a couple of layers of sponge cake with a fortified custard in between. You need to experience it for yourself.

We attempted to do our usual tour of historical and social landmarks, but the tour of the first one, the Citadel over the city, kind of suggested to us that maybe St. Tropez wasn’t that kind of place. While the old fort was interesting, you could tell that no one, even the people charged with maintaining it, really cared too much. It could be quite cool, but instead came across as kind of dumpy and run down. The highlight was a wandering peacock.

So we gave up on anything intellectual and wandered down to the harbour to people watch, and take part in another St. Tropezian past-time – yacht ogling. We saw quite a few “small” boats that we could spend a few weeks on. There was quite a variety – sailboats, power yachts and fishing boats. We grabbed a couple of cocktails in one of the local bars – they go through the effort of making sure all chairs give you a view of the people walking by. Our dinner afterwards was slightly less successful than our great Mojitos and Rossinis (champagne with strawberry puree).

We’re going to attempt to catch a boat to a neighbouring island tomorrow – so up early. That hasn’t tended to be a problem with us on this vacation, but to avoid a sure case of Murphy’s Law, we’re setting the alarms.