Tousled in Toulon

Every region in the Med has its 'devil wind'. In Greece, it's the Meltami, in Croatia it's the Bora. Well in France, the feared wind is from the north west and is called Le Mistral. And one was coming! We'd be prancing around at anchor in Canuobiers, taking day trips into Saint Tropez to rub bums with the rich and wanna-bees.

Spit finding a little nook to call its own.

Harbour front in St. Tropez

Lots of folk playing 'Whose got the biggest...'

The old struggling artist fleecing the tourists

Saint Tropez became famous as the home of the licentious and bohemian in-crowd back in the days of Roger Vadim and Brigit Bardot. However, its time in the sun has long passed, and now it seems to be filled with wannabee beautiful people with very big toys, preening in front of the admiring tourists. Not much excitement here!

Megan admiring the parks of St. Tropez

St Tropez streets

Even the big boys stuff it up parking sometimes...

Anyway, we'd heard that some mistral action was on its way, and wanted to find some safe harbours (there's not a lot of shelter from NW winds on this coast). Toulon seemed to offer a safe refuge, so we fled through a variety of ports on the way to Toulon.

We ventured further into the bay from St. Tropez to Port Grimaud. For our Australian readers, Port Grimaud is a bit like Southport and Hope Island (on Brisbane's Gold Coast) done right. Its a purpose built marina / apartment complex. The architect wished to create an idealised Provencial village, albeit one where you could pull your boat up to the front door. Bye and large, this succeeded, creating a very attractive and sympathetic development. However, you would now need to be very wealthy to afford an apartment here, or even to stay a night in the marina... however, us canny pavlovians used the franchise principle and scored 2 free hours on the quai d'acceuil, enough time to grab the bikes and race out to find an Orange shop for our all-important 4G fix.

Quai d'accueil at Port Grimaud

The village apartments of Port Grimaud, reminiscent of a Provencial village

From Canuobiers (which comes from the word Cannibis, this was a bay where they used to grow hemp for rope making), we headed out to a delightful bay. The settled conditions allowed us to anchor out in the Baie of Briand. The water here was so clear, even anchored in 10 meters, that we felt like Pavlov was floating in an aquarium. From here, it was a short hop to a lovely chain of islands just off the French coast, the Iles des Porquerolles.

Cape Taillat

Lovely anchorage in the Bay de Briand.

We stopped for fuel and a quick shop at Cavalier, before crossing to the Porquerolles.

Modern tourist resort of Cavalier 

Pavlov on the quai d'acceuil at Cavalier

The first island of the Porquerolles, Ile du Levant, is owned by the French military. Interestingly, they have created the only port on the island by stranding an old navy vessel to create a breakwater.

Artificial breakwater at Ile du Levant.

We spent a few days anchored off Ile de Port Cros and Ile de Porquerolles. The season has 'officially ended' even though we've had great weather. Consequently, the crowds that would normally flock to these popular anchorages have thinned out considerably. We had a delightful time here, particularly in Port Man. However, the big smoke beckoned, so we headed into Toulon.

Toulon from seaside

Sea walls of Toulon port

Toulon is the second largest naval port in France, after Brest, so it is packed with all types of naval vessels, and most of the huge and well sheltered port is closed to pleasure craft.

Small navy patrol boat

Toulon naval waterfront and dockyards

Pavlov docked in the Vieux Port, Toulon

Megan on the Toulouse waterfront 

We ended up staying a week in Toulon. The mistral finally came and blew itself out, we were so well sheltered we hardly noticed. Although Toulon is a working town with little tourist interest, we find that these are the kinds of places we enjoy the most.

Toulon cafe 

Market square fountain

Vast public plaza 

Civic building

Old harbour crane now a tourist park

Seyne-sur-mer on the Toulon harbour

Toulon streets

We travelled around by bus, went to the Maritime museum, shopped in the markets and did all the usual things.

Maritime museum

Large ship models in the maritime museum

Apartment block with ship prow

So we missed the wind, and had a great time in the city. We are really enjoying France, but all too soon, it will be coming to an end. C'est la vie!

Running down the Cote d'Azur

After leaving Villefranche, we exercised the right of franchise and tied up to the quay d'accueil at Antibes. We only had two hours, and an urgent need to shop, but Antibes turned out to be a wonderful town, somewhere we'd love to visit again. With our time up, we headed out to St. Marguerite, one of the two islands in the Ile de Lerins. These lovely islands are pine-forested nature reserves, and we enjoyed walking around the island on the wooded trails. After a few tranquil days, we decided to see what Cannes was all about. We anchored off the rolly beach and tendered in for a look around this famous town.

Cruisers in the anchorage off Cannes

Cannes foreshore

The small port at Cannes that we tendered into... turned out to be a boat show.

The only place suitable to beach Spit was in the small port of Cannes, so we happily motored in. There was a huge boat show being set up, but we snuck Spit into a corner and wandered into town. We didn't however, notice the security around the site, and had a very difficult time trying to get back to our dinghy.

Main square in Cannes

Shopping street of Cannes

Pedestrian mall in Cannes

Cannes wasn't that interesting, and the anchorage just off the main beach was very rolly and crowded, so we left to find a quieter anchorage. We found one off the romantic little village of Theole, which was like an exclusive gated marina/village complex. We anchored in a small bight off the marina and tendered into the village.

Pavlov at anchor off Theoule 

Marina/Port of Theoule

Small beach in Theoule

A most unusual sport, boat boff bats!

Theoule featured a most unusual sport, we saw two specially adapted row boats with a raised platform projecting off the stern. The poster (pic) explained the sport, where two contestants armed with wooden swords tried to knock each other off the boat platforms. Such fun! From Theole, we headed to the small bay of Agay, another neat little anchorage.

Sweet little anchorage in Agay

Interesting red hills behind Agay

The plage at Agay

Lenticulars presaging the arrival of the Mistral

From Agay, we caught the bus into Saint Raphael. Lots of lovely chateaux and beaches, but St. Raphael failed to inspire. We did however, have a wonderful lunch, our first true 'French meal'. We don't eat out much in France, as it is very expensive.

St. Raphael

Seaside promenade at St Raphael

Leaving Agay, we headed towards Canuobiers, from where we could visit St. Troupez. On the way, we passed the port of Poussai, with this lovely lighthouse and red watchtower, all built on the red granite rocks of this region.

Lighthouse at Port Poussai

Red watch tower at Poussai

So, next port of call will be the legendary Saint Troupez. Aurevoir.

Snugglepotting in Villefranche

Villefranche is a lovely enclosed harbour on the French Riviera coast. We snuggled up in here, and found it to be a delightful, albeit somewhat rolly anchorage.

The bay in Villefranche

Railway station at Villefranche

Another view of the bay at Villefranche

Streets of Villefranche

Antique market

Fort at Villefranche

We took advantage of the local railway station to catch a train into Nice, which was nice but not so interesting.

Open airy town of Nice 

Main boulevard

Stony beach at Nice

WW1 monument 

Impromptu dance performance

We took another train trip up to Grasse, in the hinterland of the Cote d'Azur. Grasse is the main perfume flower growing area, with many perfume producers located there. We visited the perfume museum, and the show-room of some of the manufacturers. Grasse was an interesting village, with windy lanes up steep hills.

Graffiti at Villefranche railway

Climbing up the steep path from the railway at Grasse

We were rewarded at the end of a very long climb, with a church which contained three Rubens, and some paintings by Fragonard, a Rococo painter native to Grasse.

12th century church in Grasse

A Rubens hanging in the church

Another Rubens

Altar with a Fragonard painting

The perfume museum also had an exhibit of Belle Epoque art, with several Mucha paintings.

Alphonse Mucha

... and another

We swanned around Villefranche for several days, but eventually felt the need for progress. We discovered the wonderful french invention of the quay d'accueil, where you can tie up for several hours (by negotiation with the Capitainerie) for free. We decided to try this, so we headed into Antibes. We fuelled the boat, then strolled into the wonderful town of Antibes.

Antibes main street

Sculptures along the marina town walls

Shady and cute cafe's....

... interesting streets .... 

... and merry go-rounds.

We managed to see the town, do our shopping and water the boat for free! We will file this away for future use. Too much town living and visiting, so we were after some quite relaxation. Our next destination was the lovely Iles de Lerins, which was the ideal ticket. See you there!