2004 Europe

St. Tropez, France



May 17 – Our last port-of-call on the ms Noordam, St. Tropez, home of Brigitte Bardot and vacation site of many tres chic celebrities. I’m sort of surprised they let me get off the tender onto the pier! There’s a special celebration going on here today, Fête de la Bravade. They parade a statue of the Saint through the town in a big parade. The people dress in colonial costumes both military and civilian and follow along in the parade. Later in the day they fire salvos of muzzle loading rifles and canons on the town square. You can see the smoke from the salvos around the church tower in the picture above. A ‘Bravade’ is an ‘act of defiance’ and this celebration commemorates Saint Tropez, who was a Centurion in the Roman guard in the time of Nero. He became a Christian and was beheaded for his new faith. Nero had his head buried there in Rome but set his body adrift in a small boat. The boat made it across the Mediterranean Sea from Rome to what is now the Golfe de St Tropez and landed on the shore at the site where the city now stands.



But I’m getting ahead of myself. First thing we did was joining a tour to some of the Villages of Provence. We headed south out of St Tropez up into the mountains to the village of Ramatuelle. It’s a medieval village that once again is built at the top of a hill for defensive purposes and not accessible by car. So off the bus and up the hill one more time. It’s a small village where, other than interior upgrading of the lights and plumbing, not much has changed. The only irritating part about these medieval villages is that you can’t get far enough away from anything for decent photos even with a wide-angle lens. So I’m reduced to vertical building and narrow street shots. Some of the video may be decent. The Church of Our Lady was interesting. The main altar and every altar in the side chapels were packed with lilies (below). The fragrance in the church was wonderful. I took a pic of the main altar. It was very dark inside and the small flash on the camera couldn’t do much with it. However I’ll see if Photoshop can bring out some of the detail. The streets were the narrowest we’ve seen and that’s saying something. At places we had to walk single file to get through. This was also a defensive feature. It’s much easier to defend a small opening than a large one. The inhabitants were fierce and innovative in the defense of this city. During one battle they threw fully occupied beehives down on the heads of Royalist troops while trying to maintain their status as an independent city.



Next stop, Mairie de Gassin, another very old village also perched on a hill and, you guessed it, another hike up said hill. We walked through the city and it had two good viewpoints for seeing the surroundings. One let us look back on the Golfe de St Tropez and the city of Port Grimaud our next destination. We stopped to look at the city hall (below) and a large, beehive shaped structure that was built over a water cistern and allowed access to it. As we walked down from the city we passed a grove of Cork Pines. These special pine trees have a very thick bark that is harvested every 12 years to make corks for bottles. In 12 years, presto chango, the tree has a new coating of bark and your peel it again.



Our last stop, Port Grimaud is not old at all but is built to resemble an 1800’s seaport village of Provence. The homes are actually built in rows, like townhomes in the US (below). Every home has a boat slip behind it. The homes vary in size, design and color. It’s a very pleasant place. We took a boat tour of the various canals. The boaters have access to the Mediterranean Sea from the village canals. Some of the boats were quite modest, others multimillion dollar customs. After the boat ride Diana and I sat in a little café and ordered café au lait and a Coupe de Maison (below) to split. I’ll attach a pic. It was outstanding, large pieces of fruit (pear, peach, berries, apple) with ice cream on the top of the fruit and great, thick whipped cream over all that. It was topped off with three cylindrical sugar cookies and a little paper fan.



After this gastronomic adventure we headed back to St. Tropez. Diana and I walked around town for a while, looking at the locals in and out of their period costumes. It was very busy because of the celebration and lots of people to watch. The main color scheme for the celebration is red and white, the colors of the city flag (below). Notice that most of the patrons of the café are dressed in red and white. The costumes of the parade participants were from the colonial period, long dresses, stoles, hats and scarves for the women and French red, white and blue military uniforms for the men. We were to late to see the big parade; it had just ended. However, the participants were still milling about the main square or heading for home so we did get a good look at the various costumes. After this we went back to the ship to rest up a bit.



I went out on the deck sometime later and heard the sounds of more gunfire coming from the main square. Apparently they fire the salutes several times during the day. I looked toward the church square and I could see the smoke from the black powder rifles drifting up in front of the church tower. That’s when I took the picture at the beginning of the day.



The lido will offer an on deck BBQ tonight, so we’ll skip the dining room and eat out there. We’re not sailing out until midnight so it shouldn’t be too breezy on the aft deck.



Tomorrow is at sea. We rent a car in Rome and head for Positano on the Amalfi coast, south of Naples. I’m looking forward to mixing it up with all the Mario Andrettis over here.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger