Tip: Never actually expect you’re going to get into a French port

The bad element of this particular stop on the cruise was that Princess Cruises were not very good at explaining what was happening here, which was a shame. Their remarks both on the paper and over the ship’s speakers implied to us that our excursion was possibly still viable (especially as it was inland and roughly equidistant from the original and new French ports), only needing a different pick-up point for the coaches. This was not the case as we eventually discovered after wandering into the shore excursions centre on the night before landfall to enquire as to its status: it had been well-and-truly cancelled but look, here are some other trips we can book you on! We declined a booked excursion.

The great element of this particular stop on the cruise was that La Rochelle was utterly gorgeous and everyone who’d been to it and Le Verdon-sur-Mer before agreed it was a much better destination. Indeed, a cynical person might wonder why a cruise line would choose the latter port (nowhere near anything of much interest) over the former (plenty of things for people to do on their own) in the first place. But who’s cynical?

The view from our balcony on Sapphire Princess on the morning of our only French stop of the cruise was towards the small island Île de Ré, connected to the mainland by the Pont de Ré.

Having declined a booked excursion we took advantage of the free shuttle bus service provided by Princess and/or the La Rochelle port authority and ventured into the coastal city (about 15-20 minutes away, I think) for an explore on our own for a change. We were dropped off along the Avenue du Général de Gaulle not far off being opposite the tourist information centre where we were reminded about the last bus back to the ship and left to our own devices. One of the first things you’ll see in this area of La Rochelle is one of those big wheels that seem to have popped up across the world in every major city with something worth looking at from the air.

West of us as we’d got off the coach was an area of parkland and an open square near the city’s aquarium. Our plan was to visit that later (and we would; that’s in a future post) but our attention was drawn to the medieval towers along the walls protecting the Old Harbour (Vieux Port) so we headed roughly north as that’s where everyone else was heading. This took us past an area where a small set of amusement rides were set up, a statue to heroes of the city, and one of two lighthouses in the port area, this one being coloured green for navigation purposes.

We hugged the harbour and its marina area and made our way down the Quai du Carénage towards the nearest of the three tours, the Tour Saint-Nicolas de la Rochelle. The view from this part of La Rochelle was gorgeous, taking in the fairly quiet port area and the medieval fortifications as well as the numerous establishments set up to take advantage of the scenery. Summer evenings in La Rochelle must be fantastic.

As we approached the tower we discovered that a pedestrian swing bridge was currently open to allow a couple of yachts to exit and enter a small quay. Not the most amazing of things to witness but it was the first time I’d seen one in operation so I had to take some video (removed).

Across the swing bridge we found the second of the two lighthouses, this being the red counterpart to the one we’d seen before, as well as a little bit of street art. We didn’t know it at the time but that street art marked the northern boundary of a small area of La Rochelle called Belle du Gabut. We would be spending quite a bit of time in there later in the day (and, again, in a later post).

There were a number of people around the Tour Saint-Nicolas de la Rochelle as we approached but they quite clearly were not venturing inside the tower. We even saw one group approach the door, look at a sign, shrug, then leave. This made us suspect that we couldn’t get in which would have been a shame except this wasn’t true; it’s been a while since I studied any French but my skills were just enough to understand that the tower would open at 10:00 (it was a few minutes before that at this time) and that there were prices for entry to one, two, or three towers, but one of them (not this one) was closed for repairs and prices were reduced a fraction accordingly. I was quite pleased with what I’d read and so we spent the time before the door to the tower opening taking a few more shots of the scenery of the city, remarking to ourselves that a large bank of cloud seemed to be descending rather quickly. Luckily, this would burn off in due course and our views from the towers (next post) were not unduly hampered.

The first of the towers that we ventured into was…

Tour Saint-Nicolas De La Rochelle

Situated on the eastern side of the harbour entrance and the obvious first stop was Tour Saint-Nicolas de la Rochelle, one half of the gateway to the harbour. This tower and the one opposite it were built from the mid to late 1300s. The original plan was to create an arch between the towers as well although this was never realised.

The foundations of this tower were wood, driven into the mud of the water basin, but the tower itself is so heavy that there is a very slight lean to it. It’s still perfectly safe to explore these days, though, and a series of steep, spiralling staircases and narrow corridors curving around the inside of the tower wall and offering entry points into the central, circular section at a number of spots eventually lead up onto the roof where some excellent views of La Rochelle and the surrounding region can be seen. We’d timed our visit to coincide with a bank of low-level cloud so the French city wasn’t quite as pretty as it could have been but as you’ll see from the photos of the next towers we visited that cloud quickly evaporated in the pleasing breeze and rising temperature of the day.

Tour De La Chaine

Getting to the second of the towers required us to retrace our approach hugging the harbour on our left and around the attractive waterfront shops, bars, and restaurants.

The Tour de la Chaine (or Chain Tower) is the western side tower guarding the entrance to La Rochelle’s harbour. This was the tower that controlled access to the port and as you might be able to guess from its name it did this using a chain that could be strung between it and Tour Saint-Nicolas either for defensive purposes or to ensure that tax was duly applied to arriving or departing vessels. In fact, the chain itself was originally controlled from a smaller tower alongside this one although that was removed in order to widen the entrance.

This was the tower that was closed when we visited although, on seeing the door was open, we ventured inside where we were told that we could pass through and onto the small, fortified area closer to the harbour entrance. We did, because we could, and so that I could snap a few photos. If we’re allowed to go somewhere then you can pretty much guarantee we will just to say we have because that’s what travelling’s all about for us.

Tour De La Lanterne

The most visually impressive of the three towers was the Tour de la Lanterne (or Lantern Tower), situated at the western end of the Rue sur les Murs, the same section of defensive wall that housed the Tour de la Chaine. This “road on the walls” featured some attractive architecture among its houses’ designs.

Built in the middle of the 1400s the Tour de la Lanterne is the oldest lighthouse on the Atlantic coast and if that’s not a good enough reason just to visit it then I don’t know what is. My advice if you’re visiting, though, is to hang around and wait for a bit outside if you see a queue or a large group of people entering. The entry doorway is narrow and the actual route into the tower is on your right as you pass in. However, to gain entry you have to head into a small room straight ahead to have your “three towers” ticket approved or buy a single ticket, then head back out and through the door you passed on the way in. This is fine if there are only a few of you. This was chaotic when we turned up as it was a heaving mass of bodies trying to head one way then another then squeezing past. But still very worth it.

In addition to serving as a lighthouse and providing obvious defensive capabilities to the city of La Rochelle the tower was also a prison for a long period. The interior walls are filled with carvings in the stone from former prisoners, some of the more important of which are highlighted or explained in further detail on plaques as you ascend the structure. It’s incredibly fascinating to see some of the writing, the dates, the artwork even of formerly-incarcerated people long dead and it’s shocking just how many people there were held at a time in some of the rooms; it must have been hell in there.

It’s not a true holiday for us unless we’ve climbed to the top of some steep structure panting and sweating and shaking our heads wondering why we put ourselves through such torture. But we know why really, and that’s so we can get great views from wherever we are. Climbing to the top of the Tour de la Lanterne and looking all around La Rochelle was a fabulous experience. The clouds were little more than distant haze at this point and the warmth of colours along with the contrast of the blues of the sky and sea against the greenery of nearby parkland and the red-tiled, white-walled buildings of the city was an absolute joy to behold.

The walkway around the former housing for the lantern that gave the tower its name and lighthouse-functionality is only wide enough for one person at a time and there is no indication as to which direction you should head around it. Expect lots of reversing and trying other directions and repeating that until you finally make the circuit. A minor inconvenience for that wide, beautiful landscape in every direction and so you can say that you reached the highest point on the tower.

If you’re visiting La Rochelle then it’s really worth the effort and very reasonable price to spend an hour or so exploring the three towers protecting its old harbour area. Each tower has its own charm and associated bit of history and each provides unique views of the city that you shouldn’t miss.

We had plenty of time as it was still early so decided to take a circular route back to the harbour area of La Rochelle through the nearby park as much just to take a stroll that would provide shade from the increasingly warm day as to see whether it had anything to offer. Leaving the Tour de la Lanterne we continued west a short way, passing through a doorway set into the remains of the city wall called the Porte Des Deux Moulins (Door/Gate of the Two Mills, though I couldn’t tell you why). In the photo now above you can see that gate on the left side if you follow the line of the walls.

This took us to a short bridge over a narrow river or stream coming out of the park and into the sea. The numerous drainage ditches and canals of the park itself are fed by two rivers, Lafond and Fétilly, though which one of these we were crossing I can’t say. What I can say, though, is that it reeked to high heavens here. The water was not exactly fresh and the reason for this becomes clear with a little more of the history of the park, coming up soon.

The other side of the bridge saw a small café area with some seating and some street art adorning its rear; not the best example but I always try to capture photos of local artistry wherever I go. It might be useful to know that you can get some food and drink at the southern end of the park, though, if you’re visiting La Rochelle.

This brought us to the park itself. No fences surround it, it’s open all year long and free to wander through at your leisure. The history of the park is fairly interesting. Originally, the land that now forms Le Parc Charruyer was marshland (hence that smell) and given over to military forces most of the time, stationed outside the city walls. In the late nineteenth century, Marie-Adèle Charruyer, the daughter of a local, wealthy shipowner, Étienne Charruyer, and heiress to the family fortune, bequeathed 100,000 francs to the city in her will to establish a public park at the exit of the city. The land didn’t actually belong to the family but after her death it was this area that was subsequently cleared, drained, cleaned up, and transformed close to how it appears today.

The park was very peaceful; the abundance of foliage on the trees soaked up any external noise nicely and the dappled shade as we followed a path along a river’s edge dropped the temperature to something very pleasant indeed. Cycling routes through the park have been added in more recent times and Le Parc Charruyer covers an area of around 40 hectares, providing a pleasant walk of around two kilometres across its full length. We only walked about half this distance electing to turn back towards the city roughly in line with La Rochelle’s cathedral a little after we’d passed under a bridge with some graffiti of questionable quality (and yet still I took some photos (oh, me!))

If you’ve got the time when you’re in La Rochelle and fancy some peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of the city then the park is a lovely little place to just absorb a touch of nature while you’re there.

Out of the park we headed back towards the waterfront area of La Rochelle. The direction we mostly wanted to head was southwards but the brightness of the sun directly ahead and the contrast from the cool surroundings we’d been in to the heat trap of the dry streets and stone-fronted buildings left us taking a zig-zag route to where we needed to be in order to jump into the shade of buildings or take a break from squinting at every opportunity. There wasn’t a huge variety in the architecture of the buildings we saw but the general style was very nice.

We eventually came out by the harbour at the Porte de la Grosse-Horloge, an attractive tower and gateway we’d seen across the marina when we’d first arrived in La Rochelle. A small square nearby with a number of attractive shops and a large mass of people shopping and just admiring the sights also sported a statue adorned with traffic cones, something statues appear to do worldwide.

The next thing we wanted to see – and the next post – would be La Rochelle’s aquarium, south of where we’d been dropped off at in the city. We braved the direct sunlight for a little longer and headed past the harbour towards it.

Aquarium La Rochelle is a hard-to-miss building on the quayside to the south of the tourist information centre and west of the city’s train station. When we arrived there was a queue of perhaps twenty people outside the building in a section that could clearly cope with a queue of a few hundred so we didn’t think that was too bad. However, it’s worth noting that the queue continues inside the building, doubling back alongside the queue outside so that twenty was probably closer to fifty.

Buying Tickets

There were signs outside advising people to buy their tickets online and I did consider doing that to skip the queue but ultimately opted not to; checking their site they recommend allowing two hours from purchase before using the ticket so it’s a good thing I didn’t try that.

It’s also worth noting that there appeared to be a couple of ticket machines inside the building too but nobody in the queue was using them so, again, I didn’t look them over. If you’re a general visitor to the city then you might want to look at either of those ways to beat the queue but if you’re a cruise visitor (and we were, this being the second stop on our week-long Sapphire Princess cruise) then you can present your boarding card at the desk for a small discount of two euros each. Weigh up the saving in money over the saving in time and make a decision there.

Tickets purchased, you enter a room simulating an elevator descent. After some rumblings and clankings a second door opens and you pass through a circular tunnel with cascading water around its edges.

From here on you’re in the main aquarium and you can expect the usual array of tanks filled with fishes and other forms of sealife plus plenty of information boards. La Rochelle aquarium is large, spread over two floors, and with very clean glass on the vast majority of tanks (commendable indeed with the number of children present during our visit) allowing for good, clear views of the aquatic life and plenty of chances for decent photo-taking. The ambient light – sensibly, like most aquariums – is very low, though, so you’ll need to ramp that ISO setting up on your camera.

I’m always pleased to see jellies in an aquarium. It’s long been a wish to have a wall of the peaceful, fluorescing creatures next to where I work so that any time I need a relaxation break I can just turn and look at them.

In addition to the marine-oriented nature of the majority of the exhibits in the aquarium there was also a tropical zone. We’ve been in some places like this before where the ambient heat and humidity plays havoc with your camera lens but I’m happy to report this wasn’t the case in La Rochelle. There wasn’t a huge amount to see in this area for me, although if you are a keen botanist you’re bound to find things of interest, but my wife has a thing for turtles, terrapins, and tortoises and she, at least, was pleased to see a fair few of the favoured creatures around.

There wasn’t anything unique about the variety of sealife on display in La Rochelle Aquarium but if you’re fond of this sort of diversion when you’re out and about then it’s a very good example and a recommended visit. The layout was particularly good, guiding you through the rooms with their tanks well, and even though the place was a little more child-heavy than I typically like (being a curmudgeon) it never felt crowded or too noisy.

By far the most impressive places were the full-wall tank-viewing rooms looking into impressively large volumes of water. In these rooms were rows of seating, much of which was filled when we were there by people quietly contemplating the view and immersing themselves in the serenity such an experience seems to exude. These were the places to see the sharks and turtles, both of which I’m always happy to see at an aquarium and both of which I’m sure are big draws for most people too.

Our plan, therefore, was to head due north from the aquarium back towards La Rochelle harbour. It was the place we’d seen the vast majority of bars and restaurants with outdoor seating and we figured that if we could find a spare table then the views looking back to the water and the towers beyond would mark a lovely end to a great day in a surprisingly excellent French city. As we started to walk, however, I glanced to my left and spotted the distant sight of some street art. It didn’t look like the most amazing examples of artwork but they were clearly bright and colourful and as this would only detour us a couple of minutes to take a look at off we went to take a nose and some photos.

Following the artwork around a corner we suddenly found ourselves in a square area surrounded by clearly temporary set-ups; walls of buildings were decorated in large art pieces too; there was a stage area (unoccupied but clearly ready for something to happen); tables of varying sorts with chairs of even more varying sorts were spread out around the place. We could see they sold beer and we were after beer and we could also see plenty of spaces to sit at so we shrugged (well, when in France…) and decided we’d try the place out, figuring we could always make our way to the harbour afterwards.

We ordered a couple of beers. A quick read from the selection on offer led us to choosing a locally-brewed ambrée.

“Deux ambrées, s’il vous plaît,” I said, my GCSE in French finally getting a workout after decades of inactivity.

“You would like small or large?” asked the woman behind the bar, instantly ascertaining we were not natives despite my best local accent.

“Large, please,” I responded.

“Oh, of course!” she said. “You are English!”

We laughed at this arguably justifiable stereotypical view of the nation’s drinking habits and I made a mental note to throw in a reference to shrugging when I eventually got around to writing this experience up as vengeance.

The beer was just what we needed. Cold, lovely taste, maybe a little more expensive than a pint back home but not scarily so. Served in plastic glasses so not perfect but you could understand why they were doing that. We took the weight off our feet and sat in the French sunshine, enjoying our drinks and soaking up the ambience of the area. Generally, when we’re travelling we prefer to do and see things rather than sit around and just eat or drink so when we do treat ourselves to some rest time like this it makes it more relaxing, more special, and that’s possibly why within minutes of simply sitting there and savouring the beer and surroundings we both agreed we loved the place and we might just stay for another.

I brought our empty glasses back to the bar and asked for another round.

“Oh, you want another!?” asked the woman at the bar, obviously expecting us to one-and-run from the place.

“We’re English!” I said, explaining everything and justifying her earlier remark.

I then mentioned how lovely this little area was and how much we loved the look and feel of the place (which seemed to surprise her) and asked more details about it. She explained that it was called Belle Du Gabut and was a temporary event, completely free, running from May until September, this being its second year in operation but hopefully not its last. Along with the beers to take back to our seats I was handed a flyer with some more information of the programme for May and some links (Facebook and Instagram) which do a good job of showing just how varied and interesting this part of La Rochelle is.

Our second drinks became third drinks and Belle du Gabut started to fill with more people (we didn’t hear anyone speaking anything other than French so it all felt very local and very much the sort of experience we like when we travel; there’s nothing worse than getting away from it all in the company of people just like you). On our third drinks someone from the bar area helpfully came across and put up a parasol over our seats giving us nearly the only shade in the space. There was possibly some concern that us foreigners might die in the relentless sun and put a downer on the day for everyone else or it might just have been luck where we were sitting; in any event, it was very welcome and we could look around the place with somewhat less squinting than we’d been doing.

We loved the laid-back bohemian or hippy vibe to Belle Du Gabut and the variety of things on offer (the majority of which weren’t open for business at the time we arrived, though). In addition to areas providing food, drinks, theatre performances, music, yoga, and massage we noticed an area for kids to play in and there were quite a few family groups present at this time too so Belle du Gabut certainly seemed to cater for everyone. Something that typified the whole feel of the place were the toilets: unisex cubicles decorated in different styles by different artists. We made sure to pick a different cubicle each time we went (three (or was it four by now?) beers in the sun made sure we had plenty of opportunities) so that we could take photos in all of them.

Finally, though, it came time for us to make our way from Belle Du Gabut back to Avenue du Général de Gaulle where we’d been dropped on arrival in La Rochelle in order to catch the last coach back to the cruise ship. I grabbed a few parting shots of some of the street art we’d passed on the way in and some occasional photos on the fairly short walk to the pick-up point.

Of course, one of the things about afternoon drinking and having a camera is that sometimes you take pictures of odd things and you don’t know why. Worse, sometimes you don’t even remember taking the photo. Finding this portrait on my memory card came as a bit of a surprise to me. I have no recollection of taking this man’s photo and couldn’t tell you who he was, where he was from, or why I took the picture.

He seems happy, though, and in a weird and surprising way he almost sums up this weird and surprising visit to a fabulous little part of La Rochelle, a city we would not hesitate to return to or recommend. And if you’re visiting there in the summer months and looking for something a little different when it comes to relaxation and entertainment then popping into Belle du Gabut is well worth some of your time too.

We awoke with just a smidge of a hangover to views of the cruise port and adjoining Cité de la Mer exhibit from our balcony.

Finding cruise port information or things to do in Cherbourg if you’re visiting via cruise online was not particularly easy; either it’s a port not often visited by cruise ships or the people who visit don’t find a lot to write about. We thought this was odd as we’d taken a look at maps of the area and spotted quite a few places in Cherbourg that had attracted our attention: a hill-top fort, a bunker, medieval ruins, and several musuems were all the sorts of places of interest we like to take a look at when we’re visiting a new city and we saw there was a microbrewery there too to satisfy our desire to hunt down local drink. We hadn’t wanted to book an excursion during our cruise stop in Cherbourg mostly because our past record with French ports has been less than amazing and there was always the chance it would be cancelled but there was also the factor that the excursions offered – Bayeux for the tapestry, Normandy beaches, Mont St Michel – all involved fairly considerable travel times. The local attractions would do, we decided.

But we made one crucial mistake with our planning.

We were arriving on a Saturday with intentions to see historical monuments and museums early on, leaving the afternoon for drinking and shopping. We had assumed – because this is how things work at home and France isn’t that far away or that culturally different from us – that the places we wanted to visit would be open. They were not. Cherbourg’s tourist attractions don’t seem to want any tourists on a Saturday morning and, it turns out, if you want to do anything cultural or educational during lunchtimes at any point in the week then you’re out of luck too. What we discovered very late on in our planning (i.e. a few days before we cruised to France) was that the places of interest in Cherbourg we wanted to visit would not open for the first six or seven hours we were in port. Not only that, had we actually arrived on a weekday rather than a Saturday we would have found everything closing up between about 12:30 and 14:00 each day too. This is utterly baffling to us. Had this been the south of Spain where heat plays a part and siestas are common then we might have expected it. This is northern France. Why do these places not have the staff on hand to keep somewhere open throughout the day and during the morning on a Saturday? At the very least, why weren’t steps being taken to take advantage of visiting cruise ships?

This left us with few options. We knew that La Cité de la Mer would be one possibility; maritime exhibits and aquariums are things we like to see but we figured most people not taking a cruise excursion might hit that first so, as it would be right next to where Arcadia docked in Cherbourg, we would leave that to the last thing to see in order to avoid the crush. Our visit there is covered in the next cruise review post. We could have risked going to the microbrewery early and doing shopping before trying to hit something of cultural interest but with anything interesting opening just three hours before we’d need to be back on board and not wanting to go into the city, come back to hit the maritime building, then return to find a museum before turning around again to hit the ship all on the back of hopefully fuzzy heads we rejected that.

Ultimately, we decided that we would walk for a few hours to see if we could find something not necessarily on the maps or just interesting to photograph, get our drinking done, then hit Cité de la Mer early if necessary and just get back on our floating home. We were disappointed that it appeared we wouldn’t really be making the most of our time in Cherbourg but the main thing was we’d be exploring somewhere new anyway.

We left the ship, walked through the old and impressive terminal building, and headed south out of the cruise port area.

Reaching Pont Tournant in around five minutes we crossed over the bridge towards the main part of Cherbourg. This area was very attractive, offering up some lovely views across the harbour with its perfectly still water providing some gorgeous reflections of buildings in the city and boats anchored all around.

On the waterfront side of Cherbourg’s main area of shops and other businesses we spotted a bust of someone not recognisable to us. I always try to take photos of these statues as it provides something of interest to look up later. This turned out to be the Colonel Bricqueville Monument. Armand François Bon Claude, Count of Bricqueville, was a cavalry officer serving in Napoleon’s army who took part in campaigns in Prussia, Poland, Spain, and Russia. The statue was erected in 1845 and originally had two bronze reliefs on it as well but these were melted down by the Germans towards the end of World War II.

We followed the main road along the harbour, Quai Caligny, northwards then westwards past the Catholic Church of Basilique Saint-Trinité where it became first Place Napoléon (easily identifiable from the statue of Napoleon on a horse erected in 1858) and then Rue de l’Abbaye.

We weren’t completely walking on a whim here. Maps had shown that along the appropriately-named Rue de l’Abbaye there appeared to be ruins of an abbey, Abbaye du Voeu (Abbey of the Vow). Information about the place was pretty sparse but we could see it had been an abbey (obviously) as well as military barracks and a hospital, and it had a museum. What we couldn’t find out from the lack of details such as opening times was whether the museum would be accessible but we guessed that at the very least we’d be able to have a look around the ruins themselves. Alas, Cherbourg’s rather lacking appeal to tourism had other plans and the ruins, like everywhere else we were thinking of visiting, were closed until mid-afternoon. We could get reasonably close to its exterior and took a few photos but exploring inside was not to happen.

The walk from Cherbourg harbour to the abbey was about two kilometres and there was no indication that there was anything else of interest in that direction so we turned around and headed back towards the main part of the French city. Our target destination now was Parc Emmanuel Liais, location of a museum we knew would be closed but where we hoped access to the park and gardens would allow us to break up the views of buildings and main roads that had accompanied most of our walk to then.

The park was lovely. Helped by some extremely pleasant weather the greens of the garden popped out vibrantly against the clear blue sky. The spots of sun and shade were welcome as was the tranquility away from the white noise of cars passing in the city. If you’re ever in Cherbourg and there’s nothing else to do then this park is worth ten minutes to wander around and soak up the atmosphere.

Emmanuel Liais was an astronomer and botanist. He went to Brazil in 1858 to witness a solar eclipse but ended up staying on until 1881 doing mostly astronomical research (a Martian crater is named after him and he discovered a comet). Returning to Cherbourg he became mayor and imported numerous plants from Brazil and Asia which became part of the collection he bequeathed to the city on his death.

The museum to Emmanuel Liais was closed, as expected (thanks Cherbourg), but knowing his history we’re sure it would have been interesting to take a look at. The maps we’d seen hadn’t shown that there was another large building in the park and this turned out to be a botanical greenhouse hosting some of the specimens Liais introduced. Incredibly, it transpired that this was actually open at the time we were there. Despite us not seeing another soul inside it as we explored its small but interesting interior it should be noted that this building closes for lunch.

I was particularly taken with the concrete and glass, modernist design elements of the greenhouse, both inside and out.

We decided we would take a little bit of a wander to see if anything popped up to interest us before we’d visit the microbrewery we were looking to sample wares within. Our walk through Cherbourg’s streets took us past a couple of pieces of street art and into a square briefly where a market was taking place. We weren’t there to take back cheese or other goods but it’s possibly something to consider in light of the fact that it did constitute an actual thing to explore in the city on a Saturday.

I did rather like the posters we saw advertising try-outs for Cherbourg’s roller derby team, the Cherboobs.

The microbrewery and bar we were interested in was L’Eldorado. In fact, we were initially very interested in both it and the venue directly opposite it on Rue Tour Carrée called Le Bayou as between them they seemed to serve a large number of interesting-looking ales though only the former establishment brewed their own. As it was, the latter location doesn’t open until 17:00 on a Saturday (I can tell you’re surprised by this) so it was just L’Eldorado that got our business. The brewery makes four ales; a blanche, a blonde, an ambrée, and a brune. We lean towards the darker, maltier ales so one ambrée and one brune later we were sitting in the compact booth seats in the window, watching the world go by, watching one woman spend the best part of ten minutes trying to reverse her car into a parking space twice the size of her vehicle, and enjoying the local alcoholic produce.

In truth, we loved that we had ales freshly made on the site but there was an underlying taste to both of our drinks that we couldn’t put our finger on – almost molasses-like if I had to come up with something – and we decided one would be enough. Having finished our ales, pleased that we’d tried them even if they weren’t exactly to our tastes, we retraced our route around Cherbourg’s harbour and headed towards Cité de la Mer.

Our visit to Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg will be covered in the next post (and we did enjoy that a lot (update: Cité de la Mer)). Cherbourg does have a few areas that would ordinarily interest us – the fortress with the liberation museum, the nearby battery, the abbey ruins, a few other museums and art galleries too – but as a city it’s simply not very friendly towards a casual, daytime visitor from a cruise ship, particularly on a weekend. A cruise cynic might suggest that fits in nicely with the cruise lines’ business model as it promotes the purchase of excursions but it’s a strange stance to take from Cherbourg’s businesses and tourism office. A shame really, and the city can only really be rated as okay as a result and certainly not somewhere we’d be massively bothered about visiting again.

As you approach the main building have any bags on you open for inspection. You’re in a foreign country and the people there will speak their own language before they usually switch to the one you’re familiar with (if they can) and a blank look as you try to replay what you heard in your head hunting down key words you might remember from GCSE French at school will only lead to a repetition of the phrase and gesturing before your wife slaps your arm and says “Let him see inside the camera bag dumbass!”

Inside the main building you’ll discover a lot of exhibits on show without you needing a ticket. These will be submersible craft for the main part that have played key roles in exploration of the undersea kingdom. While these might provide some distraction they weren’t what we were there for. In this area there are also toilets and a café.

Paying for your ticket lets you exit the main building into the enclosed external area where a number of other pieces of maritime history are located and where you can gain access to the Titanic exhibition, the aquarium, and the nuclear submarine. Of these three things it was only the latter two we were interested in during this trip; we’re always fond of aquariums and if we can set foot on a historic vessel then we always will too.

Le Redoutable Nuclear Submarine

The main thing we wanted to see at Cité de la Mer was the submarine museum Le Redoutable. It is the largest and only nearly-complete ballistic missile submarine open to the public and we are always keen to do the firsts, lasts, largests, longests, etc. whenever we travel to places around the world.

An audio guide available in several languages can be picked up as you scan your ticket in at the entrance to the submarine and it provides one of the most informative descriptions of the places you explore as you make your way through the impressive vessel. One thing to note, though, if you’re the sort of person who likes to ignore the audio guide and wander around on your own is that the passageways through Le Redoutable are narrow, often only permitting one person to pass and this, coupled with the guide often telling you to stop and look at certain things, means that you won’t really be able to progress any faster than those with the guides ahead of you on the boat (not ship). You may as well use the guide and you won’t be sorry that you did.

Commissioned in 1971 and decommissioned twenty years later, Le Redoutable was the first of the Redoutable-class submarines constructed for the French Navy. She was fitted with 16 ballistic missile launchers and being in the section where each of the missiles could be independently launched was very impressive. Each missile tube had its own controls, its own computers, and seemingly anachronistic brass tubes to ensure communication could be maintained even in the event of failures there. The audio guide went into some detail about what and how long it took to launch a nuclear missile (something no submarine has ever done), making a mockery of most of the movies or books that might have implied some rogue person might be able to do it on a whim. Did you know that a compressed air bubble is in the tube with the missile so that during launch it expands and keeps the missile completely dry until it ignites its rocket upon leaving the water?

Le Redoutable was a very functional boat for the most part with little room given over to the niceties of life under the water for months on end. The submarine produced its own fresh water and oxygen, could manufacture and replace any part, needed to be able to cope with compression and expansion of the hull of several centimetres when attaching fittings, and had plenty of protection against heat, noise, and, of course, radiation. The reactor section of the submarine had been removed (obviously) but had it been still there and operating it could have powered the entire city of Cherbourg. A walkway allowed you to wander through where the reactor had once been.

My favourite part of Le Redoutable was the very, very 1970s decor of the meeting room area. Looking like something straight from UFO this really appealed to my love of that period’s style.

The audio guide tour of Le Redoutable takes about 35 minutes so you can add on another five or ten to that to cover stepping through doorways, taking photos, etc. Dropping off our guides and stepping away from the submarine we were afforded views of our cruise ship, Arcadia, showing just how close to the attraction ships dock before we made our way to the next point of interest in Cité de la Mer. I can see our balcony in a couple of these photos.

Aquarium

As I’ve already mentioned we are keen on aquariums and you can almost guarantee that if there’s one in a city we’re visiting then there’s a good chance we’ll end up paying to take a look around it. Like everything else in Cité de la Mer the aquarium was on a grand scale, obviously designed to cope with a huge number of visitors at a time. Because of the time that we visited it, perhaps, the place was mostly empty and this suited us perfectly. The aquarium building is set over two levels with a number of marine artifacts and pieces of accompanying information along with some interactive components but it was really the sealife that we’d come to see. There’s something so very soothing about staring into tanks and watching the varied creatures swimming or crawling around.

There weren’t a huge number of tanks but the cleanliness of the glass was superb and the variety of sealife was enough to get a good look around and enjoy what was there. One tank did extend over the two floors of the aquarium building and it was possible to get partially underneath looking up. This produced an unsettling effect in considering just how much weight of water there was poised above you, but unsettling in a good way and one of the highlights of the visit.

Prior to the aquarium in Cité de la Mer the last sealife centre we’d been to had also been in France – La Rochelle Aquarium – and that had been more of what we consider a traditional aquarium. The large tank was impressive but the small number of tanks and apparent waste of space, perhaps simply because we’d timed our visit to an exceptionally lucky quiet period, left us feeling satisfied but not blown away by the exhibit in Cherbourg.

A quick show of our cruise cards as we exited Cité de la Mer allowed us to enter the old cruise terminal and make our way back to the ship.

Conclusion

If you’re visiting Cherbourg then Cité de la Mer is easily the most interesting thing to see with the added bonus of having the most chance of it being actually open. As people who love naval history the price of admission was worth it just to explore Le Redoutable for us. Getting to see numerous other undersea vessels as well as an aquarium and the chance to explore a museum dedicated to the Titanic too should make this a no-brainer decision should you find yourself in the French city.

But we wouldn’t be spending any time in Marseille as we had a full day’s excursion taking us into the Provence countryside and two locations, the first of which was the city and commune of Arles. Sometimes we’ll do a fair bit of research into a place we’re visiting, read the description of the excursion, try to read between the lines of what’s in the excursion description because they invariably gloss over elements, take a look online to see what other people have seen or thought of a place, that sort of thing. Sometimes we’ll see a pretty picture of an amphitheatre and go “Ooh! An Amphitheatre!” and that’s all that’s needed. Our decision to visit Arles was due mostly to the latter way of thinking but we did also factor in the time of year in order to rule out for now a visit to the slightly farther afield Avignon (although that’s on the list for the next time we take a trip to this part of the world).

Once our bus pulled up in Arles we found ourselves beside the river Rhône where we could see a Viking River Cruises boat moored (more on them in a little while) and a few people enjoying the pleasant morning sunshine including a local painter. This was our first chance to experience one of the things other than Roman and medieval architecture that Arles is famous for: art. Vincent Van Gogh lived in Arles for a year and it was here that he painted many of his most famous pieces of work. The city has a walking trail with signs showing some of the locations in which the artist painted and we would spot a few of them on our half-day exploring but while we like art our tastes tend towards the more modern so, yes, Van Gogh’s connection was interesting and a bonus experience but it wasn’t our reason for wanting to visit the city.

Walking southwards from the bus parking spot near the train station we passed the location where Van Gogh lived but only a painting of the house remains – The Yellow House – as the building was badly damaged by allied bombing in World War 2. With nothing to actually see we continued and this brought us to the remains of city walls and towers. These formed the Porte de la Cavalerie (Cavalry Gate) and are medieval, having originally been built in the 13th century for and by the Knights Templar and at one point used to house prisoners. Their damage cannot be attributed to planes dropping munitions but instead to deliberate attacks during the French Revolution.

Through the gate we immediately encountered a monument inspired by a similar one in Place Saint-Michel, Paris erected for a former mayor of the city. The Fontaine Amédée Pichot (Amédée Pichot Fountain), despite its name, is no longer a functioning fountain. The monument itself, though, comprises some interesting historical elements such as an Auguste Cain-designed lion profile, the fountain design by Joseph Flandrin, and the most prominent piece of all, the enamel medallion created by Paul Balze. The fountain doesn’t appear in any of Van Gogh’s works despite it being around during his time in the city and very near to his house so I’m guessing he didn’t think much of it but I liked the classical feel.

We followed the road southwards which rose slowly away from the direction of the river and which was flanked by tall houses. As we reached our first major stop in Arles, the amphitheatre, we stopped to take in the view and noticed that not all the shuttered windows we could see nearby were quite what they seemed. This would turn out to be a feature on a lot of buildings during this week-long cruise along Europe’s southern coastline.

Arles Roman Amphitheatre

Almost any photos of the city will include pictures of the very prominent tourist attraction of Arles Amphitheatre – it is what attracted us to this cruise excursion, after all – and it’s easy to see why. Already on a high point of land in the landscape its two arched tiers rise up a further twenty metres. The building was constructed a little later than the Colosseum in Rome (somewhere we’d not seen at the time of this tour) and is understandably not quite as grand in scale, designed to hold less than half the Italian capital’s capacity. Still, it could cope with over twenty thousand spectators, something that seemed completely at odds with its size because despite appearing impressive – the white stone especially bright under the clear, blue sky – I will admit to thinking it was a bit smaller than I’d expected.

We gathered at the entrance and waited to go in, our guide going on ahead to pick up the tickets. It was at this point that a tour group from Viking River Cruises strolled up. The members of the two groups eyed each other; some did so warily; some glanced and smirked. Some people started playing with the rings on their fingers and chewing imaginary toothpicks. Fingers were clicked. Music from West Side Story drifted across the concrete. A rumble was on the cards. Our gang were there first and we outnumbered the river cruisers with their fancy headphones in to hear their guide without her shouting but they had that cocky self-assurance and oozing smugness of superiority that river cruisers always have – I think it comes from paying too much per person per night and needing some way of suppressing that realisation – which made them dangerous opponents. Dangerous, yeah, but I wasn’t worried. We were the younger group overall and my wife and I are veterans of brawls with bullies. We could take them. It only needed a spark to set it all off.

Our tour guide popped her head back out and called us in. The Viking group tried to move at the same time but we kept our discipline and slipped past the ticket booth as the person manning it tried to count us off and keep the river cruisers from messing up the total. It wasn’t pretty but the Princess gang won.

Inside the amphitheatre we stopped briefly in the gallery where our guide was able to point out that the lower tier used wholly Roman architectural techniques but that the upper one borrowed Greek elements for strength and practical reasons. I’m sure you can probably tell that just from looking at the photo, though.

It was to the main arena of the amphitheatre we were then led where we could quickly bake under the sunshine from above and reflected off the sandy, dusty surface and the seating. Some of that seating was the original stone but there were plenty of modern though uncomfortable-looking benches and seats too. The reason for the latter’s presence was that Arles Amphitheatre is still used these days. It no longer plays host to bloodthirsty activities such as gladiatorial combat but instead embraces the more enlightened practice of *checks notes* tormenting animals into a frenzy before stabbing them for the entertainment of sadists.

Van Gogh’s painting Les Arènes depicts people in attendance at Arles Amphitheatre and was painted from memory (as no fights were taking place at the time) in The Yellow House just a few weeks before the artist’s famous ear-cutting incident. Maybe the idea of subjecting animals to needless cruelty played on his already somewhat fragile mind.

Not all of the Arles Amphitheatre is Roman in origin. The towers were later additions and were built when the amphitheatre was fortified further and a walled town grew up inside for protection following the fall of the empire.

The next stop on our tour of Arles was a few minutes away on foot and through some narrow streets to the amphitheatre’s southwest.

Roman Theatre Of Arles

To give it its French name, the Théâtre Antique D’Arles was constructed in the last years of the first century BCE and was one of the very first stone theatres in the Roman world. Like most Roman theatres this one in Arles consisted of three sections: seating for spectators (the cavea, with the higher-ups in society at the bottom and the general public above that, typically with men in the middle and women at the top), the stage (wooden, around fifty metres in length, housing mechanical apparatus for plays), and the back wall which was decorated with columns (two of which remain standing) and housed an awning which protected the stage and also allowed a curtain to be held in front of it and dropped as the performance started.

The seating capacity in the Arles Theatre was about half that in the amphitheatre which makes sense as the design was a semi-circle as opposed to an oval. Like the amphitheatre, the theatre is still used these days but you’ll be pleased to know that the French haven’t devised another way to torture creatures unless the music or festival shows they occasionally perform are offensive to human ears. And knowing them…

In the latter half of the first millenium CE the theatre, like the amphitheatre, was fortified for further protection for the people remaining in the city. The south wall of the theatre includes the Rotland Tower, part of those defensive additions. The land area inside the seating and where the stage once stood were turned into narrow streets and buildings were erected to form a fortified town, again just like in the amphitheatre. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the area was cleared and the historic space recovered.

With its use as an actual theatre stopping altogether following the decline of the Roman empire, stone from the spot was taken and used in other building projects around Arles, hence the more ruinous look to the place. Exploring the grounds of the theatre many of those stones have since been retrieved and returned as an indication of the workmanship of the time where it has been possible to do so.

While the amphitheatre in Arles is the more complete ancient site it was the theatre to me that felt more interesting. It may have been less easy to imagine the stage, the curtain apparatus, and the huge backdrop but there felt more a sense of a connection with history because of the state of the ruins, and the more evident, artistic elements of design in the stonework held a lot more interest.

Place De La République

A couple of minutes west of the theatre on foot was the Place De La République; effectively the town square.

The first thing to catch the eye upon entering was the Obelisk of Arles. Originally erected in the fourth century CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine II who had been born in the city this twenty metres high monument was rediscovered in two parts and re-erected in the fourteenth century, this time on a pedestal. In the nineteenth century a fountain was added because adding fountains to things was apparently the business to be in during this period of time in France.

Important buildings surrounded the square on all sides but the key one was the former cathedral, The Church Of Saint Trophime. Trophimus was the first bishop of Arles, around the third century CE, but the cathedral’s construction didn’t start until the late eleventh century. During the first couple of centuries it was used on a few occasions to crown the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

The semicircular arches are strong indicators of the Romanesque architectural style used in the church’s design but it was the fine, intricate sculpting, especially in the tympanum and around the columns either side of the doorway, that really stood out. The theme depicted is The Last Judgement with figures shuffling from left-to-right and past an impassive deity, their clothes removed, chained, and with flames at their feet. It looks like beard-wearers are going to hell so consider your style choices carefully, hipsters.

Free Time In Arles

At this point in the cruise excursion we were given free time to look around Arles on our own, do some shopping, etc. All we needed to know was where and when to meet for the lunch that would be provided as part of the tour experience.

Guide: Okay, so we will meet at one o’clock at the Best Western Hotel Atrium. I will show you on a map. It is here. From the Place de la République where we are now you head down this alley, cross the road, and it is right in front of you.

Person walking up: Wait, what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: One o’clock.

Couple coming back over: Is everyone going off? Where are we supposed to meet?

Guide: The Best Western Hotel, here on the map.

Another person leans in: Is the hotel through there? And what time are we supposed to meet?

Guide: Yes. One o’clock.

Person tapping guide on shoulder: One o’clock, but where?

Guide: It is this hotel on the map, see.

Person (loudly): Did anyone get the name of the place we’re supposed to meet at?

Me (to wife): Let’s get out of here before I kill someone or our guide does.

We don’t prioritise shopping if there are interesting historical and architectural sights to be seen but since we’d already visited a few we decided not to explore the interior of the church and make a beeline for a shop we’d spotted bordering the square. We tend to pick up specific types of souvenirs for ourselves when travelling, these being shot glasses, mugs, bookmarks, alcohol, and soap. The area of France in which Arles is located is well-known for its soap and it was to a shop that we saw stocking a lot of it that we ventured. The woman in Folies de Provence was very friendly and gave us too much change when we stocked up with our purchases (but we returned the money as soon as we realised because the English have a poor enough reputation as it is without us adding to it). You’ll notice we didn’t pick up anything with lavender in it. My wife associates the smell of lavender with old ladies peeing themselves. That’s all that needs to be said about that.

We had a slow stroll through Arles on a curving course towards a large area of greenery we’d spotted on the map. The only interesting sight spotted on the walk was the facade of a former Carmelite chapel, now privately-owned building.

Arles Summer Garden

Passing through a large street market (but not taking any photos because everyone looked like the sort who attend car boot sales and experience tells me they’re moody buggers) we entered the Jardin D’Été (Summer Garden). It was a very pleasant little area to walk around, especially on a gorgeous day such as the one we had, and the grass space was broken up with occasional statues and sculptures. The garden area to the east seemed to be more formal – a sculpture here, for instance, was to a Doctor Urpar, a former mayor of Arles – while that to the west had more modern pieces of abstract artwork in it.

The west side of the garden also had one of the occasional markers around the city’s Van Gogh trail showing that he’d visited and painted Entrance to the Public Garden at Arles in this spot.

The northern end of the western side of the Summer Garden butted up against the gate to the Roman Theatre and the fortified Rotland Tower. In front of it was an attractive pond with statuary.

We started to make our way towards the meeting point for lunch. This took us past the Arles tourism office where we were pleased to see an old carousel set up (though it wasn’t possible to take a nice photo of it in its entirety thanks to fencing around it) and some pretty decent street art adorning the building.

Lunch In Arles

Incredibly, everyone from our excursion group managed to find the hotel and only a couple were slightly late. Lunch was described as “traditional Provençal” but we’re not naive enough to believe that many people in the region dine in quite this way. The food may not look particularly appetising from the photos but we had no complaints; it was all cooked or prepared well and the servers were very engaging. Our company on this table was towards the superb end of the spectrum with – including us – one couple from the UK (that’s us there), one couple from Canada, one couple from America, and one couple from Australia. What brought us all together was that not one couple there liked the party or person running their own country (yes, that’s right, we did talk about politics; it started when we mentioned we were British and received a “Wow! What the hell are you lot doing with Brexit over there?” and rightfully so). It was interesting to hear the Canadian couple’s views about Trudeau but mostly a pleasant change to find Americans who despised Trump because they seem to be very much in the minority on cruises.

We were mostly keen to experience the red wine during lunch since we like to try local alcohol whenever we’re travelling and we’re big fans of red wine but we’ve yet to find a French one we like. Let’s be generous and say that it wasn’t the worst we’ve tried but we still cannot grasp the wide regards of the country’s production in this respect. Our Canadians, on the other hand, really liked the red wine. Really, really liked it. While we limited ourselves to a single glass they managed to finish that bottle, take most of another one from another table that wasn’t wanted, and persuaded the staff to open yet another for them too. The small coffee to finish was probably going to come in very handy in keeping them upright and awake in the next part of the day’s excursion. And, weirdly (or perhaps not when you factor in their love of alcohol), it would turn out that we would end up on the same excursion as this Canadian couple on each of the remaining days of the cruise.

Once lunch was over our bus arrived to pick us up and head off for the afternoon’s portion of the day trip, that being a visit to Les Baux-de-Provence, covered in the next post in this Mediterranean cruise travelogue series.

Sometimes on excursions you can find that you get to see all or most of what a place has to offer in that short trip but that wasn’t the case with Arles. It appeared to have a lot more to see that we simply didn’t have time for on this occasion and we’d love to give it a more in-depth visit at some point. I’d definitely add a few days exploring Arles into any itinerary you might have for visiting the south of France.

Les Baux-de-Provence is located in the low mountain range, the Alpilles, and is mostly set on a rocky spur. Indeed, the word baux is derived from the Provençal word for rocky spur and it’s from this particular commune that the name bauxite comes as it was here that the aluminium ore was first discovered in the early nineteenth century. The elevated location involves a winding, mostly shallowly inclined ascent to the spot where buses are permitted to pick up and drop off tourists but not linger any longer than necessary. Swiftly debarking – or as swiftly as cruise passengers who’d only very recently had lunch and drinks ever manage – we were promptly guided up the gently sloping, pedestrianised area around to the main entrance of the town which gave us some views north of the location at the various outcrops that surrounded us.

As impressive as the views around Les Baux-de-Provence were it was impossible not to be distracted by the row of steel plate art pieces that lined the route to the entrance. These were the German artist Stefan Szczesny‘s Shadow Sculptures, the earliest of which he started working on in 2005. In 2019 Szczesny created an exhibition titled Szczesny aux Baux-de-Provence so it was handy that this was the year we were visiting as we’re fond of stumbling on little shows of culture like this. The sculptures typically incorporate abstract female forms, as you can probably tell, and are not supposed to be anatomically accurate, as you can probably tell too if you’ve ever seen a woman.

We were given a quick walk through part of the town by our guide to take us to the key points of interest ahead of a little free time to explore on our own. Les Baux-de-Provence is mostly narrow, cobbled streets rising from the entrance with grey, stone walls and other evidence of the fortifications that sprung up during its medieval historical period. Whenever we passed a point with a view down into the valley around the area and to the houses situated lower down and closer to the occasional streams that flowed during the winter months I felt compelled to snap another shot. Les Baux-de-Provence has some spectacular vistas to gaze out upon and it’s not hard to see why it’s such a popular tourist destination just to visit, soak up those views, and relax outside one of the many little cafés.

Our short walk along the occasionally steep but still perfectly manageable roads brought us to Place Saint-Vincent where two buildings of note were located.

The first building we entered was the Chapelle des Pénitents Blancs (Chapel of the White Penitents). The building was erected in the seventeenth century, the purpose of it being to treat victims of disease and to house deceased members of the brotherhood for whom the chapel was named. In 1937 the chapel was restored and rededicated to Saint Estelle and in 1974 the artist Yves Brayer (for whom there is a museum nearby, although we didn’t have time to visit it) decorated the interior with frescoes depicting scenes from the nativity in the local landscape. The nativity theme is closely connected with the commune which might surprise you if you’ve read the bible and can’t remember the chapters about Provence in it but more about that is explained a little later on.

A dozen or so metres from the chapel was the Saint-Vincent des Baux church. This church dates back to the twelfth century and has an exterior design in the Romanesque style popular in this region of France but is also partially dug out of the surrounding rock face. This would be the second church we’d visited which was incorporated into its natural surroundings, the first being the Rock Church in Helsinki we visited a couple of years earlier. The circular tower on one side of the church is known as the Lantern of the Dead and was lit whenever a resident of the town died.

Inside the church were three naves but while the building itself and a lot of the appearance of the interior felt old much of what was seen of most interest to us was actually relatively modern. The cenotaph, for instance, dates back only to the early twentieth century and the stained glass windows were designed by Max Ingrand and donated to the church by Prince Rainier of Monaco.

We were then given free time to explore and a time by which to be back on the bus. Les Baux-de-Provence isn’t very large – barely a couple of hundred metres in length north to south – so we weren’t scheduled much time here at all and that proved to be a shame. In terms of points of interest there wasn’t a huge amount to see after you discounted the churches we’d visited, and we weren’t bothered about visiting a café or shopping in one of the small number of shops dotted around the streets, but the town did house the ruins of a castle that looked interesting and with a little more time we would have liked to pay it a visit. There just didn’t seem to be enough time to do it justice so we skipped it and had to satisfy ourselves with a gentle amble around in search of more pretty sights to photograph instead.

The Post Tenebras Lux Window is the remains of a house that most likely served as a Protestant temple in the late sixteenth century. The latin inscription translates as “After darkness, light” and ties in nicely with its Renaissance era age.

We stumbled upon several more examples of Stefan Szczesny’s sculptures around the town and in a small, open square some of his other art pieces were on display.

As our time in Les Baux-de-Provence came to an end we passed a gate with a sixteen-pointed star motif on it. This was a reference to the Princes of Baux, the feudal rulers of the location during the medieval period who had fortified the town and who considered themselves descendants of one of the biblical three wise men, Balthazar. Hence the star. You might recall from your Book of Matthew:

Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path. Balthazar asked his fellow wise men to accompany him to France where he planned to lord it over the peasants but Caspar said he had a hot date he couldn’t pass up and Melchior was worried he’d left the iron on.

For a cruise excursion we thought that we needed just a little more time in Les Baux-de-Provence to really see everything we wanted; half an hour would have been enough to either add in a visit to the museum and a pleasant break in a café or, for a more adventurous trip, take in the castle ruins without introducing unnecessary risk of a heart attack trying to get there and back before the bus left. If you were visiting on your own as part of some time in the south of France then two to three hours should suffice and for the excellent views and just for being somewhere a little different from the typical tourist draws of the region it’s certainly a place we’d recommend seeing at least once.

The small area of Les Baux-de-Provence meant we could leave it until the last minute to make our way back to the bus meeting point. We found it odd as we headed there that some people from our tour group were walking in the opposite direction at quite a pace but assumed that they must have forgotten something or needed to buy something urgently at the last second. You never know when the compulsion to pick up lavender soap will fall upon you.

There was a small delay at the bus location because the bus wasn’t there yet. The limited parking space and time was strictly enforced by the local police so buses needed to pull up, get people on, and get moving as quickly as possible. For this reason, I guess, the bus was scheduled to arrive a few minutes after we had been told to get in position because the excursion operators knew all about the cat-herding qualities and reliability of getting cruise passengers to get to the same place on time. As the bus arrived I couldn’t help but notice that the people we’d seen heading deeper into Les Baux-de-Provence as we left were nowhere to be seen. We boarded. A head count was made. There were discussions. There were frantic looks. Suddenly, we heard an American gentleman talking loudly on his phone.

We’re all waiting on the bus. Where are you? Are you close?
You just head down.
Downwards.
Down.
No, just head down and you can’t miss the entrance.
Down.
Down.
No, not that way, just keep walking down.
Down.

Several minutes and one grumpy-looking police person gesturing at the bus later our transportation was filled with the same number of people with which it had arrived at Les Baux-de-Provence and we set off back through the southern French countryside towards the port and our cruise ship.

In the next post in this Emerald Princess travelogue series I’ll cover our departure from Marseille and a brand new speciality dining experience for us aboard a Princess Cruises ship at the Curtis Stone SHARE restaurant.

Marseille wasn’t the most interesting of ports to gaze out upon but I’ve never let a little thing like interest dictate what I take photos and videos of before and I had no intention of starting on this cruise so please enjoy or suffer through (delete as applicable) some pictures taken from our balcony and a small piece of video of Emerald Princess sailing away from France.

SHARE By Curtis Stone

Let’s get onto the meat – quite literally – of this post and the reason you’re most likely reading this unless you’re taking part in a controlled experiment to see just how much misery the human mind can withstand, your arms strapped to a chair, your eyes held open by staples as page after page of some of the worst content on the internet is slowly scrolled past your unblinking, terrorised form. You’d be surprised how many visitors to this site are in that demographic.

One of the many things we were excited about regarding this cruise on Emerald Princess was that it would be the first ship in the Princess Cruises fleet that we would travel on which featured the relatively new speciality dining venue of SHARE by Curtis Stone. We love Crown Grill and we love Sabatini’s, two stalwarts of the Princess experience, but we also just love eating in general so the chance to try out something new was too good to pass up. We’d booked SHARE online prior to the cruise and the day we’d picked was this one in Marseille so the evening saw us getting ready to see how it would compare to the other restaurants.

SHARE is located at the aft of Deck 16 next door to a small lounge we’d loved on the Crown Princess cruise to the Baltics, Adagio, and it was to Adagio that we headed prior to our dining slot in order to have a pre-dinner drink. We were the only people there. Please pretend that there is a lamentation about the removal of the BOGO hour here because I’m tired of writing it out in full but never want to let Princess get away with quietly removing it from their ships. Anyway, the drinks were nice even if I can’t remember what we ordered.

At the appropriate time – that’s dead on the dot in case your awareness of what constitutes appropriateness when it comes to time-keeping is concerned is lacking (my family, I’m looking at you right now) – we walked the couple of metres from our seats in the lounge to the SHARE restaurant and were quickly seated.

The important first order of business was, of course, choosing wine to go with the meal. No, we didn’t pick the $989 bottle. The Zinfandel we went with was okay but still suffered from the same problem all red wines on Princess suffer from (in addition to the exorbitant markup) in that it was thinner than we prefer. There’s possibly a reason why the cruise line finds it impossible to stock a full-bodied red but Princess haven’t seen fit to share it with me. It’s something we’ve just learnt to accept onboard and moan about online every time we get a chance. Like now.

To the main menu, then, and as you can see there are six courses in a SHARE dining experience with a choice of two or three options in each course. I’ve no idea whether this menu changes on occasion or seasonally or geographically depending on availability but I’d like to hope so as otherwise the limited number of combinations will lower the likelihood of return visits to the restaurant for diners like us who want to try new things as much as possible.

There was bread on the table which always warms my half-Irish heart and our first courses turned up. I chose the Charcuterie while my wife opted for the only other choice, the Taleggio Cheese with Accompaniments. I don’t like cheese so this was an easy decision for the pair of us to reach and while the restaurant is called SHARE and you are encouraged to share I was happy to not do so for this course. The accompaniments to the cheese were olives which, as anyone who’s read formal night cruise posts on this site will know, belong in a Vodka Martini and then only temporarily until they are binned. Olives are not for eating. That’s not up for discussion.

Course two – the salad; something we would never deliberately pick – saw my wife select the Tomatoes and Burrata while I went for the Asparagus and Radish. Weirdly, for me this was the stand-out dish. The textures and tastes of my salad, helped a lot by the really fresh pesto, was just about perfect.

Pasta was the third course and for me this was the Pork Ravioli while my wife selected the only other choice, Ricotta Tavatelli. The green curry filling in the ravioli was why my wife didn’t opt for that as she’s not a curry person at all. I’m not a curry person either but, you know, for science there’s little I won’t try once. It was quite nice.

The only course at SHARE where we didn’t actually offer to share any of our food with each other was the seafood course where the lure of crab and eggs was too much for both of us to resist. That sounds awful now that I read that back. The Alaska King Crab was very nice, however, and I thought the textures on the dish combined really well again.

The penultimate course produced what my wife thought was the best dish of her selection, Strip Loin Steak, “perfectly balanced deliciousness” in her own words and yet she’s not a professional restaurant critic! What gives!? I chose the Duck Leg Confit. Very tasty.

As I’d gone for the Dark Chocolate Crémeux that only left Toffee Cheesecake for my wife’s dessert choice because you’d need to put a gun to her head to get her to eat marzipan and that would only occur accidentally after her head slammed forward into the foodstuff as she’d request death first. She’s not the biggest fan of marzipan. The desserts we selected, though, were both very good indeed.

As I’ve already indicated, there’s a potential lack of combinations if the menu doesn’t change but that’s about the only small negative I can bring up about our speciality dining evening at SHARE. We really enjoyed the themed courses, the textures and tastes were fantastic, the portion sizes were just right, the variety of food in each course was good, and there was a definite sense that everything really was special and none of the courses were just slightly fancier dishes than you’d get in the main dining room.

The final positive to report was that the restaurant venue itself was perfect with a gorgeous view out over the aft as the sun started to dip in the Mediterranean.

We’d certainly dine at SHARE again.

In the next post from this cruise travel diary series I’ll cover the first part of the first of our Italian port stops while on Emerald Princess.