Pandemic Diaries - Mediterranean Cruise - Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

31 October 2022 - Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

 

Villefranche-sur-Mer turned out to be a delightful town, though it seemed that most of our fellow passengers went on to Nice, the better known city just over a hill or ridge.

 

This region is known as the Maritime Alps, though some people have referred to it as the French Riviera.  And the Cote d’Azur (Azure Blue Coast).   It actually is all those things, which seems counter-intuitive – I always think of the French Riviera as being a warm and beachy playground, while the Alps are obviously snow-capped mountains.  But somehow, they all come together in this very charming place!  The town itself has a very small beach, though much of the coast in either direction was more rocky headlands than beach. 

 

Villefranche-sur-Mer is a Medieval city built around a gorgeous bay, with a huge fort or citadel built on one end, standing guard for centuries.  This really is a gigantic fort – I walked along the seaside path built into the fort walls, halfway around.  Then I tried walking up a street a few blocks before I realized this would not take me back to the old part of town.  So I walked back down, and then the around the rest of the fort walls.  All of that was over a mile – so I’m guessing this fort’s perimeter was roughly a mile around.

 

I loved the little guard houses along the wall, with their colorful overlapping tiles!  Somehow that seems very French, but also a bit frivolous and whimsical for something as serious as a guard house!

 

And flowers, lots of flowers! 

There's also another huge fort or castle up on top of the hill, overlooking the town of Villefranche and the harbor.  I'm not sure how anyone would get up there, but it really dominates the view when looking uphill.

 

Anyway, I continued on my walk through the labyrinth of streets that make up the old part of the city, the vielle ville.  (Don’t you love French?  Sometimes it’s just SO confusing!)  The streets wound around, with cross streets being more like pedestrian alleys that had more stairs than level ground.  There were arches over the stairs, and one “covered pedestrian way” was labeled as built in the 14^th century!  Most definitely a Medieval city!

 

I took a zigzagging stairway cross street back down to the waterfront road, and thought I’d find a spot with Wi-Fi and coffee.  I found a cute place, and in my practiced French asked if they had Wi-Fi.  Yes, the woman responded.  I asked if it was possible to have cold coffee.  She told me in English that coffee was finished, it was now lunchtime.  (It was 11 AM.)  I thought fine, you don’t want me as a customer, I’ll go elsewhere.

 

I walked around a bit, enjoying the warm day and sunshine on the deep turquoise water.  Really, it was a picture-perfect city with boats bobbing in the water and colorful buildings with contrasting shutters filling the hills.

 

Finally, I found a place that looked promising.  They found me a table inside, since all the outside tables were pre-booked.  I was able to get a café frappé (coffee blended with ice), very cool and refreshing.  Turns out the name of the café was Lou Bantry, which is about as unFrench sounding a name as I can imagine!

 

The woman who seated me and took my order listened to my French, and replied in English.  Sigh.  I try to speak whatever the local language might be, and then my accent gives me away.  The male waiters listened to my French and replied in French – I have no idea if they feel less comfortable using English, or if they are being gallant and suffering through my not great French.  It does feel more kind, though.

 

By noon the place was packed.  After using the Wi-Fi and cooling off with my café frappé, I ordered my salade Niçoise.  I’m pretty sure the Niçoise is French for “in the style of Nice,” so it seemed like the perfect place for this dish.  And who hasn’t dreamed of enjoying a salade Niçoise somewhere on the French Mediterranean coast?  (I know I’m not the only one!)

 

My salad turned out to be HUGE, rather like that fort!  It was delicious, though I did remove the anchovies.  But full of mixed salad greens, tons of tomato and red pepper, and lots of tuna.  In the style of much of the Mediterranean, the salad came without dressing – but the table was equipped with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Oddly, the vinegar was in a spray bottle, so I kind of spritzed my salad.  Better than drenching it with vinegar when it comes pouring out too quickly, but still a bit odd.

 

The salad was delicious, as was the bread that accompanied it.  And I do love Niçoise olives! 

 

I saw some people who ordered dessert, a tart tatin (upside down apple pie), and profiteroles (like small cream puffs but filled with ice cream and drizzled in chocolate).  The portions were also gigantic, and smothered in whipped cream.  Hmmm.  I didn’t want something that big, but I did want something a bit sweet.  So I decided to have café liegeois.  This is pretty much like a caffe affogato, a scoop of ice cream with coffee poured slowly over the top so that the coffee freezes in spots, but also melts some of the ice cream into the coffee.  (I was told by a Belgian woman I met at dinner that night on the ship that café liegeois is Belgian in origin.  It really is an amazing drink, I used to get this sometimes at the Dilettante in Seattle.)

 

Well.  I should have known, after seeing the other two desserts.  This turned out to be equally huge!  It was a mason jar filled with two really big scoops of ice cream, coffee poured over, and the whole thing truly drowning in whipped cream.  Plus one of those pirouette cookies stuck in the cream for contrast.

 

C’est plus grande!  (It is so big!!!)  I sipped the coffee through a straw, and ate some of the coffee-ice-encrusted ice cream.  But there was no way I could finish that monster dessert, delicious as it was!

 

It was a delightful meal, however.  Such a treat to have a very French Rivieran lunch actually while in the French Riviera!!  Especially while visiting a storybook-looking old French town.  Just a perfect sort of a day.

 

I walked around a bit more, then wandered over to the little pier where our ship’s lifeboats were dropping off and picking up passengers.  As I’ve said before, I rather like tendering in and having that extra little boat ride.

 

When our tender reached the ship, however, we were hit with another boat’s wake, and we suddenly started bouncing up and down as well as back and forth!  The crew stopped us from disembarking, and I saw the young men hauling in the lines again to try to keep our little lifeboat steady.  The water calmed a bit, and we were able to get off the tender, but it was a little touch and go with some of the older passengers.  (As opposed to this youthful and so agile 68 year old, right?)

 

Tonight is Halloween, and I know some staff and passengers are planning to wear costumes.  I think I’ll just go as myself, Phebe the Intrepid Traveller.