The French Riviera
I arrived at the airport in Nice exhausted from a surprisingly long journey that consisted of a train and a plane, and found myself about to board a bus. The plan was to meet up with several of my friends who were all staying at a house in a village called Roquefort-les-Pins in the south of France. It was a €50 cab ride or a €1.50 bus ride, so I naturally took the bus.
When I got to the house it was amazing to see all of these friendly and familiar faces after my long pilgrimage (The Camino, not my flight trombone Porto). Everyone was sitting around enjoying wine, beer, G&Ts, and a cheese board. I truly received a warm welcome befitting someone who completed a literal pilgrimage. It was a truly international group, with people hailing from Australia, the UK, Ireland, and Bahrain. They were also all currently living in the United Arab Emirates, except for Jon, who was on his own round-the-world trip.
The house belonged to my friend Phillipe’s family, and it was filled with precious artifacts from their tours around the world as diplomats for the French government. It was a picturesque house with a large garden and new swimming pool. To say it was a far cry from my pilgrim hostels where I received sheets made of paper would be an understatement. We didn’t have a lot planned for our time together besides drink a ton of alcohol and enjoy one another’s company.
Our first day together we decided to venture out to the town of St. Paul-de-Vence, which was not too far from where we were staying. St. Paul-de-Vence is a gorgeous walled town on a hill. One major difference I noticed from other medieval towns I’ve visited that it wasn’t filled with ticky-tacky magnet shops, but instead lined with art galleries and boutiques. The narrow cobblestone streets were maze-like but it’s too small to truly get lost. We wandered around the city for a bit before the gang decided to stop for some drinks. When traveling with eight people, sometimes the easiest thing to do is stop and drink. Drinks were not in the budget for me, and I still wanted to check out more of the town, so I excused myself to explore.
James Baldwin spent the last decades of his life in St. Paul-de-vence, seeking refuge from the racisim and homophobia of his home country. Even in the civil rights movement he experienced homophobia, frequently getting called “Martin Luther Queen” by some of his peers. It’s where he wrote books like If Beale Street Could Talk and Just Above My Head. Upon first entering the town I saw fliers indicating there was an art exhibition of female artists depicting James Baldwin.
When I found the gallery I met the Baldwin devotee running it named Shannon Cain. Shannon had led the efforts to preserve James Baldwin’s home, which was now set to be destroyed and turned into luxury condos. She often found herself at odds with the Baldwin Family officially charged with preserving and continuing Baldwin’s legacy. The room was filled with paper cranes that formed the colors of the rainbow. The paper she used to create the cranes came from some of Baldwin’s books. It was her own commentary on appropriation and a sort of grieving exercise after she failed in her efforts to save Baldwin’s home.
I left the gallery and met up with the rest of the group, many of whom had started playing bocce ball with some local random French guys. We headed to the modern art musem, FOUNDATION MAIGHT, for a little bit of culture.
We went to bed at a time that indicated we weren’t a group of 20-somethings who Airbnb’d a house in the South of France. Our plan for the next day was to head to Cannes for a day trip on a boat we chartered.
if I had to guess which of my friends might do something as extravagant as charter a sailboat on the Côte d'Azur, it would be these friends. The last time I saw we all jetted off to Beirut where we consumed a stupid number of cocktails and some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. This was followed by wake boarding and boozy brunches in Abu Dhabi and a black-tie charity dinner in Dubai with Ben Affleck, Susan Sarandon, and Natalie Imbruglia.
We packed a bunch of food and booze and took two ubers out to Cannes to meet our skipper, named Sebastian. The Malaga was a 16-meter (54.5 ft) sailboat we rented from a website called “clickandboat.com” with a full kitchen, three bedrooms, and eight “berths.” We felt like true 1%-ers until we saw some of the yachts parked in the dock.
Sebastian took us to a calm section of the water called “Le Plateau du Milieu” a calm section of water sometimes called “The Swimming Pool.” Its position between the islands of Saint-Honorat and Sainte-Marguerite made the water calm. It also wasn’t too deep, thus “the plateau.” We dived into the water, dutifully capturing the experience on camera. We didn’t know the next time we would be on a boat in the French Riviera, if ever, and chances are we wouldn’t look as good in a bathing suit. The turquoise water was frigid, but the cliché I always shout when in a freezing body of water, “It gets warmer!” was true.
We ate most of our snacks and easily cleaned off two magnum bottles of champagne. There weren’t too many other boats out on the water which was pretty nice. There was one boat on our port side (THAT’S LEFT), full of hunky men that looked extremely bored. There was only one woman on the boat, who might have been the skipper. We theorized as to what they were doing out on a boat together. Was it a stag party? They couldn’t have been gays; they weren’t playing any music. Two of them came near our boat when they paddle-boarded over to order pizzas. Yes, you read that right.
There were some real entrepreneurs parked on Le Plateau called Catamaran Pizza – La Voile Gourmande. They clearly identified a white space in the market. You could call or Whatsapp them, provide them your location, and they would send a dinghy over with your pizza.
We placed an order mostly because we were hungry but also for the novelty of the pizza boat experience. I lobbied for the curry chicken pizza, which drew some skepticism from the rest of the group. Sure enough, a woman pulled up in a small dinghy that said PIZZA in large letters with their phone number. The pizza was so much better than it had to be, considering the limited delivery options on the French Riviera. Then again, the yacht crowd was probably pretty discerning. The curry chicken was excellent, for what it’s worth.
The wind started to pick up, so Sebastian pulled out the sail and we flew. The boom swung around as the sail caught the wind, but I was napping out on the bow so was in no danger of getting hit. It became clear why all the cupboards had hatches as the kitchen went nearly horizontal. Harnessing the wind in order to glide across the top of water is a powerful feeling. It’s no wonder that it has captured hearts for centuries, particularly before motorized forms of transportation. We pulled back into the harbor at Cannes salty and sun-kissed, not ready to return to our lives back on land.
