— Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton – 2013

Sanary-sur-Mer is a small picturesque town thirteen kilometers from the ferry landing in Toulon. Hotel de la Tour, our home for four nights, surrounds a medieval tower built to guard the village in the 13th century. It sits at the edge of a square next to the stone boardwalk that stretches along the Mediterranean in the pedestrian-only part of town. We roused Sunday morning to the sounds of vendors setting up the Provençal market on our doorstep. As the day went on, more and more people poured into the market area—so many that it took at least one-half hour to walk from one end to the other without stopping except to pick our way through the crowd. The marketed goods seemed typical with lots of inexpensive clothing, accessories, and household items together with local fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and wines. By evening, after the town emptied of day visitors, calm and quiet returned.

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Curiosity drew us to Corsica. Although collectively we have traveled to France many times, Corsica has never been on our radar — until now.
Always loving an adventure, we booked passage with Corsica Ferries for the six hour, ninety- nine mile trip over the Mediterranean Sea from Nice to Bastia. These enormous vessels carry up to 1800 passengers and 550 vehicles. We selected an outside cabin with private bath in advance and supplemented our picnic supper with beer and wine from the ship’s cave. The motion of the ship was gentle enough that we napped — like being on a train but without the clickety-clack.

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We have wheels! A brand new Renault Captur that we reserved months in advance. We used Auto Europe, a rental wholesale company, after individual agencies quoted prices that broke the bank. It’s a four door with a hatchback — big enough for us and our stuff but hopefully small enough to avoid disaster as we squeeze by the walls and through the narrow streets of old villages. When I spotted the advertising sign at the first gas station, I was surprised by the low cost of fuel — until I realized the 1.862€ posted price was for one liter. One gallon would be 7.15€ or about $7.87.

Our first rental house, La Farigoulette, is a gîte about 12 miles above Nice — high up in the foothills of the Alpes. It is near St. Blaise, a village with fewer than 1000 residents that is situated on land given to a religious abbey in 1075. We achieved one of our primary objectives — to stay in areas where no one speaks english.

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