11/7–Toulon

For us – our first port.  LOL.  We awoke to a beautiful, if not chilly, sunrise in La Seyne-Sur-Mer

Today, we have purchased a shuttle boat ticket from the ship – which cost a couple of Euros more than the city public transportation shuttle, but leaves right from the port dock – thus eliminating a 10 minute walk just to pick up the shuttle.  We’re off the ship pretty quickly and find the shuttle stop right outside.  The meeting time is 8:15, but there are hardly any other passengers here.  We stand around, freezing.  It is so cold here – with the wind that hasn’t died down yet.  It’s brutal.  Of course the people in line behind us are whining and complaining.  One of the shuttle guys and I just roll our eyes.  I tell him somebody just has to complain, don’t they? He says, yes, c’est la vie.  Yep – that’s right.  LOL.

We finally get on the boat, then take the quick little ride over to Toulon. It’s early when we arrive, just a bit before 9 am.  We have a whole day planned visiting a few cool looking museums.  Unfortunately, as we peruse the map the TI girl has provided, we see that all but one museum are closed on Mondays.  Darn.  We know Monday’s are typically bad days for museum openings, but we’d not seen anything about this in our research.  Oh well – at least we have 1 museum we can visit. But not until 10, so we’ve got  oodles of time to kill. 

We do so by wandering through the pedestrian area in town, and finding a little cafe for a cappuccino.  Turns out to be the most expensive cappuccino since years ago in Florence, but, heck – it’s warm inside, we have wi-fi and we’ve nothing else to do.  It works!

Back out on the street, we head toward the Photography museum, which is the most interesting on our list, just in case they are open as a special thing today.  No such luck, but we do find a lovely little piazza right out front with a cool globe fountain.

Continuing to wander, we meander along the promenade beside the docks, looking at restaurants and the odd little souvenir shop.  It’s still too early, but we head to the Maritime Museum anyway, and end up sitting outside in the gorgeous sunshine until they open.

We are among the first inside – there are only 3 others ahead of us – and we get out discount tickets (show our cruise sea pass and we get 1 Euro 50 off), don our audio guides and commence the tour.

It’s actually a very interesting museum.  The first thing we get to do is go back outside.  With our audio guides!  Totally unheard of, but it is perfect because here we get a history lesson on the ornate building entrance, which was once  actually a free standing arch used as a gate to the city.  They moved the gate, in one piece to the building here to create the entrance. It is ornate and beautiful and must have been quite a spectacle slowly inching its way through the city.

Back inside, we follow the yellow submarines (yes, yellow submarines) through various displays.  There are paintings depicting the harbor and the shipyards from ancient times to current days.  It turns out that Toulon harbor is the largest naval shipyard in all of Europe.  It grew and grew over the years, adding more dock space, and eventually adding  two drydocks for shipbuilding.  The they dredged the harbor and made it possible for the largest aircraft carriers in the world – the nuclear Charles D’Gualle and the USS Wisconsin to berth here. It is now the home port for the Charles D’Gualle. 

There are a great many models and charts and displays.  There is a miniature dredging machine from the 1800s which is amazing.  A replica of the rope factory – which is a huge long (but not wide) building where rope was made in a single long strand reaching all the way through the halls of the shotgun type building.  There ship bells and steering mechanisms…

…and huge replicas of sailing vessels used to train soldiers how to sail and fight…

So much to see and do.  We spend a good long time walking through the museum and exclaiming over the various exhibits.

Once done, we go to see the actual rope factory building in person (even though the cute girl at the front desk says that it is not as nice as the replica they have on display).  It isn’t as nice – or as detailed, but it is really sort of cool, looking at this huge structure that was used only to make rope in the day.

After the rope factory, we slowly make our way back to the waterfront promenade, this time looking at restaurant menus in earnest to determine where we will eat later.  We check out one place that looks good and has a mixed antipasto type plate for me – it’s mussels for Ed  - this place is the mussel capital and you know Ed won’t miss out on his moules frites!

But first, we are looking for a grocery store.  We have seen people with Carrefour bags, but we can’t seem to find the store. We meander up another pedestrian only street, in search of the “provencal food market” (sic) that is shown on our tourist map. That’s is not to be found either.  Sigh.  We do find a little, teeny grocery store – more  convenience store on steroids – where we provision Ed up with beverages.  I’m eyeing a lovely looking French Sauvignon Blanc for 3 Euro when I realize I left the darn corkscrew on the ship.  Darn it.  Oh well, my supplies will not be stocked here in France.  Pooh.

Having wasted enough time walking around, it is now time for lunch. We head back to L’air du Temps restaurant and snag a perfect table outside in the sun.  The menus are a hoot – a comic depiction of all sorts of American TV shows and movies…

…but however odd the menu cover is, the food is not. Service and food are outstanding – and we enjoy everything immensely while we bask in the warm sunny weather.

Fully sated, we head back toward the shuttle boat, passing what we are calling a young Neptune, and the lovely little sailboats all bobbing in the harbor.

Then it is back on the shuttle boat, across the harbor, and back onto Silhouette in time for afternoon canapés!  And the gym of course.  Another day done, and another day closer to our Atlantic Ocean crossing.