Repositioning

Thursday and Friday, April 24 and 25

You've heard of repositioning cruises. That's when cruise lines move their cruise ships to the next season's cruising location. Well, that's what we decided to do too--in our case, moving our car closer to the next stage of our trip.

On Saturday, we have to return our rental car to the Nice airport and get ourselves to Antibes, where we will begin a 2-week sojourn in a rented house in the old, pedestrian part of this seaside town. Being in the Minervois, we were about a 4-hour autoroute drive away from Nice. That sounded like a very harried Saturday sprint. Since we felt we'd pretty thoroughly explored the Languedoc, we decided to reposition ourselves to within 1 to 1-1/2 hours of Nice. We could get the bulk of the autoroute business over with and have a much less stressful shifting of travel gears.

That meant that Thursday was a less than stellar day, but we accomplished our goal. Whether it's because we simply have our French driving legs now or because we are not trying to do the task on little sleep and a long overseas flight, we essentially sailed through the autoroute routine.

We then climbed up into the Haut Var--the high hills behind the Mediterranean--to a little village that captivated us on a trip in 2000. It's always dangerous going back. You never know if it will still have that charming sparkle or if you'll wonder what you were thinking back then. We've had it work both ways. Fortunately, this was the good version: Tourtour truly is a delightful village. It calls itself "the village in the sky," because it is quite high in the hills and has views that go on forever. It struck us then and still does that this is a quintessential French village. It has a very nice square in the center, with plane trees providing shade. It has the requisite boules courts and a simple church just up the hill. There are a handful of shops, selling linens and pottery and lavender products. (We are in Provence now, after all.). There are several cafés with tables set up in the square. Not too small, not too big.

We have chosen to stay at the same auberge we stayed in 14 years ago. We're giving ourselves a little countryside time before transitioning into full-time town life in Antibes. We're about 3km outside the village, and we're on a big meadow with horses grazing and the clucking (and occasional crowing) of chickens in the background. A rushing stream is below the meadow. Very tranquil (except for the loudest set of frogs we've ever heard, come nighttime).

On Friday, we spent some time in Tourtour, of course. Then we took a loop drive to see a handful of "perched villages" in the area. They are all in a gorge area, and each is scenic in its own right. We stopped for lunch in the one that calls itself "eagle's nest"--Chateaudouble. We sat on a sun-dappled terrace under an umbrella of plane trees and ate our lunch with a view of a dramatic gorge right in front of us. Quite impressive indeed.

Now it's time to gather up the detritus of a 2-week car trip and get ready to move on. We have never stayed in one place for 2 weeks when traveling overseas. We have always felt we had to keep moving and discovering new things and places. This is a grand experiment: Will we like Antibes 2 week's worth? Will we like the feeling of staying in one place and not worry about all the unexplored villages, etc.? Will we enjoy being car-free?

Stay tuned!


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