C'est Nice

Real quick, I forgot that I went to the graveyard at St. Paul de Vence and saw Marc Chagall's grave. This is the view from the entrance to the cemetery... I put a red arrow there to show you which grave is his. It was a very pretty graveyard, situated just outside the town walls, trickling slowly down the hill that the town is built on. I actually couldn't find it at first, and ended up walking all the way to the bottom of the graveyard and back up again. There's this tradition in French (maybe all European?) graveyards to put pictures of people on little placards that are placed on top of the graves, but they're not formal pictures or anything, rather, they seem to have been taken during the deceased's last lunch break. They're mostly wearing open collared shirts or casual dresses, but, to be fair, they're all smiling, looking pretty genuinely happy. I guess if I were to have a picture of myself on my grave, I'd want it to be something like that.

Anyway, on to Sunday. We went to Porquerolles Island (or as I like to call it, the Porker's Ball) which is off the coast of Hyères, near Toulon, about two hours from Nice. We all got up at the crack o'dawn to catch the bus at 8. We hit traffic and made our ferry just in time, arriving on Porquerolles at about 11. It's a pretty small island, with just one little village at the port, and then a smattering of houses, castles, and other types of settlements all over. They've also got some vineyards and olive tree... orchards? Fields? Well, whatever it is they've got, it's very nice, very outdoorsy. There were cicadas everywhere... you could hear them non-stop from the time we stepped off the boat to the time we got back on. The island is also covered in Eucalyptus trees, which triggered heavy nostalgia for both Silvertree and Lowell, both of which had more than their fair share of eucalyptus.
I rented a bike for the day (being unable to interest anyone else in joining me for the ride) and biked, first, across the island to Phare, opposite from the Port. It wasn't a terribly long bike ride--2,7 km there and back, and I kept forgetting how much shorter kilometers are than miles--but it was very pretty. In some ways, it reminded me a lot of the presidio, with it's abounding nature broken here and there with what look like army-type buildings. There's a very nice lighthouse out at Phare, which I climbed (it's a runt compared to the Montauk Lighthouse, but still, quite lovely. There's something very comforting about a lighthouse that I can't quite put my finger on. Benevolence, maybe? But they're also very aesthetically pleasing, too, especially the winding staircases on the inside, and the giant glass lens up top. I don't know. I like it. Anyway, there were some pretty stunning views from the top as well... there's something about seeing the entirety of an island from up above that makes it all feel incredibly close. I kept thinking about what it'd be like to be stranded there for a week or more... or, more fantastically, forever. Seeing the island from up top like that also reminded me of Myst, although I can only chalk that up to the wind and the water. The picture below is a view of the village from the lighthouse back over the island, and the city off in the disance.
After I biked back, I shared a quick lunch with a few of the other RAs. We sat in the village square and ate sandwiches while a very little boy (2, 3 years old?) ran around in a blue t-shirt, baseball cap, and bright yellow mickey-mouse underpants, and asked Suzanne why she had boutons all over her face (we think he was referring to her freckles).
For my afternoon activity, and to try and make my 12€50/jour bike rental worthwhile, I decided to take a trip out to Langoustier, which is way at the Western end of the island. I started off with about half-a-liter of water in my bottle, thinking that there'd be somewhere for me to fill it up before I left the village. Incidentally, there was not, but this didn't seem to bother me. The trail to Langoustier was easy enough at first, pretty good dirt roads, until, rather quickly, it turned into very rough, rocky, steep up-and-down paths. The bike that I had rented was very good--extra wide tires, shocks--and I was somewhat suprised that I could bike up most of the hills. But after the second hill, my head started hurting like crazy. I kept going, thinking that any second I'd find a place where I could get some water. Shortly, however, it became apparent that I was really, really dehydrated as my headache had increased. I stopped at a trail marker that said I was closer to Langoustier than I was to the village. I had no clue what was out at Langoustier, but (and perhaps I inherited this from my father) the idea of having to turn around to go back to the village when I was more than halfway to my destination seemed repugnant. So I kept on going, up and down steeper and steeper hills, until I arrived at the very end of the island. The road forked, one road leading over to the beach and another leading to a Hotel called Le Mas de Langoustier, with a very explicit sign that unless I was planning on staying the night, I was not welcome there. I went over to the beach, hoping for a hose spigot, or a faucet or anything, but there was nothing. Close to desperation, I wheeled my bike into the hotel, hoping to sneak some water out of a spigot, but I found nothing. I was weighing the risks involved with knocking on someone's door and pleading for mercy when I ran into a 9 or 10 year old kid. With whatever French I had left, I introduced myself, and asked if he could help me find some water. He said sure, that he'd just take me to see the director of the hotel. I thought this sounded a little drastic, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He led me straight to the hotel bar, where, the bartender, a woman with her black hair in a tight braid, looked me over and seemed on the verge of telling me to get outm but then, at the last moment relented, and filled my nalgene and even dropped a few ice cubes in there. I must have said merci a million times, and took the first few cool gulps of water before I had walked the ten feet or so back to the door. My friend, Nicolas, followed me and I asked him if he was here on vacation. "Sort of," he said, "My father is the director of the hotel." Thank goodness for small blessings, eh? We hung out for another ten minutes or so; he tried out his English on me, told me he lived in Nice during the year. I gave him my address and told him if he'd like, he could write me; he told me he was unsure if his father would appreciate him giving out his address, which I understood.
Anyway, from there I headed to the beach, where I obliged myself to sit in the shade (I think I'd had rather enough sun already). I hung out there for a while, went for a brief dip, headed back the village, returned the bike, showered, and boarded the ferry back for mainland.

That's all folks! Gotta run!