Morys Musing

It was July 13, 2015 and we had just completed our wonderful Corsican adventure. It was now time to head back to Bormes. However, we were not done! Instead of sailing back to Toulon France, Glenn had us sail from Bastia to Genoa, Italy to spend one night savouring Italy’s charms.

The ferry ride was relatively smooth but I also determined that I had no language skills in Italian. The crew on this ferry spoke Italian with very little English. Yet another language to learn! We approached Genoa and were impressed by the size of the port. It seemed to go on forever. We even caught a glance of the Costa Concordia not looking its best!

Glenn and Maysan had some shopping to do at “Eataly”- a wonderful Italian store selling fresh goods and kitchen goods. How I wish we had one of these in Calgary! They also had a very nice restaurant where we enjoyed a fine evening meal with fish which likely came off the boat fresh just that day. We stayed at a very nice hotel close to the port.

The next morning we had a few hours to tour the old town section of Genoa where some of the local university faculties are located. It was very pleasant.

We then proceeded to a outlet shopping district located between Genoa and Milan to do what else…. some shopping!  The shopping district was huge and offered premium products at quite large discounts. Anna and Anita would have loved it. I picked up a few dress shirts and got a great deal on top of it all.

We then proceeded to visit Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France on the way back home for an evening meal and visit. Saint-Paul or Saint-Paul-de-Vence (in Occitan: Sant Pau) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France. One of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, it is well known for its modern and contemporary art museums and galleries such as Fondation Maeght which is located nearby.

Saint-Paul de Vence has long been a haven of the famous. During the 1960s, it was frequented by French actors Yves Montand, Simone Signoret and Lino Ventura, and poet Jacques Prévert.

Saint-Paul is also well known for the artists who have lived there, such as Jacques Raverat, Gwen Raverat and Marc Chagall and more recently the couple Bernard-Henri Lévy and Arielle Dombasle. Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has a home there. American writer James Baldwin died there in 1987. British actor Donald Pleasence died there in 1995.

We had a most enjoyable evening [me in my new dress shirt from Italy, so smart], unfortunately, our meal was relatively disappointing which was very unusual for France. Maysan certainly gave the manager a lot to “chew on”. We then arrived home quite late in Bormes and fell into a well-deserved sleep. We only had one day before we would have to leave for Le Puy. No rest for the wicked!