Sunday, July 1, 2007

Villefranche, 25 June (Monday)


Villefranche was the port that gave us access to Nice and Monte Carlo. As at La Spezia, the ship anchored in the harbor and tender boats ferried people back and forth to the dock. The tender boats began running at 8:00 am and the last one back to the ship was at 11:30 pm. Zman had talked about taking the evening excursion to the Grand Casino in Monaco and I thought, since Zman had been to Nice 7.5 years ago, we'd probably rent a car. A number of the shore excursions featured a village called Eze, which sounded interesting, but nothing in particular seemed to be a "must do". And that was a good thing, as all three of us had a difficult time getting up and getting started. Zman and I had breakfast, then went back to the stateroom and while he dozed, I started reading a book about the 1893 World's Fair; lil Z didn't stir until about 11:30 am and then she went sunning followed by working out.
Around 3:30 pm, we took a tender to Villefranche and walked along the waterfront. Villefranche is a picturesque, seaside French town. It's probably the most pretty port we've been at the entire cruise, and that's probably why it was the cruise's final port. We went into a savonnaire (soap) shop that smelled wonderful. We walked uphill to a fort which is now a museum and houses a part (if not all) of the town's police. We wandered down some streets, headed back to the port, and found a clock tower behind a church. I started to go into the church and saw the inside briefly (it smelled like an old church, too) before Zman reminded me my knees were uncovered (we were all wearing shorts); all the shore excursions we've taken that visited churches said knees and shoulders must be covered out of respect - I'm not sure if that's because it's a European custom. We spent a couple hours in Villefranche before we took the tender back to the ship.

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