Villefranche

Aug 2nd
Ville Franche

Today I had my first repeat port, Ville Franche. This was the first port I traveled to after Barcelona a couple weeks ago, and now I’m back. I started out the day by finding the internet café that I knew existed and was able to sit down for a couple hours and make all my posts, I hope you all appreciate the effort! Then I had to rush back to the ship for a training thing that I really didn’t want to do, so that was lame. I got back to the room to find Ron left a note saying he went “out”. Well, we had planned to go to Mocaco in the afternoon/evening, and not knowing exactly what “out” meant or the time it entailed, I waited for his return. After a phone call home and a couple hours later, he got back to the ship, and tired from his excursion, didn’t want to leave again for Monaco. That sucked, cause I was excited to take the train out, so I left the ship seeing what options were still available by the time I got to shore. Unfortunately, when I got in, it was approaching 6:00, and the train schedule didn’t exactly work in my favor for getting me back to the ship by 8:30. I took a picture of the schedule for future reference and then decided to just go walking and find a part of town I hadn’t yet been to. So I did, instead of walking up the hill or turning right toward the beach, I made a left from the dock to see what I could find. After walking around in a fortress for a bit, I continued to walk along the coast and through the local marina. This eventually took me to a great little restaurant with folding tables and only outdoor seating, exactly what I was looking for the first time around. I ordered an omelette (I think that’s how they spelled it), with fromage (chesse). It was phenomenal, sorry Mom, but I guess you can’t beat an authentic French omelette. It came with a nice little side salad, which was great, and some French fries to seal the deal. I ordered a glass of wine as well, a local rogue I assume, which was very good. It was all great though, and I got to sit at this cheap little table 3 feet from the water in the marina, eat authentic French cuisine, and just enjoy a much more “real” part of town without all the tourists. I even had little French birds fly up to my table begging for food, to which I answered with a tip of a French fry which was promptly eaten by the tiny bird with an insatiable appetite that brought her back for more. Then, after paying a more than reasonable 10.50 + tip in euros, I walked back to the tender which would return me to my ship. The Brilliance of the seas, another Royal Carib Ship was anchored just behind us. That was another good sized ship, but I’m relatively sure we were still bigger. So it is now approaching 9:00, and with no show tonight, I’m free to do whatever. I’m looking forward to the next time back and the next time I can find a place with a reasonable internet service!