Our ferry departed late in the day from Marseille, so we took the day to see some of Provence on the way.
We drove through Roussillon, which is famous for it's many shades of ochre, which were once mined and used as painting pigments.
As well as Gordes, which the girls and I had seen before.
We finally made it down to the dock an hour or so before the ferry was scheduled to leave, and after driving onto the boat, the girls were eager to get to our rooms. Their favorite thing was playing on the bunk beds.
But we finally got them to go up on deck to catch some of Marseille as we departed.
We got into Porto-Vecchio around 8:30am, and after a standard breakfast of pain au chocolat and coffee, we drove south twenty minutes to one of Corsica's most famous beaches, Palombaggia. It was the prettiest beach that any of us had ever seen. The girls couldn't wait to get into the water, even though it was freezing!
We knew the water would be cold, so we bought them some shortie wet-suits to wear before leaving.
But there were quite a few jellyfish in the water, so they spent more time playing in the sand.
And since it was her birthday, making Allison a cake.
On the way back from the beach, we got a rare picture of the four of us where we stopped for lunch.
According to our guidebooks, over the last few years, a lot of small adventure parks have opened up all over the island. The basic idea is that with the minimal amount of safety gear required, you traverse between trees on bridges made of various combinations of rope and wooden planks and zip lines. We stopped by one that had been closed down (or perhaps not yet open this season), so Summer could play some. She loves this kind of thing and already has plans for what we have to build in our backyard once we get home.
It was unbelievable how dangerous some of this stuff was. There were wooden platforms attached to trees that were thirty feet up in the air. A place like this wouldn't stay open long in the lawsuit-happy US.
That night for her birthday, Allison and I went to dinner alone (a rare treat). The food was excellent, but perhaps the most memorable thing was watching the moon rise from behind a mountain across the Porto-Vecchio bay.
The next day we drove down to Bonifacio on the straightest highway in Corisca and stopped off to see an another amazing beach.
Bonifacio is split into two parts.
The lower part (where we stayed) surrounds a harbor and mainly includes hotels and restaurants.
We rode a small train up to the upper part, where we walked around their charming, narrow streets.
Everyone we talked to and all of our guide books mentioned that a boat trip around Bonifacio was a must. We were also told that the sea can get rough when it's windy. The wind was blowing hard the first day, so we decided to wait until the next day to go. But it was blowing even harder, so only my dad and I, the two least prone to motion sickness, took the tour. It was certinly impressive but thirty minutes into the hour tour, my stomach was ready for it to be over. Among the sites, we saw a lookout used by the German's during WW II.
And Bonifacio itself perched high on the cliffs.
After a rainy day in Sartene, we drove to our final destination, Corsica's capital, Ajaccio, where we found a lot more for the girls to do. We took them to Cupulatta, which is a huge turtle sanctuary with thousands of turtles, including one that was upside-down. He struggled for a few minutes before we found a stick long enough to flip him back over. Once we flipped him over, he was so exhausted from trying to right himself that he couldn't even stand up.
And Summer finally got to do the one thing she wanted most of all, riding a pony. It's something that we'd promised her before we left, but many places weren't open yet or not open on the days we were there. Finally, she was able to join a class with kids who came weekly to a riding center to take lessons. Being in a class was a much better experience than just sitting on a pony walking along a dirt path, which was the option at another place.
She almost fell off when her pony started to trot, but her teacher caught her just in time.
And kept a closer eye on her for the rest of the hour.
There are 91 watchtowers that line Corsica's coast. They were built in the early fifteenth century to counteract the growing number of pirate attacks; the network of watchtowers could alert the whole island of an attack in under an hour. Along the way, we saw a few in the distance from the car, but the only one that we got near was at the far end of the Ajaccio peninsula. Past the one at the end of the main island, you can see another one in the distance on the Iles Sanguinaires along with a more modern lighthouse.
From the base of the watchtower, we had the best view so far on the island.
That night we took the ferry back to mainland France. In the morning, we first drove to Cannes (Allison hoped to see some celebrities and dreamed of getting a picture holding Suri Cruise), and then ended up taking a gorgeous drive along the coast until we reached Agay where we stayed in a nice hotel right on the beach with a great restaurant.
The day before we drove back home to Barraux, we took the girls to Marine Land, which is pretty similar to Sea World.
Marine Land is part of a group of four other parks, including La Petite Ferme du Far West, for which we bought a combined pass. The girls had the most fun of the whole trip here. They chased around farm animals, played on a huge inflatible structure, rode mechanical horses, little boats, got their faces painted
rode ponies,
and played with fun house mirrors for the first time.
The next day we headed back home. With each girl watching DVDs, the five hour trip went smoothly.
Overall, it was a great vacation, and we couldn't have done it without my parents who did so much to keep the girls entertained with much less sleep than they normally get.
