Un weekend à la mer

This past Sunday was the thirtieth birthday of my host parents' son, and they gave him the house for the weekend for his party, so what better time than that to take a weekend vacation to the sea? Martine and Philippe (my host parents) have friends who own a house right on the Mediterranean in La Madrague, Hyères, which is about an hour and a half from Aix. And when I say right on the Mediterranean, I mean it. It was awesome. This was my view from the front porch all weekend:

On Saturday, we drove a few minutes to get to the port, then we took a quick ferry to the nearby island of Porquerolles (literally pronounced "pork roll" but with a French accent). We arrived in a port filled with sailboats and dogs running across the docks.

My friend Megan came along for the weekend too!

Once off the boat, we rented bikes to ride around the island on what Philippe claimed was a "short, easy bike ride." It wasn't. What we actually did was ride up and down 12 kilometers of rocky hills, while I came to the conclusion that my 61 year old host father is in better shape than me. The views were amazing though, so it turned out just fine.

Here we are with Martine at the top of the hardest and steepest hill.

What really made it all worth it was our destination: the beach. We passed several slightly crowded beaches along the way, and I wondered why we didn't stop at those. When we got to the end of the trail though, I found out. None of the other beaches looked as good as this:

The water was brilliantly blue and green and so crystal clear I could see tiny fish at the bottom when I went swimming. It was beautiful, and the water felt great after the bike ride. We had a nice picnic lunch on the sand then hung out for a couple hours before biking back. After some yummy gelato, we got the boat back, and headed home.

Goodbye Porquerolles!

After some quiet time to recuperate from the day's activities, we went to a long stretch of beach on a little inlet, and watched the sunset. Pictures cannot capture all the colors. It was a beautiful end to the day.

On Sunday morning, Philippe suggested we "walk into town," which sounded fun. And it was, but it was most definitely not a walk. There are trails along the cliffs on the sea shore, and we headed out on those. The thing about seaside cliffs though is that they are not at all even, and it was more like rock climbing than anything else. But once again, the views were amazing. With the sea to my left the whole time, I could look out to the horizon and watch all the sailboats as we hiked. We also passed lots of stairs cut into the cliffs that went down to hidden little beaches right on the shore.

After about 45 minutes, we finally reached the town and climbed up to the lookout point. There, we could look out at the sea on both sides. We could even look back at the island we had been on the day before.

Martine picked us up in town once we were done exploring, and as it was a pretty windy day, we headed to a beach to watch the kitesurfuers. Apparently, it is very popular in the region. There were probably 40 or 50 kitesurfers on that beach alone. It looks really hard but really fun. I think we should give it a try on Keuka!

After we got back to the house, we changed into swimsuits and walked along the cliffs again back to one of the little beaches I mentioned. It was quiet and secluded, and we all enjoyed one last swim in the sea.

After a yummy Sunday lunch, we had to pack up and head home, but not without watching a few more sailboats from the porch. It was a weekend full of beautiful sights, and a great first trip to the Mediterranean!