THE OTHER RIVIERA

Two separate racing fleets were streaming into the docks and a party was in full swing at the head of Marseille’s inner harbor. A group of bearded musicians cranked out lively jazz tunes while throngs of sailors jostled around the drinks and snack tables. Sipping a rather good Cabernet, I counted a score of colorful sponsors’ booths set up along the concrete and stone piers, a few yards from the transoms of a dozen beautiful classic yachts that had just finished a hard day’s racing. Opposite them was a cluster of battle-scarred one-design racer-cruisers with foul weather gear draped over their booms, gangs of twenty-somethings washing the salt off after a long, breezy overnight leg. The mid-September evening was warm, the atmosphere convivial, and the whole affair set the scene for a week’s sailing along France’s Côte d’Azur. Or, more accurately, the coast of Provence—the French Riviera officially begins at Toulon, just an hour’s drive to the east.

Although I’ve been to this part of France many times and traversed the spectacular coastline from Toulon to Genoa by car, motorcycle and bus, I had never seen it from the water except for some daysailing out of Marseille many years earlier. “You are up for a treat,” said the smiling, our Bali 4.1 catamaran. “The coast is very beautiful.”