European Circle Tour Part 8: Safe Harbour

Our second port of the cruise was at the large natural harbour of Toulon, in southern France. To be exact, we were docked across the harbour at the commercial port of La Seyne-sur-Mer, and access to Toulon proper was by a daylong shuttle boat. In a first for my cruise experiences, the use of the boat shuttle was not free. The fare, charged to your shipboard account, was US$35. However, passengers who had purchased tours in Toulon from Princess Cruises were excused from paying that fare. The little things they don't tell you ahead of time can sometimes add up to big added expenses. In this case, if you bought your own tour you could very well end up losing money unless your tour was at least $35 cheaper per person than the tour sold by Princess.

 

So why dock on the other side of the bay? There's no place in Toulon. There's a ferry terminal for the large oceangoing ferries sailing to Corsica or Sardinia, but almost all the rest of Toulon's waterfront is occupied by the Mediterranean headquarters of the French Navy. 

The tour I selected had 2 parts -- first, a scenic boat tour around the bay, and second, a walking tour in the old city centre of Toulon. The boat tour was the real prize here, not least because the weather was absolutely perfect for such a purpose.

 

This first main group of photos include pictures taken on the tour boat. To start with, I have to prove that I was there, of course -- but why was I grinning?

 

Maybe it was because I had spotted the sign in French identifying the bin full of life jackets?

 

 

 As we sailed out into the bay, we got a look at the rest of the commercial traffic docked here. As our guides explained, Marseilles is the main commercial cargo port on this coast. Toulon/La Seyne gets only a few smaller cargo ships.

 

 

We got a series of views of Emerald Princess as we slowly curved around the pier to head towards the naval dockyard across the bay. I'll let you decide what is her best angle.

 

By this time, we were approaching the row of piers docking the naval ships. First up was the flagship of the French fleet, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

 

 Other naval ships of various types followed in succession.

 

At the end of the naval dockyard, there's a narrow inlet which leads to the city's waterfront, with its waterfront promenade, cafes, shops, and the piers for the shuttle boats -- including ours. Beyond that inlet is the pier for the big seagoing ferries. These ships, almost like cruise liners in themselves, take 8 hours or more to make the crossing from Toulon to ports in Corsica, and in the Italian island of Sardinia. There are ample numbers of private cabins for the overnight voyages.

 

We then moved further south towards the entrance of the bay. Most of the entrance is blocked by a long breakwater, leaving only one deep-water channel. Ships entering this channel sail west past the end of the breakwater, and then have to turn sharply north -- and all under the stern gaze of several stone forts, one of which is shown here.

 

After that we headed back to the Toulon waterfront, and docked at the shuttle pier. Our three guides then divided us into 3 groups for the walking tour of the old town. The first intriguing sight was a building dating from the early twentieth century whose builder incorporated this ornamental doorway from the older building which preceded it.

 

This broad plaza facing the water marked the beginning of the markets. After these merchants of clothes and other assorted goods in the first block, the next three blocks going up the hill were devoted to all sorts of food products.

 

Beyond the markets, we walked through other streets where many of the buildings featured elegant, even artistic railings on their balconies.

 

Toulon has a number of famous fountains in the old town. These were the two which we saw.

 

On a large plaza well up the hill from the water, we saw this theatre now devoted to the opera company, and currently undergoing some repairs.

 

We then walked downhill, back to the main road along the waterfront, and there we saw the historic main gate of the naval dockyard. It is now the entrance to the Maritime Museum. 

 

 

Our tour was meant to include a visit to the museum, but this was closed because we were there on May 1, which is Labour Day in France. That also meant we had to take a detour at one point in our walking tour to avoid a parade going on along the boulevard which separates the old town from the more recent parts.

 

At this point, we were free to spend more time in town, but I chose to head back to the ship for lunch. There, I got some views from the upper decks of the harbour area, the city, the docks, and the mountains which loom up as backdrop to the entire scene.

 

 

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Spring Nostalgia Trip # 5: Eighty Years Later

Our one and only port call in France was at the northern port city of Cherbourg, full name Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. One of the few truly deep-water ports on the English Channel, Cherbourg has a long maritime history. This was the penultimate port call of the Titanic before she sailed off on her never-to-be-completed maiden voyage. She may very well have been docked at the same pier where our ship was tied up, end to end with a massive Stena Line cruise ferry.

However, the entire region around Cherbourg, and especially just to the east of the Cotentin peninsula is preoccupied with more recent history. The Liberation of Europe in 1944-45 began here, just on the east side of the Peninsula, at the long string of beaches code-named "Utah." With the 80th anniversary date of the invasion fast approaching (exactly 2 weeks from the date of our visit), it was plain to see that this year's celebrations were going to be on an even bigger scale than usual.

The tour I took, then, was entirely themed around the landings on Utah Beach, and became the second day of my meditations on the war and its role in so many people's lives, stretching far into the future.

Leaving Cherbourg, we drove swiftly east on the expressway across the Cotentin, and then branched off onto the country roads. Here we could see that the traditional farming techniques of smaller fields divided by hedgerows are still followed. Our guide told us that many of the hedgerows were removed after the war to make it feasible to use larger and larger tractors. In many cases, they have now been restored (like these relatively new ones) because they do so much to soak up excess water in low-lying and flat areas.

Our first stop was on a flattish hilltop west of Utah Beach. Here we saw some of the gun batteries which the Germans had installed as coastal defences here, as along all the long winding coastline of their vaunted Fortress Europa. 

 

 

The big bunker with the massive concrete roof could withstand direct aerial bombing, and the gun which would have been installed under it could have inflicted severe damage on naval ships far out at sea. 

 

 

The guns in smaller emplacements commanded the actual beachfront area. That's still several miles away, and now concealed by closer vegetation which would have been cut down when the guns were installed. Dozens of these batteries ringed the five invasion beaches. 

 

 

The x-shaped tank traps were installed here, and in thousands in the offshore shallow waters, precisely because tanks would not be able to overrun them.

We did not enter the site because it charged a 20€ admission fee (about $30 CDN!), but also because we were racing the clock to get to everywhere we needed to go. The tour company was running two of these tours back-to-back in the one day before our ship sailed again!

When we drove down from the hills at Crisbecq, we were met by this broad stretch of flat land, actually all of it marshland which was painstakingly drained by the Norman farmers. The Nazis heedlessly inflicted suffering and food shortages by flooding all the land again to deter invasion troops. The buildings in the far distance on the horizon are actually built on the higher sand dune which fringes the entire length of the beaches.

And then we arrived at the next stop, a memorial overlooking Utah Beach itself.

It's hard to look at this peaceful scene today, and to try to visualize the firestorm which erupted on this placid shoreline in 1944. What's even harder to visualize, though, is the fact that in many areas of the five main invasion fronts, the landing troops actually made it off the gunfire-raked sands, and sometimes most of the way through the marshlands beyond, all in the first day. 

Somehow, these gnarled and twisted trees survived it all. I know I'm making an assumption which might be wrong, but trees that grow in windswept environments often live to great ages without ever growing to great heights. To my inexpert eye, these look like they might very well have been here eighty years ago to greet the invaders. At all events, they certainly seem to be here to stay now.

Across the road, a direction sign includes names that would be familiar to many a veteran and many a students of the D-Day landings.

Needless to say, the Nazis in 1944 had removed all road signs to avoid giving the invaders any help. One of the names on the sign, "Ste Mère-Église" points the way to the country town which was our next stop, some miles inland from the beaches.

 

In Sainte-Mère-Église, there stands another highway sign with memorable names.

 

The real attraction of  Sainte-Mère-Église (the name translates literally as "Holy Mother Church") is the town's medieval church.

It looks like many another medieval village church -- until you look closely at the side of the tower.

What appears, at first glance, like a ghoulish Halloween prank is an actual representation of what happened to U. S. paratrooper John Steele during the landings of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Steele survived by hanging on the tower, pretending to be dead, for over two hours until he was taken prisoner. Many of his comrades were killed  by gunfire as they descended or were caught in trees. Steele later escaped and rejoined his unit. According to our guide, he returned to Sainte-Mère-Église for the yearly celebrations of the Liberation every year for the rest of his life.

Inside the church are two striking memorials in stained glass. The first honours all the soldiers involved in the Liberation, with figures of paratroopers shown on either side of the Virgin and Child.

The second honours the reunion held by the paratroopers at the 25th Liberation celebrations in 1969, as recorded by the deeply evocative words at the bottom of the window: "Ils Sont Revenus"/"They Have Come Back."

Out and around in the town, there are many banners and flags containing the stars and stripes of the American national flag. Our guide told us that when the actual anniversary of the Liberation comes around each year, the houses blossom with untold numbers of American flags. The emotion seems as deeply and truly held here as it does in Holland for the Canadian soldiers who liberated that country not long after the events on Utah Beach and in Sainte-Mère-Église.

 

Upon leaving Sainte-Mère-Église, we detoured back down to the beach. One of the women had told the guide that there was a relative's name engraved on the main Utah Beach memorial, at another site, and she had hoped to see it. With the ready agreement of all on the bus, we made the detour. After that final short stop, there was applause and cheering when she climbed back onto the bus and announced, simply, "I found it."

 

And I was glad that, like me, she had managed to reach a place of significant family remembrance. It had been a meaningful pair of days for me.

 

To wrap up, here again is the updated map of our voyage.