17 Sep 2016
Toulon, France:
A Change in the Winds

By Corey Sandler, Destination Consultant Silversea Cruises

The winds were against us this morning, and so we were unable to put down our ship’s anchor offshore of St-Tropez and come to shore by ship’s tenders.

Instead we sailed on by, and came into the port of Toulon, on a lively Saturday under a bright blue sky…and a bit of breeze.

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This is a place of great antiquity in this part of the world. Archeological studies, including those at the famed Cosquer Cave near Marseille, show evidence of human inhabitation as far back as the Paleolithic era. It went on to become an important Greek and then Roman colony.

Today Toulon is a major naval base, home port to the French Navy’s aircraft carrier Charles deGaulle and her supporting fleet.

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Toulon still bears the remnants of the fortifications put into place by the great French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban.

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And fans of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables know Toulon as an important character in its own stead. It was here, in the bagne of Toulon–still standing to the right of the entrance to the harbor–that Jean Valjean spent 19 years at hard labor. And it was also the birthplace of the novel’s protagonist, Javert.

Do you hear the people sing?

SAINT TROPEZ

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