An island escape

This past weekend, I ran off to the south of France with a crowd who were all too strapped on cash or time to take a proper European (read: week or longer) vacation. We settled on the destination when, one Friday night in late July, we opened up an Airbnb search for an apartment for six. While scrolling along an Airbnb map of the French Mediterranean coast, we spotted a destination literally floating in the sea. And from the moment we saw just what was floating in the Mediterranean, we knew we had to go there: Frioul, the archipelago located just off the coast of Marseille, officially protected as the Parc National des Calanques (the National Park of Rocky, Cliff-lined Beaches). The area was only declared a national park in 2012 and, in France, people already residing in areas declared as national parks are allowed to maintain their residences, much to our delight. By the day following our discovery of Frioul, a certain resident happily accepted us as Airbnb guests for a the three-day weekend in mid-August.

An amazing weekend in Frioul with Nicolas and friends

The island was completely magical, romantic, and simply perfect. (Okay, I would have preferred it to be a little warmer, as we were only working with ~25º C/~77º F, quite cold for mid-August in the south, but I hardly had a right to complain compared to the temperatures in Paris, not to mention the rain.) And the company couldn't have been better. We were a fantastically international group, hailing from Russia, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, Iran/Canada, France, and of course, the good old U. S. of A. Holding up my national duty to exercise American soft power, I even introduced the bunch (besides Azad, who was in the know) to s'mores. Needless to say, they were a hit. Score one for America. But the American sweets were hardly the culinary highlight of the weekend: the French cuisine and fresh seafood had us all in rapture. And there was such wonderful homemade ice cream, and Marseillais beer, and wines from the south of France. It was certainly a trip to remember.

Sunday afternoon in Marseille

On Sunday, we traveled home in style. Not content to simply board the ship departing Frioul and bid the south farewell, we lunched in southern style (well over an hour long) and visited the Marseille hilltop church Notre-Dame de la Garde, drove up to Avignon for some ice cream (Verino Glacier, 3 rue Saint Jean Le Vieux, Place Pie, 84000 Avignon-- worth checking out) and a visit to the papal palace, and wrapped things up with a dinner (including the best café gourmand I have ever been served, Au P'tit Zinc, 56 Quai Pierre Scize, 69005 Lyon-- delicious, friendly service, and open until 2am!) and a (de)tour through Lyon before arriving in Paris the next morning just before 7am.

Returning to Paris in style: a swing by the pope's palace and an ice cream shop in Avignon, and a stop over in Lyon for dinner and a nighttime (de)tour.

By Monday morning we returned to our respective homes utterly exhausted but totally regret-free. I'd do this weekend all over again in a heartbeat.