After visiting the island of Port-Cros for three days and two nights, I can now officially say I have gone camping. It was a good time but whether or not I’ll be going camping again anytime soon is debatable. After leaving at 6:45 in the morning on Saturday, we took a two-hour bus ride and a thirty-minute ferry ride to the island. We stayed in an old fort that was used by the Germans in World War II. It wasn’t a Ritz-Carlton, but I suppose it was better than a tent and it was interesting to see all of the history.
After getting settled into our comfy cement room, the whole group went on a hike. Little did I know this was going to be a 4-hour hike with a good majority of it uphill. Mikel, our tour guide for the island, led us on our hike and told us some history about the island as well as the names of almost every plant and tree we passed.
Quick story about Mikel: Mikel lives in France in a town right outside of Spain. He speaks fluent French, Spanish, and a little bit of English. When he was little, his mother was part of the opposition Nazi group during World War II and when he was only two years old, he found himself in an execution line with her and several others. One by one, everyone was shot and killed by the Nazis. Mikel survived in his mother’s arms and held on while all of the bodies were drug and thrown into a ditch. Later a woman was passing by and heard a child crying. She retrieved Mikel from the ditch, took him home and raised him as her own. A pretty amazing story. Mikel was only two at the time but he says he still has nightmares about it to this day. He is, without a doubt one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met. He was one of the main people who helped to preserve Port-Cros and make it a landmark. He could tell us anything about any plant or animal or any bit of history on the island.
During our hike, we hiked to the highest point on the mountain. It wasn’t easy, but I definitely had a sense of accomplishment when I was finished. After the long hike, we ate dinner at the fort, opened some wine and headed to the very top of the fort to watch the sun set. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. There are a few pictures of it but it simply does not do it justice. I was in complete awe. The way the yellow, orange, and pink colors splashed over the ocean and spilled onto the white sails of the boats in the water, made it seem like I was looking straight at a water-color painting. As if that wasn’t beautiful enough, we watched the stars come out. Being so high on the mountain and with no light around to obstruct our view, it was amazing. I saw four shooting stars!
As you can imagine, I was pretty exhausted and didn’t have any trouble falling asleep…even AFTER they told us to shut our windows so that the rats wouldn’t get in. I just tried not to think about that…
We woke up at 8:00, had breakfast (cereal with warm milk…I don’t think the French refrigerate their milk), and then began another hike. yay. The original plan was to go scuba diving, which was what I was looking forward to most about our entire stay at Port-Cros. Unfortunately, the people who we booked our dive with scheduled another group at the same time on accident. The other group was paying more than we were, so we were kind of just tossed aside. Really disappointing. However, we hiked to a place where we were able to snorkel. It wasn’t as cool as scuba diving would have been but it was still fun to do. After snorkeling we hiked down to a beach where we had lunch and relaxed for a little while. After lunch, we hiked some more to another snorkeling spot. It was cool because there was an underwater trail mapped out along the ocean floor. There were five different buoys so that you knew where to swim, and then attached at the bottom were signs of the most common fish in that location. It was long and tiring but pretty neat to see. After that I took a nice, long nap on the beach and then hiked my way back up to the fort. The night followed the same routine as the previous night (dinner, wine and sunset/star-gazing). The next morning it was time to leave, but on the way down to the port we made a pit stop at another fort that was on the island. Like the fort we had stayed at, it was also used during World War II, but had been turned into a museum on the inside. It was a lot smaller on the inside but had a beautiful view from the top.
That pretty much sums up my weekend at Port-Cros! It was a great experience with some beautiful views, but I doubt I’ll be staying in anymore forts anytime soon!
p.s. By the end of the trip we had hiked the entire island which was over 16 miles! (and most of it uphill). Definitely the most physical activity I’ve done since I’ve been in France.
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