RB Beach Time Living

Red Bikes (Won a month in France), Day 22

Just as for our wedding Rooster had one brilliant requirement—margaritas, on our honeymoon he had another brilliant requirement—St. Tropez. The beach town of St. Tropez is just as famous for being the home of actress Bridget Bardot (whose likeness appears everywhere in town and is rarely clothed), as it is for its elegant beaches.

We started our trip with the firm conviction that nothing in this yacht-oriented port would be within our price range, and so rented a room over a bar in Ramatuelle, just 10 kilometers out of town. Madonna was singing on the loudspeakers when we checked into our room and she continued to sing until we left the next morning. The voluptuous brunette at the register seemed surprised that we wanted to stay above the bar and after taking our cash (credit cards not accepted) led us up a snail lined staircase into a cracked linoleum hallway with two spotted toilets standing guard like sentries at the doorway. Once inside I began to suspect that perhaps these bargains rooms (shower positioned to spray water all over the sheets, strange streak marks on the floor) were intended for bar patrons who had met someone interesting (and not that expensive) right before closing.

Rooster assured me that I was being silly and threw open the gigantic double window dominating one grease-stained wall to prove it. The view was perfect. Beyond the cobbled walk beneath our window and a brown shuttered house across the way, we could just see a slice of blue ocean. I leaned my top half out and breathed in. “See,” said Rooster. Then he promised that there was a Michelin restaurant directly up the street where we could go for dinner. “By the time you get home you’ll be so deep into food coma you’ll think you’re in a Ritz Carlton suite,” he said. Nothing like the promise of a lethargy inducing meal to get me to forget the likelihood of bed bugs in my sleeping quarters. I got dolled up as did my guy, and after several large pastis (not from the bar downstairs), we headed off for dinner.

Lucky us, it turns out that the tail end of September marks the opening of mushroom season in France. It cost a pretty penny, but we started the meal with a massive bowl full of fresh picked wild mushrooms the likes of which I have never seen on any tabletop in Chicago. These mushrooms were half the size of my pinky and each was topped with a cap the size of an m&m. They were cooked in nothing but olive oil, garlic and parsley and the texture was so tight, they squeaked between my teeth every time I bit down. The remainder of our meal came from the “everyone loves a hedonist” menu: beef from the Camarouge, seared foie gras and scallops drowned in olive oil and garlic. We’re lucky we could fit into our swimsuits the next day.

The beach that sopped up what was left of our spending cash offered plush orange lounging chairs, daiquiris that tasted like mojitos, a giant orange umbrella and mussels cooked in saffron for lunch. We arrived at 9am and didn’t leave until dusk. Rooster went in the water every hour like a punctual dolphin and I sat under my sun hat and umbrella and read IT by Steven King until I declared there was no way we were going back to that scary little room in Ramatuelle to sleep. The rest of our trip to St. Tropez took place in St. Tropez and I’m actually kind of relieved to say our budget now dictates that we spend the remainder of our all too short time here cooking at home.