Crossing to Porquerolles

 

Here it is, the ferry to Porquerolles island. Forgive me if I'm hopelessly enamoured of the South of France, but isn't this quite the most glamorous ferry boat you are ever likely to see? The light scintillates even on the dock at La Tour Fondue (the melted tower) at the end of the Giens peninsula, a narrow spit of land that dangles from Hyeres.

 

   "A hundred years ago the ferry boat was summoned to the mainland by smoke signal – the fire of resinous leaves and twigs lit in a brazier outside the café at the end of the Presqu’île de Giens."



                                                                           from The Sea Garden

 

The tower itself, one of the many old forts that dot the landscape, looks golden in the afternoon sunlight as the ferry eases out into the blue, blue sea.

 

   "The engines thrummed and the boat nosed out into sea glitter and salt spray, then powered up to full speed."  

The crossing only takes fifteen minutes, and the boat really does go fast once it gets underway. Yachts and sail boats skim across the blue alongside, and anticipation rises. I love islands, the way they are cut off and self-contained, and Porquerolles, with its paths through pine forests and beaches in rocky coves, seems the perfect size for exploration.

     "Oleanders and palms waved a sub-tropical greeting from the quayside"

"The white and steel needles of the marina extended out to the ferry dock. A warm breeze rang with clinks of metal rigging. This shore felt far more foreign than the one they had left, as if the sea voyage had crossed much more than the few miles of the strait."

 

 "From the dock she could see pale beaches and low verdant hills berried with red roofs. The fort above the harbour punched up a fist of stone through green trees." 

Porquerolles

 "The sea nibbled at bone-white sand. She stood alone, lost in thought, where shallow ripples nudged shells into lace patterns across the beach."
from The Sea Garden

I am so looking forward to going back to Porquerolles for a few days this summer. The island insinuated itself into my imagination when I discovered its beauties a few years ago, and forms the backdrop of The Sea Garden. This time I want to take far more photographs than I did last time, and sail over to the other Golden Isles - and swim in turquoise sea again. In the meantime, here are a few illustrated extracts from the book. 

   "It was a wide, dusty square dominated by a church with a distinctly Spanish look. Three sides were edged with eucalyptus and the canopies of restaurants and shops. She made her way round, moving slowly from pool to pool of harsh light and shadow, towards what looked like a hotel at the far end." 

 

"In the morning sun, the Place d’Armes was an empty white expanse. Activity was confined to the shops and cafés under the trees. Ellie bought a guide book and a large scale map from the nearest tabac and sat on a low wall in the shade to open out the map. When she couldn’t locate the Domaine de Fayols immediately, an unwarranted spike of panic rose. But there it was, marked on the southern rim of the island, close to a cove and a lighthouse. Until then she had had only the word of Laurent de Fayols that the place would exist when she arrived." 

    "By ten o’clock she was waiting outside the hotel. No cars were permitted on the island and most people who passed were on bicycles: dented, clicking, cumbersome machines of uncertain vintage."

 

  "Where the path split, the beach was signposted, Plage d’Argent. The scent of pines, intensified by a dense heat, mingled with the unmistakably salty tang of the shore." 

 

  "Neither of them spoke. The driver kept his eyes ahead. Scrubby evergreen bushes released a strong scent of resin and honey; forests of pine gave way to gentle south-facing vineyards. The path was quiet, disturbed only by the ululation of early summer cicadas. She craned around eagerly to see what plants thrived naturally, sitting up tall on the seat.

   "It was a wild and romantic place, Laurent de Fayols had written, the whole island once bought as a wedding gift to his wife by a man who had made his fortune in the silver mines of Mexico. One of three small specks in the Mediterranean known as the Golden Isles, after the oranges, lemons and grapefruit that glowed like lamps in their citrus groves."

 

Clear blue water

 

With the receding of the flood water here in Kent (not without a few dicey moments in the past week; thank you all for the caring comments on the previous posts), it's time to think about the blue crystal waters that surround the French island of Porquerolles. This is the Mediterranean setting for the opening section of The Sea Garden.

 

With the novel due for publication in the summer, both in the US and the UK, I thought I would start offering little tasters as I did for The Lantern in the run-up to its launch. Indeed, that was the purpose of this blog when I started it three years ago: travelling hopefully in the South of France to give a sense of its background and entice readers to give the book a try.

 

Here, then, is the rocky south coast of the island, where the land fissures into narrow inlets known as "calanques". The water is the bluest you can imagine, pooling into turquoise at the feet of the cliffs. There is fabulous diving and snorkelling, all shot through with dazzling light. You won't see it there in real life, but this is where I planted my garden by the sea.

 

  The grounds ran down to the sea, through wind-twisted pines, crumbling rocks and the unexpectedly lush green of the bushes and trees that held fast to every scrap of earth. On a cliff to her right was the lighthouse. Now she understood the way the house sat on its land, with the open sea to the south and the rocky bay of the Calanque de l’Indienne to the south-west.  

                                                               From The Sea Garden