As Serge Gainsbourg would have said, to choose Brussels over Tunisia, faut être à moitie fou (you have to be half-crazy). Mais même si je le suis (but even if I am), I had une bonne raison to do it. Brussels, at just over 100 euros aller-retour(round-trip) on the Eurostar, is vachement* moins cher (way cheaper) than flying to la Tunisie. Which left a lot more money to play with for the rest of the year. Which meant… une île secrète.
Pour les étudiants (for students), May is a frantic time to réviser pour ses examens (study for one’s exams). You’re meant to spend the revising period sucking up knowledge, memorizing legal code or philosophic traditions or architecture styles or whatever your matière principale(major, so to speak) is. In the middle of this, I jetted.
My boyfriend and I took a fast train, literally, straight to the south of France. We saved up all semester, dreaming of la Côte d’Azurand a certain little town on la côte (the coast). I screwed up our hotel—très charmant, it was nonetheless a 45-minute walk from la gare (the train station) and even further from la plage(the beach).
It was raining when we arrived, so we slipped on cobblestones through narrow medieval streets till we came upon une place centrale (a town square), avec un café. Deux verres de rosé (two glasses of rosé), sheltered by the café, and the vacation was already worth it. Then le soleil blasted through les nuages (the clouds), and we ran uphill through sunshine-yellow canyons to the top of the town, un monastère (a monastery).
Le lendemain (the next day), we took un ferryto the main attraction: l’île secrete(the secret island). Cette ville est spéciale (this town is special) because it has a nice town component, but more importantly, the most spectacular beach I’ve ever seen.
The ferry was fun because there were only French tourists—in mid-May, it wasn’t quite tourist season, though the weather was hot and sunny, and the island was fleurie (in bloom). Off the ferry, one walks and walks, through fields edged with tournesols (sunflowers), and this is the view that opens before you:
X** is a magical town, of ochre and rosé and working-class beer joints d’un côté (on one side- literally) and Windex-blue water on white sand de l’autre (on the other). La plage est isolée (isolated), avec très peu de monde (with very few people). If you don’t have plans yet for the summer, pensez à des vacances en Provence ! Découvrez votre propre île secrète—discover your own secret island. In the meantime, bon week-end!
*Vachement = as big as une vache (a cow)!
**X = Je vous donne pas le nom, c’est trop facile‑ I’m not giving you the name, that’s too easy!
