French & Italian Riviera

After a fantastic time exploring the coast of Corsica we set sail for our last substantial crossing of 100NM crossing to St Tropez, leaving early morning from Calvi and arriving late afternoon. It was a pleasant crossing with great breeze for the morning and late afternoon but then motorsailing in between. Side note: I’ve come to learn that on the pleasant-ness scale, seeing the girls up the front relaxing in the sun while underway is always a very accurate gauge of crew happiness. If I can pull that off while still maintaining speed, everyone’s happy!

The kids were particularly excited to see the glitz and glamour of St Tropez which had been a favourite destination for Liane & I from a previous sailing trip. After enjoying some ridiculously expensive (but lovely) cocktails at the Christian Dior building, the pull of the boat, anchored in a lovely little bay nearby, just seemed more appealing. This is what a couple of months of boat life does and where it carries potency beyond the length of time away - it changes your values, priorities and informs your choices. The simplicity of life, the ease of fun, the small things like snorkelling and seeing fish in crystal clear water, playing cards until late at night, or having real and connective conversations - these key family milestone moments and deep-seated adjustments to how you approach life just can’t be understated.

Drinks at Dior in St Tropez

After a few nights cruising along the coast toward Cannes we enjoyed some more nights and days at anchorages with the kids getting their last hurrah of boat life, surfing, tubing & swimming before we had to leave the boat with the guys from Nautitech for the Cannes boat show.

One of our fave anchorages was at Isle Sainte-Marguerite where we had a pre 21st birthday celebration for Alice and enjoyed the best Pizza that we ordered from the Pizza boat in the anchorage who then delivered straight to our transom - awesome!!

It was with a twinge of sadness that we left the boat in Cannes for the boat show as this marked the end of the boat holiday for the kids but we were also looking forward to hanging out in a lovely villa that we had found online the previous week in Levanto.

On arrival in Levanto our sadness was quickly replaced with a sense of being overwhelmed by the incredible villa that we had for a week to enjoy. To say it was waterfront would be an understatement - the waves crashing on the beach below, were so close, so consistent and so right there that we actually had to get up and close our windows the first night to get some quiet. First world problems and all but it definitely gave us a new definition for ‘waterfront’

Our villa by the sea in Levanto

Levanto is a bit like the non tourist 6th town of the Cinque Terre which, with all of it’s hustle and bustle and thousands of tourists can be a bit overwhelming. An easy train ride and within walking distance (more on that later) it is closest to Monterosso and the other Cinque Terre towns. We had been hoping to find a place we could base ourselves in an Italian town where Liane & Hannah particularly could work on their Italian language skills - Levanto was perfect for this.

The villa was ridiculous with 7 bedrooms and what seemed about 35 bathrooms and was actually just one of 6 villas owned by the one family all together on the end of the promenade.

Three of the other villas next door to us owned by the Agnelli family

The villa was owned by the Agnelli family who were the founders of FIAT and now owners of Ferrari, Maserati, Jeep Chrysler and Juventus Soccer Team. At the height of their wealth in the 1990’s they accounted for 5% of Italy’s GDP.

Levanto as a town is small, beautiful, intimate and gives you a real taste of Italian island life and was the perfect place to just immerse ourselves in the culture. In the evenings there was often entertainment in the town square where the locals - especially the oldies , would dance together for hours while the children played and basically made a ruckus until late (when do these Italian kids sleep?!). Despite our oh-so-classy attire of thongs and t-shirts we couldn’t let such a beautiful opportunity pass without joining in so we embarrassed ourselves and tried not to get in the way of the people who actually had half a dancing clue.

Kye & Kalani befriended a local boy whose parents ended up joining us one afternoon for a drink on our balcony and then invited us the next day for a bike ride to show us some of the local sights. Pretty sure the Dad was trying to get his son married off to Kalani but hey - he is only human.

Spritz’o’clock at the Villa

As previously mentioned, Levanto is within walking distance (8.5km) from Monterosso and so we decided to put on our running gear and take a family hike before brekky one morning. Suffice to say that we definitely earned our brekky as the walk was more of a mountain goat trail and according to our health app we actually walked 12 kms that day and climbed 134 floors! Having said that - the walk was along the cliffs and was spectacular and well worth it.

Walk to Monterosso

An unexpected bonus was that our friends, and parents and sister to Alice, were also staying in Monterosso for the same week we were at the villa. Rob & Ange were due to join us the next week on board Baruch and without comparing notes we had somehow booked accommodation in neighbouring towns. So despite having our pre 21st birthday bash on board with Ali earlier, we were invited to share a beautiful 21st birthday dinner out in Monterosso plus some extra time together at our villa doing what else…drinking, eating and playing cards in between posing for photos from the balcony. Such an awesome and unexpected bonus.

Hanging at the villa with the Hansens

Dinner out for Ali’s 21st in Monterosso

After a week at the villa it was time to head back to Cannes and see the boat show and also to say goodbye to Hannah, Kye & Kalani who were flying home from Nice.

Having the boat displayed at the boat show was fantastic as any of the little jobs needing to be done or items to be fixed were attended to in preparation for the show.

It was so reassuring to walk around the show and see some of the other boats in our class and category and walk away knowing that we had made the right decision to buy the Nautitech 542 - it is definitely the right boat for us with the perfect balance of space on board for friends and family, matched with surprising performance.

Kalani - always up for a challenge, had her first experience eating snails and frog legs - which actually don’t taste too bad but look disgusting.

Frog legs & snails for Kalani

Gunboat 68 - all yours for $AUD10Million!

Sadly, all great things must come to an end and it was a very emotional goodbye as we saw Hannah, Kye & Kalani off at the airport to make their way home. This time together as a family will be one we remember forever and well worth the investment in finance and time for what it has done to build and grow our family. Countless incredible experiences, funny times, deep and meaningful conversations and beautiful places that no blog will ever come close to capturing, but we will treasure and catalogue in our own hearts and minds. Lani really said it best when she described this trip as ‘life changing’. We had the opportunity to do this on a boat but the reality is it could have been a caravan around Oz or whatever else fries your burger or your budget allows, but we would encourage anyone considering some intentional time together as a family to jump off the cliff and make it happen. You won’t be thinking about what your bank balance says or what car you drove when you’re on your death bed and thinking what you did with your life. Something like this holds the potential to not just change your life, but also your family, the trajectory of your kids lives and deepen relationships beyond anything you may have experienced or invested in to date.

We kissed our kids goodbye, prayed with them, had a cry together and then sent them on their way. Two nights on board just the two of us was a great transition before hosting some great friends for the next part of our trip which will include our final leg towards Genoa to prepare and leave the boat for shipping home to Australia.