France is not as it should be

The Welcome dinner was hosted by Cara, the cruise consultant. Unusually, she had invited a mixture of 'high Venetians' (our 2 Brits) with a lot of days and four people (USA and Australia) who had never cruised before. The mixture worked well, the only problem being that the tables in Indochine are rectangular rather than round, which makes it difficult to conduct a general conversation. The subject of Brexit was raised but fortunately everybody was sympathetic.

TSH and Diva spent a pleasant morning wandering the streets of Marseilles, finishing along the side of the Marina, before returning to the Silver Spirit for lunch.

The captain announced that because of rough seas to come, it would not be possible to run the tender service to St Tropez. The call was therefore cancelled and the new destination was to be Cannes. 24 hours later, the forecast has worsened, Cannes is cancelled and the call will be to Antibes.

All hail to Lady Hale and her colleagues!!!

Monte Carlo to St Tropez

Monte Carlo was covered in barriers and sound systems for the forthcoming F1, so perhaps not the best time to visit, as it was difficult to pick a way through them.

MC Novotel very comfortable and the Salade Nicoise is to be recommended.

Silver Wind is as splendid as ever and several crew remembered TSH and Diva. Especially the wine waiters and sommelier. TSH had his first Silversea Danish of the year, which did not disappoint. This was followed in the afternoon by his first beer.

St Tropez was less glamorous and more quaint than either expected but walking round its narrow streets and along the harbour was very pleasant. Many SUPERyachts.

TSH saw a quite large octopus moving along the harbour floor which he thought was a good sighting – Diva was less impressed as it had disappeared before she got a chance to see it.

Referendum notes: The Nice taxi driver thought we should stay in with our semi-detached advantages (Euro, Schengen etc). But he also wanted Nice to get independence from France. Two people from USA thought we were in the Euro, which made travel very convenient.