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In the lush light of sunrise, I walk across the broad, smooth deck to scan the Mediterranean from the bow. As the 290 foot long sailing yacht, Le Ponant, glides through calm waters, a mountainous landscape emerges at the forward horizon, overlapping and fading into the morning haze. This is Serra Tramuntada, the majestic range that defines Mallorca, the largest island in the Baleares archipelago. I watch both conscious of that primal experience of approaching land by boat and simply excited to see, hear and taste what comes next. I walk to the aft deck where a breakfast buffet of mango, melon, berries and freshly baked pastries awaits. When Le Ponant drops anchor off the gull-busy island of Dragonera, near the westernmost point of Mallorca, I jump off the stern and slide through water as smooth as silk. A very narrow continental shelf drops immediately to a deep basin of liquid that is both green and blue, indigo and mauve— a color that can only be called Mediterranean, color of an almost completely landlocked sea. The water is as transparent as blown glass and my limbs appear like bluish marble statuary dangling beneath me.

Aboard Le Ponant captained by Régis Daumesnil, we’re sailing to ports on Mallorca and Menorca in the Baleares, and Camargue and Il de Porquerolles along the Cote d’Azur. Just 19 couples, two families of 4, a few single women and the crew disembarked from Barcelona, the vibrant Catalán port city famous for its neo-Baroque and modernismo art and architecture with artists like Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Antoni Gaudí. A vivid Catalán culture has extended across the sea to the Baleares for centuries. The ship is large enough that I anticipate plenty of private moments, yet during al fresco dinners, and daily excursions, develop some friendships within our group.

“Nobody is building small ships anymore,” comments Robin Tauck, President of Tauck World Discovery, who designed this itinerary and chartered Le Ponant. “ Large mega cruise ships carrying four huge busses are what sells, and economics dictate that small ships are a thing of the past.” There is simply no comparison with those gargantuan cruise ships! Just imagine having to grind out 12,000 meals a day, for an anonymous clientele of 4000. For our journey, each lunch and evening menu, prepared by chef Francis Itoumbou, uses fresh, often local ingredients, and promises to be delicious. How can a mega-cruise ship’s Olympic sized swimming pools ever match this morning’s swim? Yet, in an age of the big box, small cruise yachting is practically an anachronism. What I anticipate is ten days at sea, as if I were aboard my own private yacht, attuned to the rhythm of waves, birds in flight, and wind, greeting each port of call as some place special. Because the route crosses some languid stretches, cruising itself is restorative as we navigate, powered mainly by the wind, the coastal islands. One of the guests, a sailor himself, beams, “No rumble of the engine, just pure silence.”

I spy the feathered tops of the palms of Palma de Mallorca, that, in Arab times, were regarded as a sign of welcome. They welcome us to our first landfall, as does Palma’s Gothic Sa Seu Cathedral—mountainous in size and profile—towering well above the palms. It is a short walk from the dock to the Cathedral, and once inside Sa Seu, the rosy light of stained glass illumines the cavernous interior. Commissioning artists to beautify church sanctuaries might seem obsolete, but in Palma, artists such as Gaudí and Miró carry on the tradition. A young Mallorcan artist, Miguel Barceló, plunges us underwater with his metaphoric 2006 tableau of “the miracle of loaves and fishes,” a panoramic terra cotta surface alive with a cornucopia of bread and fruits, writhing eels, octopuses, and swirling, bulge-eyed fish meeting us eye to eye. Once outside, I notice that the staggering scale of this imposing cathedral wiggles and scatters when reflected in a surrounding moat of limpid water. The image makes me wonder how much time the architect Gaudí may have spent pondering not only buildings, but also reflections in water. Wavy, undulating, shattering all sense of fixity and austerity, the dancing spirit of modernismo is mirrored right here! As we continue our walking tour of the city I easily spot examples of Gaudiesque or modernismo works everywhere, and the gargoyles on plaster, tile and stone facades seem to wink at me, for I’ve understood a secret source of their playfully fluid form.

Mallorcans are bound to the mainland Catalán city of Barcelona through language, culture and history. Like Barcelona, Palma has a labyrinthine Gothic Quarter we meander. Foot-polished cobblestones glimmer in the afternoon sun as we stop for an helado almendra-homemade almond ice cream. Looking skyward from green-shuttered vertical neighborhood, I watch a seaward flock of white egrets cross a patch of cloudless cobalt sky. We peek into several inviting shady patios at street level. The enclosed flower-filled courtyards create little oases apart from the thrum of the city. Circling back via the old city-wall walkway, musicians do a sound check for an evening concert outside the Cathedral. Slowly we make our way back to the ship. Although Cava – Spanish champagne – awaits us, I want to linger and listen to the plein-air concert, to drive into the rugged Serra Tramuntana, the northwestern side of this enormous island, and to explore the enchanting villages such as Valledemossa and Soller. As we pull anchor and head northeast to the small island of Menorca, I look forward to the next port knowing this taste of the island begs a return visit.

How can one not feel the rush of celebrity as we glide regally into the harbor of the capital city of Maó (Mahon) aboard our splendid ship, sails mirrored in the moving water like fluttering angel’s wings? The three masts of our ship hold over 16,000 feet of sail, and its shallow draft allows it entrance into waterways and anchorages denied larger vessels. On this easternmost island, Menorcans are the first in Spain to greet the day. This morning’s sunrise bathes the island in an onyx light. Above the sea wall, the hillside is streaked with red oxide. Rose, coral and ochre houses, all with red tile roofs, face the water. Rows of orange, mulberry and palm trees edge the streets and brightly enameled navy blue and white boats line the harbor. We continue on, and on, for this harbor is more like a long river. Captain Régis tells me, “It is over 40 meters deep and five kilometers long, the world’s second largest natural harbor, second only to Pearl on Oahu, a perfect port for any storm.“

This harbor is one of the reasons the island has been a cultural crossroads in the heart of the Mediterranean for over four thousand years. The entire island is designated a UNESCO protected biosphere with over fifteen hundred archaeological sites in plain view. Both Mallorca and Menorca have had their share of visitors and inhabitants from as far back as the Bronze Age. The megalithic ruins of Menorca’s Talyotic cultures are in plain view and easy to ramble through, whereas sites on Mallorca have been built upon, leveled, and built upon again and again - a culturally marbled layer cake of time.

It is not easy to cultivate such a rocky island as Menorca, which has no surface water. For millennia, farmers have painstakingly cleared this rock strewn soil by making drystone walls that form a network of plots and pasture measuring an astonishing 9500 miles on the island Romans named “little one”—Menorca is just thirty-six miles long by half as wide— in order to raise wheat, cattle, sheep and pigs. It surprises me that the two islands in the same Balearic archipelago, a mere thirty miles apart, are so astonishingly different. I didn’t realize this until we explored Menorca. Culturally, while Mallorca comes alive when the sun sets, with music, shows, tapas bars, fine dining, Menorca is sound asleep. Menorca is a summer destination, and shuts down from November to Easter but Mallorca has more year round residents. Mallorca is vibrant, abundant, mountainous and rugged, while Menorca is mellow, provincial, flat and rock-strewn. On Mallorca bicycling is a serious quest to master one mountainous spine after another, and on Menorca, it’s more of a picnic basket and straw-hat sojourn, on a bicycle squeaking by without fifteen gears.

Once off ship, I skip the steps from the port up to town, and find the Mercat, the shaded cloister of a former monastery that now abounds with fresh fruits, cheeses and vegetables. I sample some locally crafted queso Mahón and sink my teeth into a ruby red tomato I’ve smashed onto oven-warm bread, pa amb oli – an island staple. Strolling through the town, I’m enchanted by the hand-crocheted white lace curtains that adorn windows of shops and homes in a variety of patterns. In a boutique along the main pedestrian walkway, I choose a hand-embroidered shift as a memento of Menorcan lacework. “I want to live here!” one of my shipmates, a well-traveled Romanian woman, exclaims, “Darling, it is the most charming place I’ve ever been!”

Our time is marked by nothing less than dips in the Med and I am definitely getting into the groove of small ship cruising with near-Pavlovian anticipation of these refreshing water breaks. After a morning in Maó and before we dock at the former capital Ciutadella, at the western end of the island, we anchor for a swim and snorkel off Santa Galdana, a cozy turquoise bay offset against pine forested limestone cliffs. Menorca’s coastline is scalloped with scores of little coves- calas - fingerlings of blue, borne from fierce rains that pummel the ground eroding it into ravines as the rainwater escapes to the sea. Afloat, I hear a distant hiss of waves pull away from shoreline pebbles, feel the water currents shift from warm to cool, as the noontime sun penetrates everything. Its as if these interludes aboard ship have cleared my senses and allowed me to notice the particulars of the moment more vividly.

In the old capital of Ciutadella, a woman in a bakery doorway greets me, “Bon di!” in the singsong lilt of the Menorcan dialect of Catalán spoken here. Over a cortado – a short espresso with a froth of fresh milk – and some flower shaped pasticettes cookies dusted with white powdered sugar, we exchange a few words, me in halting Spanish, which she repeats in Catalán. Once on the street, I hear strains of music and trace it to a small plaza. Musicians are rehearsing, perhaps for the concert I saw posted for later this evening at Capella del Roser. Unseen but heard from the second story behind a lace curtain, come fragments of a concerto that mesmerize me, and then, I notice a man seated on a nearby bench, leaning against his cane. He, too, is listening. He smiles, I smile, and the music continues to spiral through the air. Menorca is generous with time.

I find that this flat, rocky island, constantly swept by the Tramuntana winds, contains pockets of calm, carved out both by nature—the natural harbor, the coves— and the people who live here. They gather the island’s rubble-rock into sturdy, meter high drystone walls, form clay chimney tiles on the curve of their thigh, and hew shapely fences from gnarled, wild olivewood. They also turn their skilled hands to delicate lace-work, lovely pastries, sharp, lemony Mahon cheeses, and sausages. I’m struck by the twofold sensation of wildness and domestic tranquility.

Traveling under sail, without an engine’s vibration, our ship rides gentler than motor driven vessels, even in rough patches, as wind-filled sails propel her through the waves. Absent that droning hum of a motor, I relax with my sketchbook, while a couple and their children play cards, a guest chats it up with Captain and others linger out of sight down below. With just 56 passengers and 30 crew, there is plenty of personal space onboard, fostering an easy conviviality among us.

We dock at the industrial Port Sant Louis, just west of Marseille, then travel by coach, to catch the ferry to the Camargue, Western Europe’s largest river delta, embraced by the two arms of the Rhone River.

We stop to watch a marsh harrier hover over the mud flats, but my focus shifts to the flats themselves, sparkling with the glitter of salt. Fleur de Sel de Camargue has a place of honor in my kitchen. It is coarse, flavorful, with a faint aroma of violets, and I sprinkle it sparingly, as if it were gold dust, and here I am, by the etangs where it is harvested! Listening to the gentle tinkle of wind-lapped water of the etang I catch a staccato flash of pink and black from the corner of my eye—flamingoes in flight. They settle beyond the saltbush to feed on the plankton that thrive here, and which give the big birds their rosy hue.

The petite horses and straight-horned bulls found only in the Camargue could have leapt off the painted walls of a Paleolithic cave. Camargue cowboys – gardians – wear a black hat, fleur-de Lys patterned shirt, and carry a trident to care for the cattle and bulls, riding semi-wild Camarguese horses. Jacques Brel crooned and Frederick Mistral waxed elegiac over their traditional lifestyle, so much so, that life began imitating art, as the cowboys proudly maintained the image celebrated in Provencal poetry and lyrics.

Fourth-generation owners Patrick and Estelle invite our entire group to lunch at their family farm, Mas Le Marquis, for a ranch style spread of cheeses, sausage, anchovy tapenade, and fresh crudities from their garden, wine from their region. The meal’s centerpiece is the famed bull stew – daube – the only beef to earn an appellation d’origine controlée—but first, we watch the a demonstration of the bull games.

When I was a child, my favorite book was Ferdinand the Bull, about a flower-loving bull who doesn’t want to fight (and die in the ring). Ferdinand would love it here. Not only are the bulls spared, they are glorified, and people come from villages all over not to cheer a matador, but an especially talented bull. The point is for a man to snatch a red cockade from between the bull’s horns with a hooked metal scraper, a razeteur – his eponymous title. The purpose is to sort out the friskiest nimblest bulls for breeding. A low rumble builds, hoofbeats resound like drumbeats, as twenty Camargue horses funnel through the opening in the ring. These semi-wild platinum beauties announce the event has begun. Then, a dainty-footed, slightly disoriented bull wanders in, but once taunted Wham! He charges then slams into the side of the ring while the young agile razeteur, Maxim Favier scales the wall, mere inches in front of him, in two graceful leaps. The crowd cheers, and on the next go round, the bull leaps the inner ring and has to be guided up and over the wall and a next bull replaces him. “Of course I did this when I was young,” beams Maxim’s father, the police chief of the nearby village, “it is quite the working out!”
At lunch I’m assured that the delicious stew I am savoring, was made from a bull that lived out a long happy flower-smelling life in the green pastures of the Camargue.

We awake to a morning wrapped in a thick grey blanket, but Captain Régis promises that we set anchor just shy of land’s edge. We are horizonless, sheathed in thick fog. An astute three-year old once told me, as we walked together on a socked-in Santa Barbara morning, “You know, the sun is still there… the fog is like the wall of the sun’s house.” This was some wall. We take the Zodiac out and a mere fifty feet from our ship and Le Ponant disappears behind that wall. Carefully exploring the edges of Ile de Porquerolles, shapes emerge and a rocky outcrop appears. The fog lifts for a moment, to reveal bare rock islet nested with seagulls. A fisherman, in a small craft looks up, surprised to be caught during his mornings ablutions, and waves bonjour.

We slowly motor our way back to ship guided by fluorescent buoys, the only visible markers in a dense field of grey. Soon the morning fog burns off and eight at a time we hop into the Zodiacs for a quick motor to the pier. The village of Porquerolles lies at the bottom of a wide sheltered bay. Its year round population of merely 400 swells with day trippers and overnight campers. We get to enjoy this popular French get-away without the challenge of securing lodging. My husband and I take off immediately in different directions. Macduff takes the high road, searching for panoramic vistas of the harbor from the 12th century Fort Sainte Agathe, and I take the back road dirt paths, jammed with bicyclists schlepping coolers, towels and umbrellas down to the beach, detouring into old groves of olive and fig. He is following the light, and I am entranced by sound. A pervasive drone of cicadas hidden within the dense branches of Aleppo pine and eucalyptus is embellished with strains of guitar and song. The sound leads me to a bougainvillea-lined back street, where I eavesdrop on a trio rehearsing in an alley, and close my eyes and just listen for several moments. This laid back car-free island belies the powerhouses of musicians that come to play here, such as Archie Schepp, for the annual weeklong Jazz festival. A noontime concert by a Parisian group, Vroum, rocks the Plaza des Armes with horns, sax, drums and a tuba where some of our set, now quite affable, go in for a bowling game of petanque in the same plaza, while beating the heat with local licorice flavored pastis and chilled rosé.

We sail at sunset towards Nice, our port of debarkation, past the star studded St. Tropez, Cannes and Antibes, and I haven’t a care in the world, nor a desire to hop up and see the sights. I’m happy right here, listening to the swish of water, the music of the currents, as we slice through the glassy blue, and leave the high life on shore for another time.

At midnight, lying on my back top deck, it feels like I’m being cradled in the beak of some white-winged nocturnal bird – the hush of our movement is palpable, the sails of our ship magnificent, and the breeze off the Cote d’Azur delicious. Silence and visual simplicity have attuned my senses, and, as a result, the landscapes and soundscapes appear in greater relief. Above me a canopy of a million stars spatter the black sky. The Mediterranean has ported as many people, on its waters, over thousands of years as there are stars floating in the night sky; Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Sardinians, Arabs, Romans and later British, Portuguese and Spanish, merchants, fishermen, explorers, pirates, pilgrims, tourists. On this cruise, every sunrise brought us to a new port, and a taste of very different places, whose shores are all touched by the same lifeblood, the Mediterranean. In the past, the only way to reach these lands was by ship, and now, ironically, travel by ship is an uncommon privilege. It seems going with the flow, in capable hands, on this small cruise excursion offered the time and the space to
embrace a bigger picture, to truly see each port of call as something extraordinary.