The underlying soul
… The editorial by Bénédicte Menu, editor-in-chief.
A lively debate animated our editorial team when choosing the cover for this issue of
Figaro Voyage
.
For some, it had to be blue at all costs…
“Blue waves, an endless sky, that's the Mediterranean.
It's what everyone wants to see, and see again.
Are we like Mallarmé (
“
I am haunted. The Azur! the Azur! the Azur! the Azur!”),
under the influence of the cerulean spell?
It's because they have something absolute, this firmament of the South and its liquid Big Blue.
Together, merging on the horizon, they are our eternal summer...
Can we sum up this enchantment in a single blue shot?
Even in a single landscape?
A scholarly biographer of the Mediterranean, the historian and academician Fernand Braudel would not forgive us for
answering
“A thousand things at once” to the question
“What is the Mediterranean
” .
Sometimes cruel, sometimes calm, sometimes agitated, sometimes benevolent... This sea, etymologically "between the lands", is both plural and unique.
This marvelous basin carries so many stories, so many dreams… And our memories, too.
Filled with children's laughter, discoveries, carelessness and the sweetness of life.
So we finally chose for this cover the warm tones of emotion.
The scent of happy days in the gold of a late summer afternoon...
“Mediterranean, the scent of happy days”: the spring-summer 2022 issue of
Figaro Voyage magazine.
Le Figaro
Where to take you next?
Here again, we dared to step aside.
Rather than the Cyclades, here is Kythera, birthplace of Aphrodite and yet so discreet.
Rather than the Costa Brava or Ibiza, this is Formentera.
In Croatia, we let ourselves be enchanted by the Elaphite Islands.
The Italy of the Marches, it is Emanuele Scorcelletti, the photographer, who will tell it to you.
And our South?
We will place it, this time, in Narbonnaise.
As for the Big Blue from the open sea, who better than freediver Guillaume Néry and photographer Greg Lecoeur, both from Nice and deeply in love with it, to reveal its treasures to us?
And the fragilities to worry about...
"We leave on the shore the gravity that anchors to the ground and the pride that makes us lose our footing",
writes Néry evoking sea bathing.
"We swim [...], the heart is happy , the soul is reborn.
In
the Mediterranean, Mallarmé also had revived.
Contents of this Mediterranean special
Greece:
Kythera, a celestial beauty
Croatia:
Elaphiti Islands, the unexpected archipelago
France:
Narbonnaise, Occitan nature
Spain:
Formentera, a waking dream
Hotels:
from Ibiza to Mykonos, where to pack your bags
City guide:
Gourmet walks in Nice, Barcelona and Venice
Portfolio:
Guillaume Néry and Greg Lecoeur, an ode to the Big Blue
To do list:
12 experiences to rediscover the South
Strolls:
Italy, the Marches of Emanuele Scorcelletti
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
Trends, hotels, meetings...
Our favorites around the world
Portraits:
six nomadic creators to follow
Expo-philo:
do you have to travel to be happy?
Unpublished:
all sails out with Jean-Louis Étienne
Escape to create:
internships in France and Europe
Initiatory circuits:
meeting the craftsmen of Asia
Seaside, well-being, family:
our good picks
Survey:
everything you need to know about yachting
Le Figaro Voyage spring-summer 2022, €8.50.
On sale in newsstands and online at
boutique.lefigaro.fr