For those who like myself were overwhelmed with excitement by their first boyhood reading of 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea, an agreeable and evocative experience is, I hope, still available at Toulon. This is to go and stay at Jules Verne’s old house, now the Hôtel Nautilus, in a favoured position overlooking the tiny harbour of Mourillon at Toulon. Monsieur Chabot, the proprietor, was known to me as an expert on seafood. Sitting below a large oil painting of Jules Verne