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Sunday, 7 May 2000 18:12:32 PST
In the spirit of impulse weekends, my flatmate and I decided to flee London and head for the sunshine. Evaluating all the options we eliminated a few of the more obvious ones like Tenerife, the Costa del Sol or Ibiza and settled on Nice and the French Riveria.
We booked the tickets with a scant two days to go, seized a copy of the Cote D'Azur Lonely Planet and packed a shoulder-bag each. We were flying Easyjet's new run to Nice, arriving Friday afternoon and leaving Sunday night. The ride out to Luton was not too bad and, except for one unfortunate tube delay, we arrived on time.
We landed at about 7pm and secured some lodgings near the train station in the two star "Hotel St Gothard". Following the advice of our very nice and multi-lingual hostess we walked from our Hotel down through the Place de Massena into the Vieux Nice, the old town. We manage all this without me having to chance my meagre French on anything more complex than buying a bus ticket!
In the old town we found the predictable run of gaudy tourist dives but managed to pick a restaurant specialising in Provencal cuisine out of the mishmash of Mexican, Italian and fast-food restaurants. The atmosphere was lively and the crowd of locals and foreigners, young and old, seemed to be enjoying themselves.
I seized the rare opportunity to sample fresh seafood and ordered the "St Pierre", a local firm-fleshed fish, char-grilled and accompanied by a skimpy salad and potatoes. Mark ordered a rich beef ravioli which he seemed to enjoy. I followed up with glaces and sorbet and Mark with profiteroles. A light, red Provencal wine accompanied the whole meal and as a start to the weekend the experience was fantastic. It even featured that most French of things, a surly waiter who can still make you laugh.
For a while we chatted to the people at the next table. They worked for the holiday company "SunSeeker" which specialise in boating tours. The two girls were from the London office and were in Nice organising a very large floating party with their two male French counterparts. They, unlike us, only had a single day in Nice before they were to fly home.
The next morning we started reasonably early (before lunch) and wandered out to the train station to catch the train west along the coast to Monaco.
Monaco is only thirty minutes from Nice and trains run every hour. We emerged from the tunnel to the train station into the bright light and gleaming white hulls of the harbour. Monaco is a principality ruled by the Grimaldi family for 700 years and is dedicated to the lifestyle of the uber-wealthy. The money in Monaco is palpable, practically dripping from the architecture. The yachts that grace the harbour are the size of ocean liners and every second car on the street is a Ferrari.
From the harbour we walked around the stands and banners for the upcoming Grand Prix and took a brief stroll down the famous straight in front of the swimming pool. The yachts rolled on as far as the eye could see, some with helicopters, some with their own flotilla of small boats on deck. At the end of the harbour we turned right out of the harbour and up on to Le Rocher ("the rock") to the Musee Oceangraphique established by Prince Albert in 1910.
From the rock we walked down past the palace (flag down, no Grimaldi's in evidence) and out through the town to the beach. The beach turned out to be a bit of a disappointment : small, studded with concrete and littered with fat Germans. We sat for a while and turned back towards the harbour, seeking lunch. We succumbed to desperation and found lunch in one of the small, nondescript Italian restaurants by the harbour. This one was doing a lively take-out trade to a bunch of teenagers diving off the back of the harbour pier. The food was barely edible but at least the coffee was good.
Every time I drink coffee on the continent I am stupefied why no one else makes it like that. The coffee (generally) is so good in France, Spain and Italy that I switch from cappuccino to neat espresso. A continental espresso is dark and bitter and incredibly potent. So much so that the first two or three taste like shoe polish. After a couple of days I start knocking back caffeine treacle like it's a soft drink and this continues until the end of my holiday where I have to return home to instant coffee, caffeine crash and the DT's. Variation is the spice of life, etc.
Monaco is impressive if a little sterile. The town is quiet and reserved as if all the fun is going on somewhere else, which it probably is. Monaco has become such a cliche now that I suspect the only rich people you see on the streets are those not rich enough to afford privacy.
After lunch we caught the train back to Nice. We wandered around Nice some more and retired to our hotel for an afternoon siesta before dinner. At about 7pm we went back to the train station to meet up with Monica, a Canadian girl who we had met on the train out to Nice. Monica had been heading out to Ventimigllia across the Italian border for the markets and a spot of hiking and we had arranged to meet up for dinner.
In the Vieux Nice we attempted to find somewhere to eat. Everywhere seemed full, including the place we had eaten at on the previous night, so we settled on a dubious Italian place. The food was good and the waiter was particularly surly and particularly funny. When Monica giggled at one of his more raucous remarks he put his hand to his face, giggled in a high pitched voice and said "Do you know you sound like a little girl when you laugh like that?" When we persuaded him to take a photograph of the three of us he remarked that the tip had better be suitably impressive. I said "We'll see" and he lanced with me with a fierce glare, replied "Hah! You think you are so funny!" turned on his heel and marched into the kitchen.
Needless to say we left a suitably impressive tip.
Since the night was young we decided to go for an apres-dinner drink. We found, not unexpectedly, an Irish pub staffed by ex-pats and settled down for a pint or three. The Caffrey's was better than in Chicago but still not up to Irish standards. After some more chitchat and a few more beers we bade Monica farewell and turned in for the night.
The next morning we resolved to get away from the coast and up into the mountains. We did this on the narrow gauge Haute-Provence railway that runs out of Nice into the hills and onto Digne. The scenery along the way is fantastic, steep sided gorges with tiny towns tucked away in the valleys. We only took the railway as far as St Andre Les Alpes, about two hours out of Nice.
Saint Andres Les Alpes is a small town (population 800) in the mountains behind Nice. The town is a centre for parapente (hang gliding) and sits on the northern tip of the Lac de Castillon. The winds sweep off the Lake and up into the hills around Saint Andres creating the perfect environment for flying.
When we arrived at the train station, a dozen brightly coloured sails clustered around the peaks to the North of the town and floated down into the valley to the south. As we walked into town the shadows would follow us down the road and briefly block out the sunlight as they drifted overhead.
When we got into town there were a few places to stay but we finally settled on the "Hotel de France" in the middle of town. Negotiating with the proprietoress in broken French and English I arranged to take lunch there, which turned out to be a very good idea. The menu was set, three courses and coffee. The first was "charcuterie", a plate of local meats that may or may not have included "ane" and "sanglier" sausages (respectively donkey and wild boar) from the Maison du Saucisson around the corner. The second course was "lapin au moutard" and the final course was a selection of deserts from which we both elected to have the "tarte au pomme".
We had hoped to be offered the delicious looking plate of cheeses that was circulating but as the waiter regretfully explained, the set menu for guests of the hotel was not the same as the set menu for the restaurant. The whole meal cost about 100 francs each.
After a suitable pause and sufficient quantities of caffeine, we ambled out of town and down to the lake to see what was going on. The para-gliders were still coming in off the mountains and there was a broad field beside the lake equipped with windsocks where they were landing. After watching half-a-dozen or so effortless landings we got bored and went off to explore the lake.
On the nearest side of the lake was a small hill. We struck off around the lake and up the hill. Atop the hill stood two statues, the saints of Saint Andres, one clutching a bible and the other a hammer. Their names had been obliterated by time so I was, with my agnostic background, unable to identify them.
We descended the hill by an alternate flank and made our way down to the chapel and farm house on one side. The chapel appeared very old and in some state of disrepair although the graves in the tiny adjoining cemetery were well maintained and the dates on the headstones only went as far back as 1864. The adjacent farmhouse was better maintained and obviously in regular although intermittent use. We returned to town and collapsed into bed for the now traditional mid afternoon nap.
In the afternoon while wandering about town we came across a large group of men pursuing the favourite French past-time of 'petanque'. Petanque is similar to bowls and almost identical to 'boules'. The participants lob large steel balls underarm at a little wooden ball. The person that gets their shot closest is the winner. The rules appear to imply that the loser is thereby impelled to throw his hands in the air, expectorate copiously and make imprecations about the ancestry of the winner's parents.
It soon became obvious that this was more than just your average Sunday afternoon game between locals. After a bit of investigation it turned out that this was the regional finals and competition was running hot between the local lads and the dastardly visitors. We were never quite sure of the final result but the bars that night were full of triumphant, cavorting Frenchmen.
That evening we ventured out for dinner, a whole 20m to the other side of the main square. The food was excellent, accompanied by a decent bottle of Cotes du Rhone red. I had an Italian style pizza, wafer thin with ham, tomato and egg. The chef, apart from his culinary pursuits, also appeared to indulge in motorsport as well. The walls of the restaurant featured a couple of photographs of a works rally Citroen in full flight and in the corner of the room his helmet sat on a pedestal.
Next moring we headed back to Nice for our flight home. The train trip to Nice was as scenic as the trip out but left us in Nice with nearly eight hours to. Our first thought was to try the Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (MAMAC) in the middle of Nice. The Musee contains modern 'masterworks' such as Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Can" and "Entablature" a shopping trolley wrapped by Christo. Unfortunately we had not taken into account the fact that May 1st is as much a holiday for the French as it was for the English. Consequently all the Museums were closed, including the MAMAC.
Instead we detoured out to the Chateau atop the hill at the Eastern end of Nice's beach to take some photographs of the town. We walked back into the View Nice and found a little square opposite the church where we paused for lunch. While we sat eating, a man walked past our table obviously intent on celebrating the onset of Spring. He padded past, barefoot and dressed in his bath robe, clutching in one hand a bottle of wine and in the other a single rose. Who says romance is dead?
After that we spent a few pleasant but pointless hours on the beachfront reading, paddling in the water and taking coffee in a cafe.
The trip home was marred by the fact we had ignored the problems of returning to Stanstead airport at midnight on a Bank holiday. None of the trains were running and more delays meant we didn't see home before 2am.
[NJ] As an aside, Many years later I heard from the owner of the house on top of the hill-of-the-saints. He had come across my web site and recognised my description of the location. Apparently the houses were for sale, they may still be if you are interested...
