Holiday in Transition # 7: The Legend Lives

For well over a century now, the French Riviera or Cote d’Azur has been one of the truly legendary resort areas of the world.  It’s had a cachet for attracting the wealthy and famous of other lands that predates the arrival of such modern and barbarous innovations as airplanes and chain hotels.  In the 1920s and 1930s, it was absolutely the destination for wealthy and wannabe-wealthy people from Britain, and the “Blue Train” which linked London, Calais and Nice was legendary for the quality of deluxe service.  That’s an era that’s been chronicled equally in song and story – I’m thinking of the famous musical The Boy Friend and Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Blue Train.

Then came the world-renowned Cannes International Film Festival and suddenly it was also the getaway for the rich and famous celebrities of every continent.  The final seal was set on the Cote d’Azur’s status with the celebrity wedding of the 1950s, when movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier, the ruling sovereign of the tiny Principality of Monaco.  And suddenly it seemed that everybody who was anybody had a home on the Cote d’Azur, or at least took a villa there for the major part of the year.

This seemed to me to suggest that a bus tour along the Cote d’Azur was the ideal activity for our stopover day in Nice, the second-largest city of the region.  So that’s what I planned to do.  And I was truly startled at just how mountainous the entire Cote d’Azur really is.  Nothing drives the point home (pardon the pun) quite so much as the fact that it took our bus 1 hour and 50 minutes of nonstop driving to get from Nice to Menton, over a straight line distance of about 50 kilometres or 30 miles.

Not much question about it: as the harbour cities get bigger, the harbours get smaller.  Nice wins the prize for the tightest fit yet.  The only way our Ocean Princess could handle this harbour was to turn around in the open sea and back in all the way to the pier.  Believe it or not, as I took this picture a second, equally huge yellow ferry to Corsica was approaching the harbour.  Damned if I could figure out where they were going to cram that one in.

Except in Nice and Menton, there is no road along the edge of the ocean.  The cliffs are too steep.  The roads are placed “high” and “higher” on the mountainside.  We went out along the “high” road and returned along the “higher” one, which might have been slightly faster – maybe.  Yes, there is a freeway but it spends a lot of time slamming through rock cuttings and tunnels, so it’s not precisely the scenic route, is it?

So here are a few representative views along the coastal “high” road going east:

Along the way we drove through the tiny little independent Principality of Monaco.  One of Prince Rainier’s prime objectives for Monaco was the development of his country, and he succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.  The entire 1.5 square mile territory of the Principality is a non-stop mass of high-rise buildings, and the prices are even higher than the buildings.  Our guide pointed out one new condominium tower that is topped by a 3-level condo listed for sale at a cool 650 million euros.  Another she showed us was a villa that a billionaire offered to purchase.  With the weakening of the economy a few months later he changed his mind and kissed the 39 million euro deposit goodbye with scarcely a second thought.  With that in mind, here’s a panoramic shot of Monaco and Monte Carlo, the two "cities" which make up the entire country. 

In relatively sane, sensible Menton, we had an hour-long, do-whatever-you-like stop.  What I liked was a good brisk walk along the Promenade du Soleil, west past hotels and cafes, and then east to view the old fortress and the marinas.

One thing I discovered is that this is a very multilingual kind of region.  Historically, it flipped back and forth between various owners over the centuries, and spent a lot of time under the control of the Dukes of Savoia in what is now Italy.  Italy again seized control in the 1940s before the area finally reverted to France for the latest time after World War Two.  With that and the high percentage of world populations, the local dialect of Nice is a compound of French, Italian and dialect words, and road signs frequently feature such messages as:  “Prenez le ticket ici pour le parking.”  I can just about hear the purists and bureaucrats in Paris cringing from here!

On the return trip we took the “higher” road, and stopped for another hour for a tour at the Fragonard Parfumerie, high above the Mediterranean Sea in the village of Eze.  I knew from previous experience of such tourist “attractions” what to expect: a minimal tour lasting at most 10 minutes, followed by a 50 minute sales pitch in the store.  I had to make an early exit because the combination of so many varied scents in one place was making my stomach turn over.  Oh, well, the scenery outside was lovely.  

And from there we returned to the ship, with a final photo call at the overlook where I took the first picture on this post.  As our bus pulled up there, we interrupted a young couple doing some serious “courting” on the park bench.  Gotta love the lack of inhibition in France and Italy, where any moment you’re likely to see two people move into a serious, passionate smooch right in the middle of the street, the subway, a meal, wherever.

Because it was such a gloriously sunny day, I contemplated going out for more adventures, but decided to just stick close to base again.  Tomorrow I am going to work harder!