THE COTE'S A LURE!

The hot desert winds had sprung up, the mercury was bubbling again and the car was a sauna, so that when I arrived home, the mark of where the seatbelt had been, made me look like a member of a faded nobility, wearing a ceremonial sash. It was time for a holiday away from our desert island. "What about a holiday in the south of France?" suggested my wife, and I conceded that Nice was nice at this time of the year, before the influx of tourists. "Oh Cannes we?" she said, seeing the twinkle in my eyes. The film festival would be just over and the Monaco Grand Prix as well, but there might still be rich pickings in those two spruced up cities, and before you could say "Casino" we two Antibes-odians were on a flight to the Cote D'Azur International Airport.

While the flight from Dubai to Rome was packed, the flight from Rome to Nice was made in a Boeing 777 by about 20 passengers. I reflected that this was probably the way that people like George Bush always travelled, a cavernous, empty interior (I am referring to the aircraft) and very few people aboard. Rain, a welcoming sight for desert dwellers, greeted us half way across the Mediterranean, and the ride got bumpier than a Nicolas Sarkozy popularity poll before we landed. Mind you, I feared not a dunking, because we flashed over the biggest rescue armada of yachts assembled since Dunkirk, all looking a bit like fat toothpicks in their pens. It was only much later, on dry land, that I realised that Monte Carlo, Nice, San Tropez and a lot of places in-between, had just as many yachts! The most disconcerting thing, apart from not even getting an ice-cold biscuit or a warm cool drink between Rome and Nice, was the sight from the nose-wheel camera of our plane landing at forty-five degrees to the runway, into the wind, till just at the last moment the pilot booted the rudder and we straightened up for a perfect touch down. There was the 'shake-down' of "thirty euro" for our short trip from the airport to the hotel in a meter-less taxi, but hey, why scream bleu murder – we were in France!

Despite our dog-kennel hotel room, you quickly see why Nice attracts a lot of mainly high-end tourism. I don't just mean the squadrons of Executive jets on the tarmac or the herd of helicopters that flit to Monaco like dragonflies on a summer breeze. Sure, there is the usual tourist tack for the blow-throughs, but Nice carries its serenity like a mantle, a place to stroll, stop and savour, both the coffee and the views, and indulge in that most enjoyable of enjoyments, people watching. I suppose that it is the abundance of palm trees that you see in Nice  that entices your mind to slow down, for we always associate them with the tropics and torpor. There are too, leafy streets and large, shady parks, grand plazas, and best of all, the sweeping Promenade des Anglais which follows the beach like a scimitar blade and is filled with cars and flowers. It is made for ambling, seeing, and being seen, looking into those fenced off collections of stones which some call a beach, where black-tied waiters bring food and drinks to people who are pretending to look warm in their outdoor elegance while the wind blows fiercely and the milky green waves break angrily on the pebbles. It all breeds a wonderful terrasse culture of "Look where I am – and where you are not!" There are smartly, if not always fashionably, dressed people attached by umbilical cords to very small, or very big dogs, chic, minimally made-up women, men in Fedoras who tip them in passing. Nice has that comfortable look of old age reflection, like those old French postcards that were risqué rather than smutty, a place which "made it" long ago and is now enjoying its 'retirement'.

Nice, of course, has its under-belly coarseness of dives and sex-shops, and we saw a little of its seediness near the station, but then that is the case with so many cities where the area surrounding the railway station is not its most salubrious part. Then again, some see it as its most lively part! Salvador Dali, somewhat to my surprise – although really nothing should surprise you about Dali – said that when he was disheartened or downcast, he would always go to the railway station at Perpignan, for it was "The centre of the world". Hmmm, Waterloo, Gare du Nord, Termini in Rome, Centraal station in Amsterdam, Pennsylvania station, maybe, but Perpignan, lovely city though it is! But I digress. If Nice’s railway station is its corset, then the seaside is its bustle, for here the Mediterranean skirts the shore and many of the seaside buildings reflect that splendour. It is where everyone wants to live, to gambol and to gamble. Anchored at one end by the Gibraltaresque, Parc de la Colline with its ruined castle and tumbling gardens, the bay stretches almost all the way to Cap de Antibes and in-between, Nice shows off some of its wonderful Belle Epoch finery.

But Nice's beauty is not just skin deep. In the shadow of the Colline with a hoof on the seafront, is the broad Jardin Albert. Further along, the 'leg' becomes the Espace Massena, the Square Leclerc, wonderful open public places full of sculptures and statues and venues for street theatre, all the way to the Place Garibaldi (Yes, the father of modern Italy was born in Nice). Like a gaiter, the swish shops, your YSL, D&G, Pierre Cardin, Burberry, Gallaries Lafayette all line the northern fetlock, while wedged behind the 'heel' and the sea, there is the old town which dates back to the Romans. It is too, a lovely old town with narrow twisting streets and sudden squares, grand churches and stout government buildings, alive with markets, students, restaurants and bars serving espressos. We sat with the locals and ate escargot and boulliabase while nursing a Pastis or an incredibly cheap and excellent Provencal wine. There were flower boxes raining geraniums all round us, brightly coloured louvered shutters hiding a century of secrets, the smell of garlic and herbs, the 'bong' of a big church bell with only the chain-saw rasp of Lambrettas, ridden by latter-day Audrey Hepburns, to rent the air. That, and the smoke, for in France, everyone smokes, and while the streets are daily cleaned with great fervour by men with powerful hoses, ash and stubs find comfort among the cobbles.

The French, I am the first to admit, do their food well and we really need to invent new superlatives for their flavours. But they still eat by the appointed hour and if you want to get as much as a sandwich after three, in most bars it is simply "stiff cheddar". Drink, oui, coffee, oui but mange – Non! As for breakfast, better raid the fridge first. Great coffee, strong and black, but forget bacon and eggs or cereal. Maybe a croissant or pain chocolat if you specifically ask for it. You know, "When in France, do as the locals",  so we went to the local "Café Mozart" and asked for "Petit Dejuner" from an aproned waiter who sported a droopy moustache and enough stubble to make a wheat-field at home look drought affected. He grunted and sighed 'Anglais' in that manner that only the French can. Back came a baguette, cut in half and sparsely buttered. We looked askance. "Confiture, s’il vous plait?" we ventured and again he gave the sigh. When the little jar of jam was brought back, it was put on the table with all the subtlety of someone in the Caribbean slamming down a domino tile. We sat and enjoyed the coffee and chewed our bread and jam, watching the women in their booby tops and mini-skirts striding past our footpath table on their way to work. Coming from the Middle East you tend to notice these things afresh. But afterwards, we went to the supermarket.

On day three, we decided to travel to Monaco by train. Nice has a nice nineteenth century station, all steel and glass. I found that railway men are the same all over the world, gleaming caps of authority pulled low to hide sullen eyes, dark baggy pants, slept-in shirts and waist-coats, and tunnelled vision and speech. "Pour Monte Carlo s’il vous plait?" "Platform cinq". "Toilette s’il vous plait?" "Platform trois". Then our train pulled in, one bound for Milan, and a lot of back-packing ladettes appeared, all in cracking shorts and cleavage as appealing as Mount Rushmore. Our train hugged the coast, the high limestone mountains on one side, glimpses of the sea on the other, with veritable ocean liners at the bottom of people's gardens, and lots of tunnels in-between. Monte Carlo's station is like being inside an underground, slightly curved, low-lit, marble Nissan hut mausoleum, and we walked virtually the length of the country to get outside. Within two minutes, we saw our first Ferrari, then an Aston Martin and then more ‘exotics’ than you see in a Thai fish tank. Honestly, I am sure that these drooled-over motors come out of the corn flakes packets in Monaco, there are just so many of them.

Monaco struck me as being a bit like a filthy-rich kid who benefited mightily from the work of his parents and now has the run of the manor. Decidedly spoilt! There is high-rise at impossible angles, clawing up the mountain-side as if shod with crampons. Well, 60,000 Monegasques have to live somewhere in the tiny Principality. And they are well protected by the "laws of residence" for only the very wealthy can claim a berth (literally) and of course, there is one policeman for every 1600 citizens, possibly the highest relationship of police to citizens in the world. Crime is said to be negligible, so most of the time they must be strutting and preening. I dare say that there are few "cop shows" on Monaco television; that would be too much like bringing work home! We were there the day after the famous Grand Prix so the clean-up of the circuit was being carried out with the precision you expect of the country whose leaders are captains of finance, management and banking. It is a race that I always watch on television and it wasn't until we "drove" part of the circuit in one of those little towing trucks that cross-dresses as a train, and gaily pulls a whole lot of 'coaches filled with the very old and the very young, that I saw how narrow it was. We were flat out, travelling at about the pace of Lewis Hamilton when he is stationary in the pits, and it is simply frightening to think of the speeds that they achieve along very short stretches of road. Every vantage spot is taken up with jerry-built stands, some seating maybe twenty or thirty, but let’s face it, when you are in Monaco at Grand Prix time, there is little chance of hearing the conversation. Might as well watch the race and give your eardrums a massage.

We climbed the steps to Prince Albert's pad and at the top, straining thighs (Mine, not his) persuaded me to stop, and look down. Oh location, location, location! His mini-Buckingham Palace, guarded by snow-white clad toy soldiers, dramatically brought to life and crunching up and down on the gravel fore-court, has views which undoubtedly some have died for! Below, for everything in Monaco seems somehow 'below', in the area that is annually turned into a high speed chicane, are gathered an array of yachts that defy decency, and certainly give licence to the term "yacht". Here, from up high, they looked not like tooth-picks, but an assembly of sequoia trunks, and I am sure that most of them would move from their berths with the aid of tugs! Oh, could I but really believe the philosopher La Rochefoucauld that "Our envy lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy". Even with a little yacht from the pool of Monte Carlo, I know that I could be supremely happy, and for a very long time! But just imagine Albert, or his sisters, or all the Grimaldis before them, throwing open the curtains, well having their man-servant do so, and seeing that vista below. You would have to start the day on a high note!

Which leads me directly to the fairy-tale "old town", that abuts the princely palace. Narrow lanes with shops of class beside those of tack and bric-a-brac, but everywhere, bronze photographic plaques of the Graceful fairy-tale princess going on her way, at this very spot. Princess Grace died in 1982 but everywhere around Monaco there are plaques showing that she walked these very streets, the huge movie star from Philly who put the G into glamour as well as Grimaldi. Hers was the "Wedding of the Century" which gave the world all the glitz that the movie industry and royalty together could muster, while her tragic death twenty-six years later, ensured that as in fairy-tales, her legacy would go on happily ever after. History remembers only the good bits, her beauty, her graciousness, her charity work, but after her death the gilded cage was opened and her spirit still rests ever gently over Monaco. You can still follow her life in pictures as you walk around the Principality.

There is much to see in Monaco if you have the gumption to walk, for the streets can be steep, yet the views are rewarding. There is the magnificently sited Oceanographic Institute and its adjacent parkland with wonderful statues, including an octopus in a garden setting, so naturally there is a Beatle-esque Yellow Submarine as well, and a plaque of Jacques Cousteau with Princess Grace and Prince Ranier, of course. There is the Place d'Armes with its grand architecture and markets, and of course there is the Casino. Forget Las Vegas or Macau, Monte Carlo's casino is the 'Dorien Gray' of them all. It never ages. The Grand Prix would be dull if it did not skirt by the Casino, and the posers would have no-where to pose in their Kenzo suits, or in their Maranello red Ferarris. And, I am sure, we would not have chosen to have lunch at the famous Café de Paris, right next door, where the size of wallets was exceeded only by the visor size of sunglasses while the shortness of breath came not from the size of the bill, but the from the thighs exposed by mini-skirts. Bling was the thing, and lots of it, poodles and pearls, furs and Fendi, that 'casual grunge' look that costs a fortune. We ate slowly for it is hard to get things into your mouth when your head is constantly swivelling.

I made the mistake of suggesting to my wife that we split up so that I could take photographs, and she could 'look' in the shops, me foolishly gauging that everything would be out of her price range. Big mistake! It is one of the reasons that we always hold hands when we are out together because I know that if I let go, she goes shopping! When we returned to our meeting point, she was armed with two table lamps, with huge shades, which she just "had to have", never for a moment thinking about the semi-trailer and jumbo jet I would have to charter to get them home. Carrying our huge, bubble wrapped, parcels, we made our way back to the station. “How will we get these on to the plane?” I asked furtively. “As hand luggage” said my wife, “and if they ask any questions, I will just say that they are hats. The conversation was hardly illuminating!

We hired a car and drove to Antibes – Juan-le-Pines, taking the Promenade des Anglais with its flower beds looking like Kew at lilac time, and the lawns looking as though each blade had a personal trainer. Unfortunately, with all that cultivation, they also seeded traffic lights, and one has popped up every hundred metres. The French, however, have an orderly streak, and everyone moved like an army of armadillos, gaggles of Smart Cars like baby-teeth among old molar Renaults and Citroens, horns for warning rather than insisting of right of passage. Along the corniche, the ‘fit brigade’ were out in force, jogging, walking, roller-blading, dogs pulling, dogs being pulled, but any budding starlets were still well and truly in bed. We passed a hippodrome where the horses galloped and cantered, and we looked to the sea or up to the mountains  (snow-capped in winter) that ringed Nice like a collar, mainly so as to look over the ghastly ‘tuck-in’ food shops that offered every sort of cuisine other than French. Then we were into Antibes, a centuries old trading town (Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, of course) now trading mostly in tourists. Although the great knuckle that is Fort Carre dominates the harbour, the yachts look as though sown in a wheat-field with masts like stalks. With over 2000 berths, it is Europe’s biggest yacht pool. Yet beside the multi-million dollar carbon-fibre hulls, there are still a fleet of fishing boats, small and nuggety, a fly wheel at the front to haul in the nets, a putt-putt engine amidships and a tiny little cabin to guard against the elements. Most would easily fit into the radar domes of the nearby ‘yachts’! Here crusty old salts with gnarled, dirty hands and eyes hidden by folds of skin as protection from the sun and wind, mix freely with the Ray Ban and Tommy Hilfiger crowd, although they seldom appear to talk to each other. There is an ocean of difference between starboard and star-aboard!

The doyen of fort builders, the Marquis of Vauban (1633-1707) also did his stuff ashore, and the old town of Antibes is guarded by a massive stone skirt on which you can promenade, and great stone portals which now keep no-one at bay. Past the slurry of pubs (English, Irish and ‘Colonial’) and tourist restaurants with lots of booby-topped poppets as ‘enticers’, stands a down-right dinky old town with narrow streets and laneways from which the shops protrude just like those pockets in an aviator’s flying suit. There is a magnificent Hotel de Ville and adjacent to it is a nineteenth century steel-roof and bed-post stanchion Marche, an old market, now given to fast-food feeding. There are even sandy beaches, not Bondi, I grant you, but certainly better than the blue metal beaches of Nice. And everywhere along the streets there are baskets of petunias, so full of flowers that they spill almost to the footpath.  Picasso lived in Antibes in 1946 and while a local museum was the recipient of nearly everything he painted while there, his ghosts have spawned a plethora of art shops full of bright and bold canvasses. There are smudges of purple to show fields of lavender, a blaze of red to signify poppies, the Provence flowers of choice, and often being sold by old hippies who still have that wild Woodstock-ian look in their eyes, and tell you that life, is all about art!     

It was also in Antibes that I had my first pissoire experience, where the men hang out and the women walk past, a mere metre away, to a uni-sex cubicle, and wait disconcertingly behind your back, if it is otherwise occupied. Faltering and fumbling at first, I subsequently assumed the French position of seen one, seen 'em all, and enjoyed my brief relief to full measure!

The following day we travelled to Cannes, a film of rain making our wipers work like extras. We came down a road be-saddled with cheap hotels, strip joints and car-yards, heading inexorably, and very slowly given another traffic light breeding program, towards the harbour. "Look" I said to my wife, "we are on Boulevard Sadi. You have to be a sadist to drive it". She gave me a droll look and said, "You only looked at half the street name plate – the other half is Carnot". One way or other, we were both right, and half an hour later, like peeling back a hairy rambutan, we arrived at the corner of Rue Bivouac Napoleon which, naturally, looked up at the Place Charl de Gaulle, and saw the fruit of our endeavours, beautiful formal gardens and a fleet of yachts surely summonsed by Noah. We parked and galloshered through the puddles, past the wonderful Hotel de Ville to a nearby bar, the rain like a heavy metal group on our brollies, and sat down to coffee and more buttered baguette. One of the patrons came into the bar singing, and for a moment I thought they were probably doing a remake of that movie Singing in the Rain, but alas he looked more Hackman than Kelly. But on a nearby wall, a huge Charlize Theron smiled down upon us, and on another wall there was a mock film set with les celebrities peering out of mock windows. It was easy to see that the film festival had been here, although in the rain there were no budding Cicciolinas flashing their booty lest talent scouts were still about. But immediately I noticed that the women did indeed look elegant. Why even the tattoos were more Catherine Deneuve than Amy Winehouse.      

Enterprising Africans passed by our bar as though on one of those sushi trains, constantly trying to sell patrons umbrellas. I daresay that if the sun was shining, they would be out with parasols and bikini wax. Indeed, more so than in Nice and Monaco, there were more Africans to be seen, as well as North Africans from I daresay Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. There were Indo-Chinese too for indeed, the French empire had once been large too, as can be seen by the 'theatres of conflict' on the beautifully maintained war memorials. What was of interest to me, was that while Verdun was everywhere mentioned, for the French suffered fearful losses there in the First World War, the next most mentioned place was 'The Marne', with seldom a reference to 'The Somme'. My generation, and the one before it, had the Somme burned into our psyche, but of course, they were British Empire losses, even though it was on the soil of France.   

We tried walking in the main mall in the old town, again a huddle of shops, many that we now find in all big towns and cities, but here sometimes in curious juxtaposition. I would suggest that having a lingerie shop bordered by a cheese shop on one side, and a fish shop on the other, wouldn't be great for business, but then again, the French are an earthy lot. We split up, my wife breasting more shops, me to the rain-drenched beach. When I got there, it was laden with tractors and cranes where a week earlier the bodies beautiful had bared a great deal. Now all the tents were being packed up, and the palm trees too, the sand sculptures being bull-dozed, and the red carpets, which had turned slightly brownish, were being re-coiled for next year. The sand looked distinctly khaki, and even the marker buoys denoting exclusive swimming space, looked slick and slimy. But over the Boulevard de Croisette, with its abundance of foliage, the driving rain could not deny the architectural beauty of the exclusive hotels such as the Grand or the Carlton, the glitzy casino and the shops featuring all of the most exclusive brand names in the world. It all just looked so plush although as I sloshed past them all, I saw only preened but bored sales staff, with not a customer inside, and my mind flicked instantly back to that wonderful "shopping scene" in the movie Pretty Woman, and the supercilious sellers. There were Rollers too, with suited drivers standing under brollies, waiting for Madame Fifi, or maybe just Fido. But now wet and bedraggled, we decided to move on, as though someone had just called "Cut". We'd done the rain scene. It was in the can.

The sun came out as we neared St Tropez, which is just as well, as St Trop struck us as more Op Shop than Top Shop. In my youth, the movie And God Created Woman had us lusting after the "Sex Kitten" Brigitte Bardot. Now everything is old, me, Bardot and sadly, St Trop. Oh the harbour still looks great, with its Martello tower and its pocket beaches where Bardot flashed not just her smile. There is still the old town of ochre painted houses, of alleys, of squares and of course, the ancient fish market. There are still the big yachts with Colombian or Russian crewmen, in wrap around shades, and 'Red Dusters' at their sterns with homeport names showing that there are still parts of the non-taxing empire where the sun never sets.  But like Bardot, it is a faded glory, and, it seemed to me, that people come to see remnants of its 'golden times' (one might even say 'decadence') in the manner in which they might go to Pompeii or Blackpool. There are still the big houses hidden behind big gates, and I admit, we saw none of the legendary beaches and plush parts, so our views were coloured. Yet, there are still lots of heavily tanned, aging lotharios, with chains of gold around their turkey necks, and ladies with pendulous, crinkly, deep-fried breasts, sporting it all at the harbour-side. But the caravan has moved on as God created other 'in-spots' of licence and largesse. In the car park, a Rolls Royce Corniche was parked beside a gaily painted Deux Cheveaux. It said it all. A Roller in a parking lot, and without a chauffer? It would never have happened in the 'old days'!

We sat by the harbour as the sun set and watched the throng mosey around a collection of canvasses that smelled of freshly dabbed oil paints, white blobs on blue, like the yachts in the bay. I ordered my usual panache (shandy) but inadvertently I said Pinochet. The old waiter did not bat an eyelid. "Alas Monsieur, he was here only last week, but not today I’m afraid". Too late, I realized my faux par excellence. "But I thought that he was long dead?" I replied, trying to recover. "Oh Monsieur, here in St Tropez, even the dead go on living," he said with a chilly look of disdain. The Cote d’Azur, it seems, is still quite a lure, for the living … and the living dead.

WHAT I AMOUR, ‘BOUT THE COTE D’AZUR
Nice is Nice
For drinks with ice
And girls with spice
And just a touch of avarice.

Monaco's lovely from above
With Princess Grace, their turtle dove
Ferrari in the garage, house on a bluff
For the rest of the world, I don't give a stuff

Cannes is really a festival town
Come in black tie or a long Dior gown
Wonderful film festival for humans and pets
A hotel on the boulevard; it’s as good as life gets.

Poor old St Trop was such a fine looker,
But now she looks like a bit of a hooker.
Faded and rundown, with shops selling tack
Remembering the time, before she looked back.

The French Riviera, see and be seen
Film stars and sportsmen, why even the Queen
And bankers and authors and painters and mullahs
All come to see, the Cote of many colours.

Winfred Peppinck is the Wandering Freditor Editor for Wandering Educators. You can read his author interviews here on Wandering Educators:

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