The French Riviera

For the 10 day Toussaints vacation, I decided to hang around the south of France instead of spending an arm and a leg to leave the country. I mean, I live in the south of France. Where else need one go, really?

Pascale, who works for the education inspector of my zone, invited me and Jen to join her in Fréjus, a town on the coast of the Mediterranean. She mentioned this invitation the morning I met her, on October 1st, casually as we drove from Pertuis to Avignon. Neither Jen nor I heard hide nor hare of this trip until last Thursday when she asked us what time she should pick us up on Saturday morning. Luckily neither of us had made other plans.

We met at the post office in the morning. I can happily report that I was sufficiently tired at 10 am, because I had actually gone out in Aix-en-Provence with some friends the night before. It’s good to have friends. Anyway, Pascale took the country roads instead of the auto route and we spent the morning meandering through the Provencal country side. It was breathtaking. Most of the villages lie in the hills, each with a little church alone at the top of a hill in the distance, and an ancient chateau on top of another. The main streets are lined with plane trees, and there are always the men walking slowly down the sidewalks carrying baguettes. Some villages, like Jouques where Pascale lives, have stone walls dating to the middle ages protecting the old village within. The vegetation is reminiscent of northern California.

We eventually reached the coast, le Côte d’Azur. Pascale stopped for lunch in a town called St. Maxime, not far from St. Tropez. I bought a grilled vegetable and goat cheese fugasse at a boulangerie and we walked around a bit to stretch our legs. Then we sat and had a coffee at a café overlooking the sea. There was no shortage of yachts or Maserati’s on which to feast our eyes and the sun made me forget that it was the end of October.

We moved on to St. Tropez, and that was quite a sight. Women in spiked heeled boots, fur vests, and little toy dogs paraded down the streets in droves. Really, I’m not exaggerating. All of the boutiques had set up outdoor displays and the streets were packed with shoppers surrounded by silks, soaps, furs, fancy shoes, leather hand bags, and gelato. The streets were cobble stone and the Mediterranean orange and yellow buildings were draped with bougainvillea. Pascale drove us to Colette’s house – an extremely important French writer from the first half of the 20th century. The house sits right on the beach and the area looks almost rural. I bet anyone could write a brilliant novel from that vantage point.

By the time we arrived in Fréjus, it was late afternoon. Pascale had told us that she had “une mobile home,” where she spends her weekends. I had a very clear and bizarre image of a beaten up 1970’s orange and pink and blue RV draped with beads and fabrics. You know, the gypsy vehicle that has sunken into the ground where someone left it 20 years ago. I guess I have limited experience with the idea of a mobile home… The place was outside of town a little ways, next to a giant palm and olive tree nursery. There was an entrance gate with a code and all, and then we drove into an unpaved miniature town of tiny but nice looking houses on wooden blocks. Her little house (worth 30,000 euros) is brand new. It is a tiny two-bedroom affair with a miniscule kitchen and a very pleasant wooden deck with a table and chairs. Jen and I shared the guest room. It turns out that this is a popular way for visitors to vacation cheaply on the coast. Some of the people in the compound own their houses, like Pascale, but a lot of the houses are available to rent for short or longer term. There was even a pool and a restaurant. It felt like a tame campground without any of the hardships of camping, but the perk of being outside the city and without too many frills.

Jen and I spent the evening walking along the wide path that runs along the sea, while Pascale ran some errands in town. We watched the sunset over the water and couldn’t help but feel like some of the luckiest girls on the planet. She met up with us eventually and we made little sandwiches on a bench before setting off in the car to see Cannes by night. We discovered that this is something that Pascale likes to do – visit cities by night. This has its ups and downs. There is nothing open is most cities past 8 pm, unless you are going out to dinner or going to a nightclub to dance. In the case of Cannes, everyone and their mother was eating outside on the terrace of one fancy restaurant or another. We parked and walked on Cannes’ seaside path. We saw the fancy hotels where all the stars stay during the Cannes Film Festival, and we saw the auditorium where they hold the festival. Palm tree lined boulevard - one side is the sea and the other side is every designer store on earth. I couldn’t even pretend to name them, because frankly I don’t care to know them. It was fun to do some late night window shopping, though.

The next day we got up and made our way into Fréjus for the Sunday morning market. We saw olives, cheeses, sundried tomatoes and dried lavender, cheap bras sold by sketchy looking dudes, underwear displayed on metal hoops, tons of fruits and vegetables, pottery, and jewelry. You name it, it was there. And most of the stuff was pretty cheap. I bought myself a small plate from a local potter for my little African violet back home. At the end of the market pathway, we stopped to have a beer at a café.

We spent the evening in Pascale’s usual fashion – looking at darkened quiet villages of the French Riviera. We set out first for Grasse – a town in the Maritime Alps where many of the most famous French perfumes are manufactured. There is even a famous museum that gives a history and making of perfume – a subject of great significance to the French and their former leaders who believed that water could kill you. I looked longingly into the brightly lit museum, a trace of an incredible fragrance in the air. It had closed 30 minutes before we had arrived. Then we drove to Antibes, yet another famous town on the sea with a reputation for great richesse. We drove up to the working lighthouse and then back down to follow a road at the water’s edge along the coast in the direction of home.

Monday morning, Jen and I took a train for Fréjus to Nice. Nice is even further east along the coast and the train ride was spectacular (and also brightly lit by the sun so that we were able to see what was around us). We followed the directions from the train station to the hostel, which included taking a tram up a very large hill (the edge of the Alps) away from the sea, and then catching a shuttle bus full of smelly travelers up another hill to the hostel. The shuttle bus turned out to be a VW van, and the driver a young woman from New Zealand who drove like a maniac. The whole hostile was run by anglos, as it turned out. They didn’t have our reservation, which they explained as being a result of the take-over of new management, and didn’t seem to know which of the beds in the 12-person room were actually taken. We checked our email – on an American keyboard no less – and then set out to see Nice.

The city is really beautiful. It sits right on the sea, and at the base of the Maritime Alps, with all the streets and avenues running down to the water. The buildings are all light sunny colors, and there are still plants and flowers in full bloom at the end of October. Yet, it still has the vibe of a decently sized city. We walked along the Promenade des Anglaises, named aptly for all of the wealthy British tourists who frequented Nice during the 19th century. After a couple of hours of wandering, we headed back to the hostel because they serve cheap freshly made pizza and dollar beers. And let me tell you, those two things (CHEAP being the operative word here) do not come along that often. We ate our pizza and mingled with other anglo vagrants. As for the night of sleep, it wasn’t terrible. The bunk bed was shaky and one girl had a terrible hacking cough and another set her alarm for 4 am, but all in all not awful. We learned the next night that it could be much worse.

The next day was our chance to see the city. It was sunny and warm out. Of course, the world famous Chagall and Matisse Museums were closed because it was Tuesday. Yes, I almost cried and threw a tantrum. It means that I have to go back. We walked through one of the famous wealthy neighborhoods and arrived at the sight of some Roman ruins. Beside the ruins was a very old olive grove, and a church at the top of a hill with lovely monastic gardens. There were lime trees and roses everywhere, and a beautiful view of the sea on one side and the Alps on the other.
At about 3 pm, it started to rain. Pour. We know it hadn’t rained in weeks because the guy building an enormous sandcastle in Cannes said he’s been working on it for 22 days. We tried to tough it out for a while, but without an umbrella or a jacket, we were cold and miserable in no time. Thank goodness we found H&M, which gave us the perfect excuse to buy a sweater so as to avoid pneumonia in Nice. All this put a damper on our plans. We had to venture back to the hostile to change our clothes and wait out the rain. We ate more pizza and shared a bottle of really cheap red wine. The hostel was packed because of the bad weather. This didn’t stop us, though, from meeting up with another assistant friend in the city that night for a drink.

So our really bad night in the hostel: when we got back, some one was in Jen’s bed. The hostile employee had been unable to tell that the bed was taken because Jen had made her bed that morning and neatly piled her stuff in the corner. There was a little to do about that before we climbed in for the night. The large common room - where people eat, drink, check their email, and dance to techno music - was right next to our room. Here is when you can see that 1 euro beers might not be such a hot idea. Imagine an over-weight Canadian guy who has just admitted that he is traveling with his college money and spent a fortune buying himself shots at an expensive Nice hot spot, to return to the hostile to drink 1 euro beers. He leans over to the girl next to him and asks her where she is from. Wellington she says. Is that is London he asks? Then he gets up to go dance. Now, multiply that by 50. And you all know that I love Canadians… The music pounded until 5 in the morning. My body was so confused. Why lie in bed when your body in vibrating with the music?

So I guess the hostel experience (ha, no pun intended!) dominated our short stay in Nice. I fully intend to write a report about the experience on some influential website. Jen told me that in the middle of the night, a girl approached Jen and told her she was in her bed. Ooops. And then in the morning when we tried to check out, we were informed that we had left the day before. Now that was news to us. When we finally got back to Pertuis late Wednesday, I felt filled with joy. And by the way, starting with that day it Nice, it has rained for 11 days straight. A Provencal record.