We’ve now traded the quaintness of Provence for the glitziness and
beauty of the French Riviera -- which is charming and photogenic in a whole different way. The day before, after our lunch at the base of Mont St-Victoire, we left Provence and driven east towards Nice. Along the way we learned a bit about the history of the French Riviera, known locally as the Côte d’Azur, or the Azure Coast. It started off as a string of sleepy coastal villages, and its evolution into a major tourist destination can be attributed to one thing: tuberculosis. Someone discovered that the climate here is conducive to health, and suddenly lots of people started coming here. From there it didn’t take much for the area to morph into a resort destination. Queen Victoria (who, as far as I know, never had TB) would spend her winters here, bringing an entourage of 400 aides and servants. The area became extremely popular with the English, who found the idea of winter vacations in the sunny Mediterranean to be a heck of a lot more appealing than the dreary cold of their home country.
As our bus continued toward Nice, we got our first glimpse of the Alps, and learned that this region of France is called the Alpes Maritimes, because it’s where the mountains meet the sea. A few days from now, when we visit the principality of Monaco, we’ll see just how dramatic the transition is: Monaco, like other towns along the coast, is stuffed up against a mountainside, and the upper coastal road provides a spectacular -- if scary -- view of the ocean below. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see snow-covered mountains and palm trees all on the same day.
Just before we reached Nice, we passed through the city of Cannes, where we saw fancy tents being erected in preparation for the famous annual film festival. As we drove along the beach in Cannes, our trip director pointed out that all beaches in France are “top optional” for women. We also saw the town’s Hotel de Ville, which prompted the rest of the travelers on the bus to tease me: Earlier in the trip, I had noticed that every town seems to have a Hôtel de Ville, and I had assumed it was either a hotel chain or just a very commonly used name for a hotel. (Sort of like how every beach town in New Jersey has a motel called “The Dunes.”) Well, it turns out that “Hôtel de Ville” is the French name for the city hall.
Upon arriving in Nice, we noticed once again that motor scooters were everywhere. That had been the case in all the previous towns and villages we visited as well. It’s not unusual to see eight or 10 of them parked in a row outside a cafe, and there even are a few areas in Nice that you might call “scooter parks,” where dozens of scooters (and a few motorcycles) are all crammed in. Businessmen and businesswomen, moms with kids riding on the passenger seat, even a guy driving his scooter while smoking a cigarette -- we saw it all. As far as I can tell, helmets are mandatory in France, because we never saw anyone on a scooter without one.
Our first excursion from our base of operations in Nice was St-Paul-de-Vence, where we visited the Fondation Maeght, a museum of very modern art. We saw paintings and sculptures by Joan Miró, paintings by Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and Marc Chagall, and an entire courtyard devoted to bronze sculptures by Alberto Giacometti. Of all those artists, I had heard of only Matisse and Chagall, but several of the Penn State travelers were art buffs and were pretty excited to see works by Miró, Giacometti, the cubists, and others. In the sculpture garden outside we looked at some colorful, larger-than-life sculptures ranging from a giant hot-dog-like thing to a guy who looked like Reddy Kilowatt to a figure that one of the Penn Staters pointed out was an E.T. look-alike.
For a dramatic contrast, we went from the museum of ultra-modern art to the center of the village of St-Paul, which is another of those “perched villages,” built on a hilltop for protection in the Middle Ages. Much as we did in Les-Baux-de-St-Rémy a few days earlier, we strolled around on the narrow cobblestone streets (really more like alleys), poked around in the boutiques, cafes, and postcard shops, and took turns taking each other’s picture with the rocky hillside as our backdrop. Some of us also walked over to the cemetery that contains the grave of Marc Chagall, who was associated with St-Paul-de-Vence for 19 years of his life. Others went down to the village square to watch the men play some very serious games of boules or pétanque, which is similar to bocce.
By the way, St-Paul-de-Vence is where we saw our first and only Pepsi products on the trip. It seems that Coca-Cola has a lock on southern France -- it’s everywhere. There’s Coke, Coke Light (the European equivalent of Diet Coke), Coke Light with Lemon, and a product you don’t see in the U.S.: Coke Light Sango, which has blood-orange flavoring. In St-Paul, however, we found a café that served only Pepsi products, and I had a “Pepsi Max” -- which contained no sucre (sugar) but presumably large amounts of caffeine.
After lunch at a restaurant in the Loup (pronounced “loo”) Valley, we headed up the mountain to Grasse, a town that’s famous for its perfume-making. I’ll write about that in my next post.
Penn State traveler Bob Nicely checks out the Chagall painting “La Vie” at the Fondation Maeght, a museum of modern art outside the village of St-Paul-de-Vence, France.
The sculpture “Walking Man” is one of a number of bronze figures sculpted by Giacometti that are on display at the Maeght museum.
St-Paul-de-Vence is one of a number of picturesque “perched villages” in southern France. Dating at least to the Middle Ages, they were situated on hilltops for protection against attacks.
Men play pétanque, or boules, in the village square in St-Paul-de-Vence, France. The game is similar to bocce.
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