A stay in the south

With two days worth of rail travel left on our Eurail passes and very little time left to use them, we decided to go away for a long weekend before embarking on the canal boat adventure for real. Ideally, we would have liked to visit our friend, Ulrike, in Berlin but 45 minutes at the train booking office convinced us of the folly of that particular idea. Instead, we opted to head south in search of some warmer weather. We’d had gorgeous weather at the start of May but the second half had been decidedly damp: variable at best and regularly punctuated with thunder storms. J had never been to the French Mediterranean coast before and it’s 25 years since I briefly visited there as a naïve young Assistante d’anglais. We opted to stay a couple of nights in Nice and a couple of nights in Menton - the former because it is one of the “big name” towns on the Riviera and the latter because it is smaller, less well-known and boasts the Katherine Mansfield connection with NZ.

The weather on the way down was what we were hoping for. It rained for much of the journey and the rivers were running high and fast - something we now pay much more attention to than before! We were pleased not to be anywhere near them in a boat. It took us most of the day to get from St Jean de Losne to Nice (via Dijon) and we were lucky that the weather lifted for the last half hour or so of the trip and we arrived to warm, dry weather. We were also lucky that the Tourist Office was a) one of those which assists with hotel bookings and b) right next to the railway station. Within no time at all we were installed in an okay room in the Hotel de Berne, beautifully situated between the station and the main attractions: the historic old town, the shops and the sea.

Our impressions of Nice were generally favourable; much more so than on my last visit but that may be because this time I was expecting the bustling centre on the tamed Mediterranean Coast that Nice is rather than looking for something resembling a NZ coastal town as I was 25 years ago… The Promenade des Anglais along the waterfront is still THE place to walk out: to watch people and have people watch you if that’s what you like. It was also hosting an Italian Food Festival when we were there, so we were able to do some tastings along the way. The beaches are not the best - they are of pebbles not sand - but the sea is as beautiful as it ought to be and we even went for a swim on our second day there, albeit a short one because there was quite a breeze and therefore also quite a chop. From the water, we watched several people enjoy the short paragliding experience on offer (at a price) on the beach - it looked like wonderful fun and both of us would love to try it one day. We’re sure there will be cheaper places to give it a go. There were loads of people on the beach but only one or two in the water swimming. It is, of course, early in the season and the water is not up to the necessary temperature for most… but, while the French flock to the seaside in summer, it is more often to sit beside it than to actually venture in. Even when the beaches are jam-packed, there is loads of room just metres away in the water! One feature of Med beaches that we love, though, is the fact that they have fresh water showers placed along them at regular intervals so you can rinse off the salt water before you go home. Now that’s civilised!

We enjoyed being able to look around a good selection of shops and while (still) unable to find ourselves nice mugs for our coffee and tea or suitable (plain, small, inoffensive) toilet roll holders for our newly decorated toilet/bathrooms, J did find some clothes and we bought a Provencal table cloth to suit the new colour scheme of the boat. Food-wise, we indulged in delicious gelato and Mum treated us to an evening meal in a typical Nicois restaurant. The meal was lovely and the ambiance even better - the restaurant was small (max of 40 diners), tastefully decorated in the Provencal blue and yellow, and run by a delightful, tiny old Nicoise woman, who must have been 80 if she was a day. She was obviously the heart and soul of the place, and it was a pleasure to watch her at work and in her interactions with the staff , who would obviously do anything for her.

We left Nice on Sunday morning and decided to stop off and have a look at Monaco on the way to Menton. First impressions were that we were very much in a different country. The railway station was spacious, spotless and largely made of marble. We immediately purchased our tickets for Menton before having a look around and found the staff friendly and helpful. Monaco is very small, really a scarf of craggy steep hills around a harbour/marina. We didn’t’t see one dog so didn’t’t have to constantly avoid their leavings. The streets were clean, the scenery dramatic and the gardens lovely. The seating for the Grand Prix was still in place and obviously positioned to give the crowd an excellent view. Mercedes, Audis and BMW are common place and we saw a Ferrari and Maserati within minutes of arriving. The harbour was literally crammed with large and impressive pleasure craft many looking as though they had been made in a large jelly mould. Space is at a premium, there are no floating pontoons between any of the boats, they were anchored at the bow and backed in with one layer of fenders between the boats. The boat coming in raises its fenders, gently ‘rubs’ past the fenders of the other boats, then when in place lowers their fenders so they are positioned alternately from their two neighbours. It was a very calm day when we were there, that could be a tricky manoeuvre in strong winds. C made the comment that the fenders on some of the boats there would be worth more than our boat in its entirety - she was probably right. As passers by looking in on a lifestyle we can hardly imagine, we saw such things as a large craft with two sizeable outboard motorboats and two ski jets all ready to be ‘craned into’ the water. Many of the boats had ‘telescopic’ ramps to allow people aboard, most of the ramps we saw were retracted which made you wonder if anyone was on board. We were told, and do not know if it is true, that the late Prince Rainier’s yacht has not been out of the harbour for twenty years but is kept maintained with a crew full time. The symbolism of Catholicism is very evident everywhere and the overall impression is of a well ordered and peaceful community. I don’t suppose we will ever have these thoughts put to the test.

We arrived in Menton late morning and the beauty of the place is breathtaking! The mountains really do come all the way down to the Mediterranean at this spot and the juxtaposition is stunning! We, found the Tourist Information Office only to find out that it was one of the ones that didn’t help with hotel bookings other than to provide a list… Thank goodness for a mobile phone, which saved us a lot of time and walking in locating the Hotel Richelieu - again ideally situated between the station and the attractions but cheaper and more pleasant than the one in Nice, and with free wifi to boot! What a shame that we left our NZ/French adaptor on the boat, so we were only able to take advantage until the battery ran out on the computer… We’ll not make that mistake again.

Menton is much smaller than Nice, more compact, more intimate and more spectacular. There are lots of foreigners but most of them are Italian as Italy is just a few kilometres form the centre on town. We walked there on our second morning - after visiting the less than impressive Katherine Mansfield cottage - hoping to find a cup of coffee but we walked back having found some fantastic cliffs, a blowhole and a not-very-inspiring café-tabac, which didn’t tempt us in for a drink!

The beaches of Menton are nicer than those of Nice - smaller, more sheltered and sandier. We had two swims there - and mooched around on the beach on the Monday afternoon, surrounded by Italian families with loads of bambini. Another ideal spot for people-watching and for taking in the delicious feeling of being “elsewhere”. We did a lot of walking in Menton too - in the gorgeous, colourful old town with its steep narrow streets and steps; in the old town cemetery, where we found the grave of William Webb Ellis (he who with splendid disregard for the rules of football picked up the ball and ran with it …); along the coast to Italy and back… We also visited our second “vide-grenier” or car boot sale, where we bought a set of beautiful, fine, short-stemmed flutes (of the champagne glass kind rather than the musical kind) for the boat - not only will they fit on the shelves in the boat (hence the need for a short stem) but they only cost us 5 euros as well - a great deal and the best kind of souvenir of our visit. To give us strength for our walking, we had two lingering lunches by the sea watching the world go by. We are enjoying the long lunches as our main meal and lighter evening meals. This approach to eating suits both our waistlines and our pockets, as well as our general sense of well-being.

These five days away from St Jean were like a holiday for us - even though it must seem to others that we are constantly on holiday. The weather was warm and we were away from our “home” and the work related to it. We were able to discover new things and to spend time simply relaxing and looking around with no responsibilities. We arrived back in St Jean on Tuesday night refreshed and ready to prepare ourselves and our boat for departure - scheduled for Thursday morning.

Catherine and Jeanette