FRENCH RIVIERA

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

We had decided to take an easy tour today after yesterday’s walking and in anticipation of more of the same tomorrow in Barcelona. Rab had always wanted to see the French Riviera and so we chose a “Highlights” trip. These are designed for the really old and less able and usually do not have any walking other than that related to toilet breaks and photo opportunities. This does create some limitations as far as ‘lost pictures’ are concerned – it can be SO frustrating to whiz past scenery that you KNOW would look so good in your photo book and to helplessly try to snap it out of the coach window with the inevitable result of a blurred tree or signpost that jumped into the picture as you pressed the button. But at least you get to glimpse magnificent views that would otherwise have remained unseen.

The organisation of the day was uncharacteristically poor. The first of the five tours to go was set to depart the ship at 7.45, a very early hour for most and five minutes before sunrise. Ours was one of the two later ones, with an etd of 08.30. Because we were not coming alongside, but using the lifeboats as tenders, we all had to gather in the Lounge to await our turn to go down to the boats. I had seen from our porthole that there was quite a swell running and wondered how the whingers would feel rocking away in the small boats.

As ever, there were some people who were late and held up their parties and others who simply failed to turn up at all. Thoughtless folk. All of which delayed us by some fifteen minutes and then we traipsed to the stern of the ship, down four decks and to the head of the ladder down the ship’s side to water level. The swell was indeed causing problems, at least on the side we were to embark, although things were calmer on the lea side. The landing stage and the boat were only meeting occasionally which would have made hopping aboard difficult for even able body people like us, let alone the totterers with their sticks. Part of the problem was the poor seamanship of the men on the boat as they had not secured it properly. After some time one of the senior officers (he was said to be second in command) came down, barking orders, taking charge, bringing the boat into the correct position, ensuring it was secured in place – and we could start boarding. Of course that took a while as people who are barely ambulant made their way cautiously down the stair, but we got there in the end and off we went into the beautiful little harbour of Villefranche sur Mer.

A short walk through an interesting looking centuries old fort to the waiting busses and we were off. Our excellent courier explained that we would be travelling along the lower coastal road or Lower Corniche, to Nice before going on the Middle Corniche and ending up on the Grande Corniche, since all of the roads would give us different views of the coast. I have until now assumed that the simpletons who never knew what was going on were illiterate, and thus could not read the clear instructions and information in the daily newsletter or even the floor numbers in the lift – “What floor is this?” they ask in their trembling voices. How do they think we know the answer? Do they think we are psychic or perhaps, just perhaps there is an indicator somewhere that enables us to tell them? But apart from this illiteracy, it appears that many of these people are deaf too. Although hearing aids proliferate – Rab thinks there may be more of them than walking sticks – they are either badly tuned or have flat batteries. Right at the end of the trip when the guide told us we’d now be back on the Lower Corniche, I heard the inevitable question “What’s a corniche?”

We wound our way up and up from sea level to the road – the Lower Corniche and bowled along happily in the warm(ish) sunshine towards Nice. The properties and their views were magnificent and reminded us of parts of Cape Town – where Clifton in particular has a similar feel, but on a very much smaller scale of course. Nice itself was very nice – some amazing buildings going back to Victorian times and many of them preserved very well. It was surprising to see the onion domes of a Russian church in the town – and sure enough that was to commemorate another dead tsar. One of the Nicholases as I recall – he’d fallen off his horse while on his morning ride and had developed a fever and died, poor chap. The guide also told us that Queen Victoria, a frequent visitor used to bring her donkey with her on her winter hols and ride that around the countryside. Brings to my eye an incongruous sight – but maybe it was so.

We wound our way up and across the mountainside – amazing engineering in these roads and amazing skills from the driver as time and again he swung the coach into areas which appeared not to be wide enough and slip alongside rock faces only centimetres away from our windows. The views were beautiful and I managed to get a couple of shots when we stopped for the first photo opportunity – we could see our ship way below us in the bay. As ever, I tried a couple of moving shots and some look quite reasonable, although I’ll have to examine them more closely when we get home. I tried to start sorting the pictures but only got as far as Helsinki, I think. Maybe I’ll have a bit of time after Barcelona as we have a day at sea before Gibraltar and then another before La Corunna.

The pit stop for the full bladders was at a village named Ese. Perched on a peak it was said to be a medieval village, crowned by a castle used previously by the King of Sweden for his winter visits – apparently every crowned head in Europe used to head for Nice to get a bit of warmth. And not a week’s stay at a decent hotel for them. They stopped for three or more months and so took over or built their own places and arrived with all their familiar equipment including beds, desks and entourage. While the oldies struggled up the incline to the toilets to join the line of their fellows complaining about having to pay for a pee – only 40 cents, hardly a financial burden – Rab strolled over to the only shop we could see that was open while I tried to find a shot of the village and castle.

She was successful in finding a couple of small purchases but unfortunately the lush trees successfully hid all views, so I didn’t get my shot, although I managed to get a couple out of the coach as we went on our way which may be OK.

The weather had changed by the time we got to Ese. Clouds had blown up and the sky above the Maritime Alps was looking black and purple. Far below us a yacht seemed to be making for port ahead of a possible storm. That didn’t blow in while we were out, and in fact it was sunny again when we got back to the tenders, but they gave us a warning back on the ship that there might be some bad weather tonight as we cross a well known bit of treacherous water. They don’t seem to be too worried however as the rubbish bins at the lifts, plant pots and statuary have not been taped down with gaffer tape as they were during the crossing of the Bay of Biscay.

Back to the drive. We had a short stop for viewing at the Vista Palace hotel which is an amazing place. Part of it is cantilevered out over an enormous drop. I assume even the lax French would have some sort of security in place to stop guests who had a drop too much plummeting off the edge into Monte Carlo far below. It was at this stage that I was able to ask the guide a question that had been puzzling us. Although he had said that the corniche we were on was the boundary between Monte Carlo and France, the houses on both sides of the road were not up to the opulent standard we had expected from Monegasque residences. It turned out we had misunderstood him and although the road was indeed the boundary, we had not yet entered Monte Carlo, which was about a kilometre down the road. And sure enough, as we crossed this line there was an immediate upgrade into the kind of mansions that it is difficult to imagine living in – or running and they just got bigger and more grander and higher.

Although we had been to Monte Carlo on our last Mediterranean trip in 1998, we had only travelled on the surface. On the coach we went underground and were amazed by the maze of roads and tunnels down there. It was like a futuristic science fiction movie as cars shot up out of steep holes and then equally suddenly dropped out of site down roadways that seemed impossibly precipitous. Motor cyclists whizzed by emulating the Formula 1 cars while coaches and busses roared towards each other, filling the tunnels with their bulk and avoiding each other’s wing mirrors by fractions of inches. Amidst all this chaos I wondered how they could keep building the enormous multi-storeyed residences on this Gruyered granite base. Surely ultimately the load would become too much and they’d drop into sinkholes, like the houses in mining areas where the activities of the miners had created adits with insufficient supporting pillars. Popping out of the tunnel system we drove through the town and again I wondered how a small three storeyed building housing a pizza restaurant could survive? At the enormous values the guide was telling us how many pizza dinners would you have to sell to justify to offset the loss of return on the value of the site alone? I didn’t get the answer to that one.

Back to the harbour along the lowest of the three roads and into a bit more sunshine, we made our way across to the waiting tender which was half filled by the time we got there. Of course it was not possible to seat all the people from our party – and I have to say I really would not like to have to take to the boats at any stage. As we saw from this little exercise, where the crew really packed us in, there’s not a lot of room for the stated number of people the boats will hold. We’d never noticed this on previous voyages because usually the tenders were operated at less than full capacity. The rearguard from our coach were vociferous in their wails at being left behind. Geeeezzz…one would have thought they were obliged to swim out to the ship instead of hopping in to the next tender which was waiting to come alongside.

Back on board we had lunch and a couple of drinks, I wrote up my blog and posted it and a chat with Chris and Coralee who came by just as I started this part of the blog, effectively putting paid to my work for today.