The Inaccurate Tourist

18. Simply Gorges

I had overstayed my welcome at the hotel with the other divers by two nights, so I packed my gear (leaving some heavy stuff to go back with the club) and took the bus back through Hyères to the gare for my first TGV voyage. The train de grande vitesse travels between most of the cities in France, and it is extremely easy and convenient to use.

There are automatic ticket machines that you can specify your destination and pay using your bank card. I believe only the European bank cards (with the embedded microchip) will work in these machines. I'm not sure about the North American cards (with the magnetic strip). Since this was my first time, I took a number and went to the human at the counter. I asked for a non-smoking second-class ticket to Nice, which cost 20€.

The first leg of the journey left in five minutes on a smaller, slower train to Toulon, which was about ten minutes. To get to the proper voie (platform), I had to walk across the rails in front of the train. The conductor took my ticket, stamped and marked it and I picked a seat in the nearly empty train. This smaller train was called a TER, and the inside was like a North American bus.

I had about half an hour at Toulon, so I sat at a brasserie and had a coffee in the sunshine. The gare at Toulon was much larger, and the voie for my train was indicated on a billboard. This time there was a tunnel to pass under the rails. The train to Nice was a TGV, but doesn't run at full speed along the east-west route along the Côte d'Azur (aka the French Riviera).

In this case, I purchased my TGV ticket minutes before the train left. However, you can purchase your ticket well in advance. On some trains (such as the TER) it is optional and costs extra to reserve your exact seat, but on the TGV it is mandatory. Before you board the train, you must composter your ticket, which just means you insert an end in a little orange box that punches a half circle in it. I believe I read that if you forget, you can advise the conductor in the train and pay a fine of 6€. Otherwise, if they catch you with an unpunched ticket, the fine is 100€.

The office de tourisme of Nice is right beside the train station. I went in, got a map of the city and asked for advice on finding a room for the night. She offered to make a reservation for me, but I thought I would look at the hotel first. It was a very inexpensive "zero-star" student hotel called the Hôtel du Petit Louvre, and had plenty of character. Most of the hotels are rated by the government office of tourism on a scale of one to four stars. You can be sure that a one star hotel is clean, inexpensive and offers standard services. Approximately 60% of the hotels in France are unrated or one star.

The Hôtel du Petit Louvre was crammed fully of cheesy paintings, from still lifes to abstracts (often of a jazz theme) to caricatures. The rooms were very tiny, and kind of dingy with age, but clean. I had a shower in my room, but the toilet was down the hall (labeled WC). The single room was 31€, or 34€ with a toilet.

I spent the day wandering through the streets, which have a similar look to Paris. The buildings have ornate stone facades with iron balconies and detail, but with much more colour. Where Paris is mainly browns and greys, Nice is red, antique yellow, pink and blue. Quite a bit of Paris was torn down and reconstructed by Baron Haussman to straighten and widen the streets; the old part of Nice has the same small, twisty streets that it has had for hundreds of years.

All along the beach at Nice runs the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais, which is a broad and level sidewalk originally constructed by an englishman. (Likewise, a Scot began the tradition of firing a cannon every day at noon to assist the French in regulating their meal times.) The beach at Nice is made of well-worn, egg-sized grey rocks. I managed to be on the beach with my jacket and shirt under my neck for the entire fifteen minutes the sun shone that day.

I had supper that night at a restaurant near my hotel at L'Authentic (note the english spelling). The menu was 16€ for jambon cru with parmesan for an entrée, a salmon lasagna and salad for the main course and tiramisu for dessert. I ate, had a coffee and went to my hotel to sleep.

I had breakfast at the hotel the next morning -- hotels generally offer breakfast, usually for a fee. In the case of the Hôtel du Petit Louvre, it was 5€ for coffee, cereal and a croissant. You can probably find cheaper by buying a pain chocolat at a café, but the hotel breakfasts are more convenient and more social. I cleared my stuff out of my room and left my bags with the clerk (the hotels generally have a place to leave your stuff for the day, even if it's an unsecured closet) and went to the airport to meet John and pick up our rental car. John is another Canadian that I was already acquainted with, and it was his idea to meet in Nice to travel around the south together, because he had a conference to attend in Nice the next Monday.

We decided to stay at the Hôtel du Petit Louvre again (42€ for a double room with a bathroom included) and head out right away towards Monaco. We took the grande corniche, which is the winding high road through the mountains, offering an amazing view of Nice. The medieval village of Eze had been highly recommended, so we stopped to take a look. This little stone village is perched on the edge of the mountain, looking over the water. It's entirely stone arches, little winding streets and steps, and little cave-like apartments that have been converted into artisan boutiques.

The top of the village is a tropical cactus garden, with many species from all over the world. The cactuses thrive in the climate, which was exceptionally rainy that day, but is supposed to be quite tropical despite its altitude. The garden cost 2.5&euro to enter, and is well worth it just to get to the panorama from the top.

There is a trail from Eze named after Friedrich Nietzsche leading to the edge of the sea 400 meters below. This is where he allegedly finished Thus Spake Zarathustra.

We continued along the grande corniche towards Monaco, about 10 kilometers away. I believe this is the stretch that claimed the life of Princess Grace in 1982 -- born Grace Kelly, she was a beautiful American actress that starred in the Hitchcock films "To Catch a Thief" (set in Monaco) and "Rear Window". We saw where she was entombed alongside the other royalty of the Principality of Monaco in the old cathedral.

We didn't arrive in the old city in time to visit the famous aquarium (a fabulous old stone building with ocean motifs carved into the side), nor did we have enough time and energy to thoroughly explore Monte Carlo (the casino side of Monaco). We weren't in time to see the changing of the guard (at 11:55am sharp) or to watch the Grand Prix (a week too early). Instead, we walked through the old city, looking at the buildings, the glossy wooden doors, the yachts and helipads, and the impression of lots of money.

Almost by accident, we stumbled into a four diamond restaurant (apparently they don't use stars in Monaco) for an dazzling supper overlooking the port and the setting of the next Grand Prix. I believe the restaurant was the Café Grand Prix (at least all of the flatware was monogrammed CGP). I've generally been writing down the prices of everything for your information, but I can't bring myself to confess what we spent at the restaurant. It's sufficient to say that the meal was twice as expensive as the most expensive meal I had ever had.

But, a couple of tips: if you have never eaten at a four diamond restaurant before, you don't need to be anxious. The staff chooses your silverware so you can start from the outside and work your way in (as they say) without any excess forks or spoons to bother you. The glasses are filled for you (constantly). All the plates are presented and whisked away gracefully and efficiently. I had an Americano as an aperitif, white asparagus as the entrée, a square of lamb as the main plate (easily the best lamb I've ever eaten) and lemon ravioli for dessert. There was another pre-appetizer offered, three types of bread to accompany and a second dessert included with the meal. We shared a small bottle of red, but skipped coffee afterwards.

I know I made at least one gaffe (other than wearing my disheveled sweater to a fancy restaurant). I was so accustomed to restaurants being service compris in France, where the tip is included (in fact, if you feel like leaving something extra, you round the bill up to the nearest euro). This is true in most restaurants, except for fine dining where a 5-10% tip is the custom. I feel pretty embarassed about this now, but the waiter was gracious and friendly regardless.

We drove back to Nice along the basse corniche, which is as windy and probably as picturesque as the grande corniche, but along the sea.

We had found such a great parking spot for the night, that we decided to stay in Nice for the morning. We walked through the old city again, and along the Promenade until after the traditional cannon shot -- when the cannon goes, the entire city starts screaming and waving their arms and running to and fro until they are all safely in a café having lunch. We bought a pan bagnat instead, and took the car to the Musée Matisse (4€).

The museum was only mildly interesting, containing several of Henri Matisse's personal collection, as well as some of his furnishings that were featured in his paintings. Unfortunately, neither of us were really in the mood to appreciate the work. Maybe it was the sunshine outside, or a sense of urgency to move to the next city, maybe it was because the artist's personal collection contains his quick sketches and the works that didn't sell, but I found the museum unstimulating.

Or maybe it was because Matisse was a fraud who discovered he could crank out the works faster by hiring kindergarten classes to cut flowers from construction paper with their dulled eye-safe scissors. Just a thought from an untrained eye, but his works seemed to get "simpler" and "more expressive" as his reputation grew. At some point, "elegance and simplicity of form" turns into "unexpressive cartoon".

We drove out of Nice with the intention of visiting the Gorges of Verdon, a natural wonder in the Alps. Fortunately, we took a wrong turn, so we ended up driving out of our way through the residential part between Nice and the smaller villages north. The road kept on climbing and climbing, and yet we never reached the top of anything, or a good place to turn around, but we eventually found somewhere we could stop to eat our aforementioned pan bagnat (which is a round loaf cut in two, flavoured with olives, olive oil and garlic, egg, tomato, lettuce and anchovy fillets or tuna).

We saw quite a bit of the countryside on the way to the gorges, and generally chatted. We were way off the main road, but it didn't take long to recover and find the correct route -- the roads are incredibly well-marked in France, and driving in the mountains is pretty easy, although slow. We passed a car that had flipped (John conjectured that it was a combination of hitting the brakes and turning sharply around a corner that caused the flip). The car was upside-down in the middle of the road, but the driver looked alright on the side with her head between her hands. The police were managing the traffic.

If I may pause to offer some travel advice in France -- don't do that.

The gorges were very beautiful, even though it was getting later in the day and the light wasn't that good. It was raining a bit, but the air was still clear enough to see. The first lookout was called Point Sublime, and we could see the hikers 150 metres below (the trail through the gorges takes about two days and is very popular). While I was driving, I missed the turnoff through Route des Crêtes, which is one of the most beautiful parts of the route, but we stopped at all of the rest of the lookout points (or belvédères if you remember the terminology).

The picturesque route finished about twenty minutes drive later, and we decided to backtrack to see the Route des Crêtes. Unfortunately, it started raining very hard, and the visibility was much worse, so we ran out at most of the stops, glanced quickly and jumped back into the car. Even in these bad conditions, it was an impressive sight -- I would love to go back and see it again. In fact, we took the north road through the gorges, so if I ever return I can do the south road (or better yet, both roads again).

The gorges of Verdon are no longer in the area called the Côte d'Azur, but in Provence. We stayed in the tiny village of La Palud sur Verdon at Le Provence for 64€ plus 19€ each for the dinner. It was probably the most comfortable hotel I stayed in during this vacation.

What do you think about Nice, Eze, Monaco and the Gorges of Verdon?

Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at May 10, 2002 12:00 PM