Antibes

Bonsoir Everyone!
I should start by saying we are loving our time in the Cote d'Azur. I could not recommend a more beautiful, restful place. It can be just whatever you'd like it to be. You can be busy seeing the amazing coastline and all the spectacular towns, or you can be relaxing by water nearly anywhere or, if you love shopping, it has the best of everything. I know all that sounds like an ad, but really every word is true!
The Côte d'Azur is commonly known as The French Riviera. The Mediterranean coastline has no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the east to Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon or Cassis in the west. The sovereign state of Monaco is included.
This coastline was one of the first modern resort areas. The British upper class started using it as a health resort at the end of the 18th century. Eventually it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales. The Cote has been frequented by artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Somerset Maugham as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. Some Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet painted the old city of Antibes.
Included in the Cote D'Azur is Antibes, which Ron and I spent the day visiting today. The first time I saw Antibes was two years ago, when we came and stayed in a bed and breakfast. I did enjoy it, but I remember being overwhelmed by how crowded and busy it was everywhere. Today, I didn't feel that way at all. Somehow, I could look past all that and enjoy the beauty of this place and appreciate the little streets and interesting shops which are just the norm in this part of the world.
Every morning, Antibes has a fascinating market on the Rue Auberon. The first thing that stops you in your tracks is the vast array of different kinds of olives. Then, if you move your eyes over a little, you see sun dried tomatoes, artichokess, three different kinds of tapenade, various dips, and so on. Everyone takes pictures while standing in the line to buy things.
I heard a young person ask the vendor "Can I try some samples?" To which the vendor loudly responded,"Eat? No! You eat after you buy! If you eat now, I lose my mind!"
We walked all around the market to look at the various selections. We decided to have a little picnic for our lunch, so we bought small amounts of the following: olives, cheese, anchovies, bread, small tomatoes, artichokes, and salami. For dessert we bought cherries and grapes. Happy with our purchases, we walked over to a cafe called Brassiere Le Clemenceau for cappuccinos and watched the buzzing activity all around. All our nice fresh food sat in bags at our feet, as we tried to keep it all sheltered from the hot sun.
We left the cafe and decided to take our groceries to the car which was a very long way off. On the way to the car we saw a beautiful, green park with umbrella pines and palm trees and benches. We decided not to take our groceries all the way back to the car after all, but to find a bench in the cool shade and have our picnic. Ron ran across the street to get sparkling water. The best part? You could still look out and see the stunning azure-greenish-blue of the Mediterranean.
Because we ate our lunch in the park, and never even made it to the car, we turned around and walked back into the town in the hot sun. We walked by an old villa, with a plaque on the wall which read the name of Nikos Kazantzaki who once lived here. I said to Ron, "Who's that?" Neither of us knew, but we found out that Nikos is the author of 'Zorba The Greek' as well as 'The Last Temptation of Christ'.
We rounded a corner again and saw another plaque on a villa with the name of Bernard Lecache on it. Neither one of us knew who Bernard was either. Well it turns out that Bernard was a French journalist, born in Paris, and was the son of Jewish immigrants. In 1927, Bernard founded the League Against Anti-Semitism and was the president of this league until the time of his death in 1968.
We then passed by a shop called Gelato at Maitre Artisan Glacier, and decided to try the deepest, darkest chocolate gelato we could find. We sat outside at a small, pink table on lime green chairs. As we watched the world go by again, a tourist train of some sort drove lazily by down Rue Georges Clemenceau. It reminded me of something I might see at a place which sells pink popcorn.
When we finished the gelato, we carried on, and I happened to see a sign which read "Heidi's English Book Shop." You know how every once in awhile, something really cool happens in your life? Well we couldnt believe our eyes when we saw a sign which read, "Henning Mankell" the author of the Swedish mystery series called "Wallander" was going to be present at 2:30 pm (which was the time we arrived at the bookstore) to do a book signing, as well as talk about his new book, called "A Treacherous Paradise." The sign outside the book shop read "Free Admittance!" Believe it or not, everyone who came in was offered free rose wine or champagne to celebrate this event. It was really exciting to be there, in the small bookstore and listen to this man speak about the character of Wallander. One man asked the writer, "Is Wallander going to die?" The author replied, "if that happened, only the reader would miss Wallander - not the writer!" Markell finished by telling the small audience his favourite quote, "Humans are born with two ears and one tongue! Why is that? Because they should listen more and talk less. Tell that to your local politician!"
After this delightful and unexpected event, we decided we had to leave Antibes if we still cared about going to Nice in the evening. We walked down Rue Aubernon, then Rue de la Pompe and turned on to Rue du Haut Castelet past the ancient fortress. We looked out to the sea, and said we were glad that we decided to spend the day here. On the way to the car, we past groups of people playing a game which we have observed often in France. It's called Boules, or may be called Pétanque (in Italy, the same game is called Bocce). The object is to throw heavy balls, each weighing over 650 grams, as close as possible to a small target ball.
So eventually we found our car and went back to our B&B. When we got there, Pierre made us tea. After tea, we got ready and were walking to our car, when Pierre called to us and said, "Where are you going?" We told him "to Nice!" He said, "Now?" We said we were going to dinner there. He asked, "Where?" We said we weren't sure. He vigorously protested the trip to Nice saying it would be at least 40 minutes, and then there would be parking. He recommended a restaurant in the opposite direction near Cannes which "has lots of fish, and very good cooking, and is only maximum 30 minutes!" Pierre gave us the name of the restaurant and the directions. Since Pierre carefully reasoned everything out, we agreed to go where he suggested - until we drove out of the parking lot. We decided we didn't really care to drive in the direction of Cannes and decided to return to Antibes for dinner.
So that journey took about twenty minutes and we headed straight to a restaurant we knew we liked called Le Brulot. It is a cool one, because you walk in, go down a winding staircase into well lit caverns. There were many tables, all with pale pink tablecloths and pink napkins. I had salad nicoise, Ron had Tagliatelle Bolognese and for dessert we shared a creme brûlée. All delicious.
We had a really nice time, celebrating our last evening here in this area, as tomorrow we move to an apartment in Valbonne. We left the restaurant at 9:30 pm, walked out into the cool evening, along the sea wall, past the Musee Picasso Antibes. We looked into the powder blue sky over the darker blue Mediterranean - and could see a pure white sail boat glistening off in the distance...