BOXES 82-83: Southern France

Anyone for baccarat? I was allowed inside the entrance hall, but there was no way I was going to be admitted to the gambling rooms of the Monte Carlo Casino in my ratty sports jacket. The place really did have a James Bond vibe. But I spent the evening watching a Woody Allen movie (Play It Again, Sam) with a big crowd at an outdoor screening near the sea instead of playing for high stakes.

Of all the posts I've written so far, this is the one where I most wish I had taken notes or kept a diary, since there are many puzzling gaps regarding places and times. (Puzzling to me and of interest to absolutely nobody else, I realize.) The first thing I can say with certainty about this excursion, midway through my 1973 European trip, is that when I was in Paris, a couple of weeks beforehand, I had seen a poster for a one-time only performance of Tristan and Isolde with Jon Vickers and Birgit Nilsson at the Theatre Antique in Orange, the town in Provence north of Marseille. (Non-opera fans: imagine the greatest all-star concert you could conceive.) I immediately bought a ticket at the record store near the Opera that displayed the poster. But I no longer remember if I had already decided to visit Marseille and the Riviera or if I planned a whole Southern France tour built out from the opera night.

One thing I do recall clearly is that when I boarded the overnight train from Florence to Marseille (following travel in Italy--see my previous post), I unknowingly settled myself in a car that terminated in Nice while the rest of the train went on to Marseille. A conductor woke me in the morning, but I didn't realize what was going on until I noticed that everyone else had exited the train. So it was some hours before I could transfer to another train. I must have then caught the first available regional train from Marseille to Orange, and stayed overnight in Orange, since the show wouldn't have been over before midnight. At least I remember the performance itself that evening--and the venue. Built during the reign of Augustus Caesar, the Theatre Antique is the best-preserved Roman theatre in Europe. Here are the photos I took during the afternoon, from a hillside into which the Theatre is built. In the first you see the stage (the Tristan production had minimal decor) and some of the seats (amphitheatre style, room for several thousand spectators). In the second photo you see part of the town of Orange beyond the top of the stage. (If you want a better view of the whole building, look here; it appears that the stage area has now been roofed over.)

The performance was as great as I could have hoped for, though my seat was high up and I could feel a cool wind (maybe the Mistral). But I wonder what I did the next day. I must have looked at other sights of Orange--there is a well-preserved Roman triumphal

arch, for example--but I didn't take any photos. My next picture is of another remarkably well preserved Roman structure, the Arena of Nimes (also called the Amphitheatre and used in modern times for non-lethal bullfights), so at some point I took a train to Nimes, less than an hour away, though not directly on the route back to Marseille. In Nimes I remember visiting the strikingly beautiful (and also well-preserved) Roman temple called the Maison Carree--but bafflingly I didn't take pictures. It must have been too late in the day: my Arena photo looks like it was taken in twilight. I assume I stayed overnight in Nimes too, since I do remember it was broad daylight when I arrived in Marseille and was immediately dazzled by the city. Speaking of amphitheatres, the city is built a bit like a gigantic one, on slopes leading down to a picturesque harbor, the Vieux Port. In the shot below, we're looking up from a city street to some mountains beyond Marseilles, with the Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica on the hill to the right.

And here is the Old Port, where the thing tourists "must" do is to have a bouillabaisse in one of the restaurants that line the marina:

Indeed, that evening I did have a bouillabaisse, though first I went up to the Jardin du Pharo on a hill overlooking the port. The second of the photos below shows the 1890s Marseille Cathedral in the back left and part of Fort Saint-Jean, with its 1400s King Rene tower, in the right-center. The third and fourth pictures show a dramatic WWI Sailors' Monument in the Jardin:

The next day I took a boat tour out to the Chateau d'If, the island fortress a mile offshore that became a notorious prison, the Alcatraz of France, from which "the Count of Monte Cristo" escapes. Now a tourist attraction, it was a good opportunity for an enjoyable afternoon on the water. My favorite picture of the set below is the one of the priest in profile with the fortress beyond.

Another day (or maybe the same one) I went up to the high hill where Notre-Dame de la Garde is located. I didn't take any pictures of the church, but here is a view from up there:

Another time I went to see the Unite d'Habitation, the Le Corbusier high-rise apartment building that was enormously influential following its completion in 1952. It may look ordinary from a distance because it was so often imitated (usually with lesser expense and imagination), but it was pretty remarkable to see up close:

In the third photo you can see the concrete pillars on which the building stands. The roof is quite unusual too, but I don't have any photos of it. My pictures don't convey the bright primary colors of some of the walls of the balconies. (Check out Google Photos if you're curious.)

I loved the high energy and multicultural variety of Marseille, and am sorry I didn't take pictures of the city's bustling streets. But I was now curious to see some of the many towns and beaches along the French Riviera, and renting a car seemed the best way to do it. For the next couple of days I drove along the coastal roads toward Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo. Again I regret not writing down the details of where I took photos and stayed overnight (at a sort of RV park with cabins), for I can't identify the locations of the next several photos. The first two below could be called "generic Riviera," I suppose--they could have been taken at any number of attractive locations. I remember liking the beach in the second photo because the water was shallow and I hadn't yet learned to swim.

I stopped to stroll along the waterfronts of Cannes and Nice but didn't take any photos. I also drove along the corniche roads above the coast--roads that would probably scare me today, but I had a good time driving them then, even if my rental car was far from sporty:

Finally, I arrived in Monaco:

Here is one more view of the Casino, taken from up the hill where my hotel for the night was located. The second shot below shows the mountains rising up beyond the town:

The next morning I continued driving east toward the Italian border, making one more beach stop, in Menton. From there I headed north along a string of two-lane highways toward Lyon, where I planned to return the car and catch a train to Paris. Once again I'm embarrassed to say I can't identify from memory alone the sites of the photos that follow. Taking a clue from the first photo, the sign for the Hotel du Var, I've been able to identify the location: it's the town of Entrevaux on the Var River, with its citadel rising high above it. I don't think I tried to climb up to the citadel, but maybe I stayed overnight in the town, to judge by the shot taken from what is surely a hotel window:

But I have no idea where the next two photos were taken, except somewhere along the highways leading northwest from Entrevaux toward Valence, on the Rhone, where I had dinner (I'm pretty sure) and then continued north to Lyon.

My plan was to take an overnight train to Paris (I wouldn't get to visit Lyon until 2013). The car rental office, presumably near a train station in the south end of the city, must have been open late, because I do remember that I had time to kill before my midnight train, so I drove to a movie. A revival of For a Few Dollars More, which I had never seen, was playing at a theatre that turned out to have a huge curved screen and seats that slanted upward toward it; I felt a bit like an astronaut ready to take off. The film was of course dubbed into French, but Clint Eastwood's character didn't have much to say, and the photography was spectacular.

My last failure of memory on this leg of my trip is in remembering how long I stayed in Paris and whether or not I was meeting anyone I knew. I took only one photo, of a famous intersection in Montmartre that had been painted by Utrillo and others:

My next post will have less apologizing, since I actually wrote down a few details of my visits to London and Ireland, the last stops on my '73 trip.