La Turbie - L'observatoire

Route of the day



View of Monaco from La Turbie, c. 500m above sea level



View of La Turbie, with the Trophée des Alpes visible



Closer-up view of La Turbie & the Trophée



A topiary Nessie on the road between La Turbie and the Col d'Eze



View of Eze from the Col d'Eze (not a match)



View of Eze-sur-Mer from the Grand Corniche



Everyone's probably sick of the words 'Cap Ferrat', such is its ubiquitousness on my walks, but I liked the way it looked kind of like a head with a really long nose from up on the Grand Corniche.



The boxy Acropolis conference centre in Nice - with a little rainbow if you look hard



Statue in front of the Acropolis


Today, we have sunshine, hurrah! So I got up earlyish - last night I went out to an exhibition opening and then watched a movie at a friend's so was back quite late, but didn't want to waste the day - and took the bus to La Turbie, another of the towns in the hills above the coast. This one seemed to have a bit of a modern strip going for it as well as an old town. Didn't see much of it - basically climbed up to see La Trophée d'Auguste, aka La Trophée des Alpes aka a triumphal arch erected in 6 AD to commemorate Augustus' triumph over the native tribes. Once there, I discovered it cost 5 euro to go in and look at the thing: hence, all my photos of it are from a discreet distance. Ha! Learning for free, take that!

After that, I started off on my walk with a 'chicken' sandwich purchased from the bakery in La Turbie which was quite expensive and turned out to be using deli meat chicken, not real chicken. Disappointing! I expect better from French bakeries, frankly. But anyway, I was intending to walk to Eze, which is apparently about 6 km from La Turbie, however, I came to a junction where I could either go to Eze village or Col d'Eze. I kind of knew Eze village was the right choice, but I thought the road to Col d'Eze would just take a different route but wind up in the same place, and the road to Eze village had no footpath, so I thought the one to Col d'Eze was safer. It had no footpath either, but at least had a cycle path. Fun fact - I realised en route that the Paris-Nice cycle race will be going along this way tomorrow, if anyone in the world ever watches a cycle race that is not the Tour de France... Lucky I didn't attempt this route tomorrow, at any rate!

Anyway, turns out the Col d'Eze is actually not all that close to Eze proper at all, and instead of taking the Moyen Corniche (the middle road) I was on the Grand Corniche (the high road) - as you can see on the map above. This was all well and good (although for the most part there weren't actually great views) but no bus ran along most of the route, so once I was committed I basically had to keep going. So as you can see on the map, I walked much further than my original plan, but it was still only a 2 1/2 hour walk and I only gave up and took the bus once I rejoined the bus route because I was dying for the loo. Looking at the map, it probably would have been almost as quick to cut across to C-mizzle as to take the bus down to Nice Riquier and then back up, but I didn't really know where I was at the time, although I stopped near the Nice Observatory, which was quite cool because you can see it in the distance from round about my flat, but I never knew exactly where it was before...

Anyway, that was my outing, tomorrow is the start of the F1 season and I am très excited, so Go Button! (Despite being only in I think P7, boo)

PS Photos of the Eglise Jeanne d'Arc from the other day in the post below

Weather: still crap

View over Nice from near my place



The Eglise Jeanne d'Arc, Nice



Inside the Eglise Jeanne d'Arc



Statues inside the church






Frescoes inside the church




Not to moan about the weather again, but everyone around here I talk to seems to agree that this is the worst winter in, like, forever, so lucky me! It's turned quite cold again - I took my coat out last night, I thought I'd seen the last of it for the season, but apparently not.

Anyway, the point is that my walkies have been suspended pending sunshine. This weekend is, I'm happy to say, supposed to be nice, but I might be meeting up with someone on Saturday (or not) and on Sunday, it is of course the start of the F1 season (yay yay yay yay yay) so I will be firmly ensconced chez moi, in front of t' telly, BBC liveblog scrolling away on my laptop, in utter F1-related bliss I hope!

So no big walks, but today I did walk down to Nice Nord (Nice a bit South from my perspective...) and visited the Eglise Jeanne d'Arc, which is very weird-looking and bears the distinction of being the first building of note that I saw upon arrival in Nice. It, in fact, gave me the opportunity to try out my best "c'est quoi, ça?" on the driver. It's a big, concrete, futuristic confection which I would have guessed was from the sixties, but was actually begun in 1914, interrupted by the death of its architect and the First World War, and eventually finished in 1933. I actually quite liked it - very cavernous, cold and peaceful/eerie inside. I had the place all to myself, but they're doing restoration on the outside, so there was a chorus of muffled clangs which just seemed to make the place more redolent of an old crypt or something, so that's all good in my book. It had lots of frescoes which were actually the Stations of the Cross but had the vibe of a less demonic Dantean scene to me. I will put photos up - note that the place is very dimly-lit indeed, so the flash gives a bit of a false impression.

After that, I went to the big Monoprix supermarket on Jean Medicin, which is notable only because the woman in line behind me was spouting off, very loudly and repeatedly "I'm neither a homosexual nor lesbian" (um, the difference being?) "and I don't like to be taken for one!" I have no idea what set her off, but I was most amused to see that she was purchasing a bottle of 'Gayelord' brand vitamins! Ha! Maybe that's what caused the confusion (gay cruising 101: go to Monoprix, pick up a bottle of Gayelord vitamins, and lurk in the fruit & veg aisle...). Also, she had a bottle of rum, which, much to my disappointment, was not of the Mount Gay variety :( Nice to see that French people also sort of shuffle and exchange awkward smiles when confronted with public crazy.

Anyhoo, that is all! Oh, no, wait PS in news that will interest no-one - my epilator broke last week, sad times, I ordered a new one off Amazon.co.uk on the 6th of March and it came today! I really must applaud that level of service. Although I will say that it appears to have been dispatched from France, which means there is really no excuse for the fact that it would have cost about twice the price had I bought it off Amazon.fr. Tut tut!

Teaching update

I've been thinking that I should do an update on work, because at the mo it probably seems like I don't do any. Whereas, in reality, I just don't do much. It is a shocking fact that 8 weeks of my contract remain, 2 of which are holidays. Which is a good thing, because I'm running out of teaching ideas pretty much. As you may recall, I officially teach 12 hours a week. I'm fairly confident that, since the beginning of my contract, I would be able to count the weeks where I had to work all 12 hours on one hand. Looking back over my diary for this year so far, I can see only one week where I haven't written down a cancellation - and of course, the year began fresh from Christmas holidays & I've already had another 2 week break. This week I already have 5 hours' worth of cancellations. And I still get paid the same regardless :D

To balance this lack of work, I have picked up 2 private lessons - and by 'picked up', I mean 'had them thrust upon me more-or-less against my will'. Now I'm actually doing the lessons - one one-on-one oral class with a girl in prep school, and one small group focused on (eek!) grammar, I feel a bit dumb for trying to wiggle out of it for ages, because they're actually not half bad, and some handy pocket money. I just hated teaching so much before that I was petrified of the idea of having 100% responsibility for a class again, however small, but I think I've come a long way since I first taught in Moscow.

Analysing it, I think it all hinges on the fact that I'm not actually responsible for drilling these kids on grammar or making sure they follow a logical programme where they progress, for example, from 3 weeks on 'going to the movies' and 'the present perfect' to 3 on 'my dream career' and 'the future tense'. This has two effects - one, even if they're not learning anything, and frankly, I doubt that they are, it's not really my responsibility because I'm not employed to explain tenses to them (well except in the private lesson mentioned above), and two, I'm free to do what I like so I can actually (attempt to) make the lessons interesting. Long-time followers of the blog (hi Mum!) may remember that the final straw for me in Moscow was learning that one of my classes complained I was too boring. Looking back now, I realise I was *too* focused on following a programme, just sort of rigidly going through the exercise book without really bringing it to life. To be fair, I did try to throw in some different stuff I'd photocopied from other books now and again, but here I really just make up my lessons from scratch out of my head - they're not always successful, but at least it's not "turn to page 89, let's do lesson 1... okay, now page 90, exercise 4" like when I was in Moscow. I'd like to think that if I ever did end up teaching in a private school again, where I was solely responsible for the curriculum, I would be able to combine those sorts of grammatical exercises that, probably, the text-book is really best for, with some imagination and interesting stuff I'd have come up with myself.

Teaching English is not something I see in my future, but if you'd asked me after I left Moscow with my tail between my legs, I would have definitely said 'never again', and here I am, so you never know... I want to get out of the sort of ghetto existence which is living in Europe in this English-speaking bubble, but it's difficult, and it's nice to know that something that I would have recoiled with horror at the thought of a couple of years back (teaching in a language school) is sort of there again as a backup plan for me if all else fails.

Anyway, the real purpose of this post, of course, was to procrastinate instead of doing my homework - a contraction croisée. I (and my students) have to read a short text in French and summarize it in about 120 words. It's difficult, but this is the sort of thing I'm good at, and I like to think I have it down to a fine art. Tomorrow I get to dictate my version to the kids so they can marvel at my wordsmithery :D Better get to it!

Eze, Beaulieu-Monaco photos

Photos from my latest foray, from Eze village to the sea, back to Beaulieu then along the coast to Monaco Ville. Full & fascinating rundown in the next post below!



Old stone houses in Eze village



The 'golden goat' looks over the sea at Eze



Giraffes roam the ramparts at Eze



Looking up at Eze village from sea level



The view of Eze sur Mer from halfway down the mountain



The sea from the Allée Friedrich Nietzsche between Eze and Eze-sur-Mer



Tunnel through the rock between Eze-sur-Mer and Beaulieu - also known as the land of wind and (no) fire



I don't know who lives here, but they must be rich...



The coast at (I think) Cap d'Ail aka Cape Garlic! How French!



Looking over Monaco from the Rock



I think this is Monaco - it's the opposite side from Monte Carlo though so it could maybe be France (Cap d'Ail)



19th Century cathedral in Monaco Ville



Cathedral interior - very gloomy stony sort of a place



A Mary doll in a 17th C chapel in Monaco Ville. This thing is just begging to star in a horror movie - the whole chapel was creep city!



An early Grimaldi who apparently dressed up as a monk in order to gain access to the citadel and, presumably, slaughter its inhabitants



Inside the creepy chapel, Monaco Ville



Princess Grace's grave in Monaco cathedral. Bah, no matter how much thought I try to put into the order of photos they always end up jumbled, stupid Blogger

Monaco ahoy!

Goal #1 of walking achieved - I have now walked the whole way around the coast from Nice to Monaco, plus a little detour down Cap Ferrat and from Eze village to the sea (more on that today). As far as I can tell, the official distance between Nice and Monaco is about 22 km, but I'm pretty sure that would be on the motorway, not via the coastal road, and so what with that and side-trips and backtracks and so on, I'm reasonably sure I covered more than 22 kms, but anyway, point being I set a goal and did it and it was fun and so so pretty! And here is the updated route map:



Yesterday I took the bus - what was meant to be a 1 hour trip took 2 hours because the first bus just didn't come and so I missed the connection for the once-an-hour second bus - to Eze village, another village perché. It was pretty much like the others I've been to - pretty, carved out of the rock in seemingly one fell swoop, entirely given over to tourist activities. There are still not many tourists about, but I'm getting the sense that the trickle will soon be turning into a deluge :( So good thing I'm doing these things now, at least when the weather permits, which despite the uniform sunniness of the photos on here, has not been often of late.

After about half an hour wandering around the streets of the old town, I found the path - Allée Friedrich Nietzsche - to take me down to the sea. Nietzsche apparently spent some time here philosophising, which makes me laugh - a less likely place to explore nihilism would be hard to imagine! Perhaps he was driven to despair by the path which bears his name, because it's hard going. The posted time for the descent is 45 minutes, which is exactly how long it took me. The village, according to its website, is 429m above sea level, so you're descending 100m every 10 minutes or so - I don't really have anything to compare that to, but instinct and the fact that I did it yesterday tells me that's steep. Add in the deplorable rocky, treacherous condition of the path and you'll probably end up like me, with legs that wouldn't stop shaking every time I stopped to take a photo, despite the walk itself not being at all strenuous. I was a little bit disappointed in the views - mostly empty sea and hills, the good views were on the other side, the way the bus came up.

Once I reached the bottom and the town of Eze-sur-Mer (nothing to it as far as I can see) I walked back in the direction of Nice in order to reach Beaulieu and thus connect the dots back to where I reached on my last walk. This was another 45 minutes, and included going through a section where there was a tunnel cut into the rock and then the road was just a narrow strip between the cliff face and the sea. This was incredibly windy - I had to turn off the podcast because I couldn't hear anything over the wind, my hair was flying everywhere and I had liquid streaming out of the major orifices on my face. This didn't stop a passing biker from using what apparently was a built-in wolf whistle on his bike!! Another one waved at me - wind-swept, snotty and crying, while wearing shorts and shoes and socks must be a good look for me.

From Beaulieu I took the bus back to Eze-sur-Mer and then started walking towards Monaco. I hadn't really intended to go the whole way, but I just kept going - can't remember how long this bit took, perhaps an hour and a half. I came in on the Monaco Ville side, also known as 'the Rock' i.e. the old town where the prince etc. hang out. I've only really been to Monte Carlo before, so thought I'd take advantage of this and went up the rock to check out the palace etc. I assumed you couldn't go in, but apparently you can tour it - I didn't. I did go in the cathedral where the Grimaldis and Princess Grace are buried, and a creepy old 17th century chapel. By this time, it was about 4 o'clock, I'd been walking around practically non-stop since 11 am and had been out of the house since 9, so decided to call it a day and head back to Nice. Good day :)

Next up I will walk from Monaco to Menton, the last major French town before the Italian border. Hopefully I can walk all the way to Italy, but I'm not sure any buses go past Menton, so may have to do some investigations cos I don't want to get stuck! I wish the weather was nice, I have tomorrow off as well, but no dice at the moment :( Oh well, my calves are aching this morning so maybe that's for the best!

Villas Ephrussi and Kerylos at Cap Ferrat

On Saturday I took the bus out to where I left off last Wednesday, having decided to visit two villas, one on Cap Ferrat and the other just over the water on the Beaulieu side of the bay.

The first, Villa Ephrussi, was built in the early 20th century by Baronness Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, from the fabulously wealthy banking family. They put a simplified family tree on the information pamphlet, and I was all "wtf, were they really inbred or what?" I turned to Wikipedia and discovered that their family tree has a handy little symbol for 'cousin marriage' - I counted some 25 such marriages in the family tree, although admittedly this was over a number of branches and generations. But still, keeping it in the family, eh?

Inbred or not, Béatrice definitely had taste. Her villa is just exquisitely sited and really makes the most of its location (unlike, as we shall come to, Villa Kerylos) with 9 themed gardens (e.g. rose garden, Japanese garden etc.) and terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows etc. It would have been lovely to see the gardens in spring/summer, of course, but they were still lovely. The house itself is a bit shabby and not to my taste from the outside (apparently she had a thing for all things pink) but elegant inside and packed with works of art she collected and picked up on her travels. She left the museum to the French Académie de Beaux Arts on her death, with the specification that it should be kept as much as possible with a home-style atmosphere, rather than as a museum. Since there were few other guests, this was quite successful - there was even caged budgies and classical music playing - although I think I for one would need a *lot* of money to pluck up the courage to sit on Louis XV chairs and dine off Sèvres china. (I mean, not that that's an option when you visit the villa, but kind of amazing that that was 'home-style' to her...) Just the thought of the wealth and refinement and luxury and idleness required to do all that designing (she was apparently very exigent over the details) and collecting boggles the mind. One bad thing about the place was that the upper floor was only able to be viewed as part of a paid guided tour, which seemed a bit of a swizz after having already paid 15 euro for a ticket to the two villas.

Anyway, the second item on the menu was Villa Kerylos, on the other side of the bay. Kerylos is a reconstruction of an ancient Greek villa, which is pretty awesome. It was built at roughly the same time as Ephrussi, by Théodore Reinach, also from a banking family, but himself a double doctorate who eventuallly specialised in Greek history and poured his obviously copious enthusiasm into the creation of his villa. As you can see from the pictures below, it is possibly even better-situated than Ephrussi, so my one pet peeve about the place is that it pretty much throws away its spectacular sea views for (presumably) the sake of semi-authenticity. No massive plate-glass windows here, although you can hear the sea from inside the house, and in the basement, which is nearly at sea level, you can even smell the sea, the place is full of poxy little rubbishy windows that basically waste the fantastic views (although to be fair, there are outside terraces, but still).

But anyway, that aside, it's a pretty fascinating place, a blend of Ancient Greece and Belle Epoque France, very tasteful although sometimes a bit cluttered. The audioguide was good as well, giving commentary on Ancient Greece as well as on the house itself. Most of the furniture and statues etc. are reproductions and were actually in use by the family, but there are also genuine antiques in cases throughout the house. It was never inhabited by a lion. To my knowledge.

Anyway, a nice day out, and I walked for around 1 1/2 hours around the cape and so on. Hopefully if Wednesday's fine I might either go to Menton (I think it's meant to be the last day of the Lemon Festival, exciting) or continue my walk, picking up from Beaulieu and heading towards Eze. I want to eventually have walked the whole way from Nice to Monaco!



Sea view from Villa Ephrussi, looking in the direction of the Villefranche coast



The foyer of Villa Ephrussi



Looking down the French garden to the back of Villa Ephrussi



A plate I enjoyed at Kerylos. I seem to have taken quite a few photos of our goatish friends over the years...



Now, I get the whole 'Villa in Ancient Greece' thing, but they really picked authenticity over comfort in this place...



I think this is called something like the 'andrygon' i.e. the man's room, but apparently tradition was bent a little to allow ladies in in modern times



The inner open-air courtyard at Kerylos



A view of Villa Kerylos from Cap Ferrat



Close(ish) up view of Villa Kerylos from Cap Ferrat



Look how clear the sea is! If I didn't know better I would say I was in Thailand or a Pacific Island or something (disclaimer: have not been to Thailand or a Pacific Island)



Statue at Cap Ferrat



I think this is the Baie des Fourmis i.e. the Bay of Ants - none sighted



Pacman ghost! Watch out!

Cheesewatch

As I may have mentioned before, I have vowed, since I am in the land of cheese, to try a different variety whenever I'm in the market for some cheese. Whether or not 'fun with cheese' makes for a particularly exciting blog entry, I don't know, but I'm going to occasionally report on cheeses of note anyway.

Now, I have been consuming and enjoying cheese, including French cheese, for quite some time without being moved to blog about it. But I was driven to the internet by my latest acquisition, a charmingly-named 'Petits Amis' Munster-Géromé cheese. Indeed, from the outside all is well with this cheese - it seems a perfect choice for frolicking with a mate or forcing children to carry heavy milk vats half their size:



But on further examination, I had to turn to the net for reassurance that I wasn't risking my health in eating this cheese, because it is a big ball of wrong.

The main problem isn't that it smells like damp socks, or its rather livid colour, or the fact that once you cut into the rind it has the inner consistency of brie that's been sitting out on a hot day, despite being fresh from the fridge. Rather, the problem is that it comes out of its refrigerated cocoon WET. Covered with a disgusting slimy coating. According to my mates at Wikipedia , this is normal and a result of its special manufacturing process, which involves ageing the cheese for 5 weeks in 'damp cellars', all the while bathing it regularly in brine. Which all makes for a delightfully slimy/sticky customer. If you have a weak stomach, I advise you to look away now and especially to not pay attention to the visible sticky run-off collected on the wrapper:



But as you can see, after reassurance from the interwebs that this is deliberate, I forged ahead and ate some (not all in one sitting in case you're wondering). And the verdict is... it packs a flavour punch, with predominate mould notes, but is actually not toooo bad if you can get over the "arrgh, a cheese made of toads!" thing. I think once is enough for me and this petit ami though!