Not Quite Like Peter Mayle

Cemetery St Jean

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I am a huge fan of all things historical. Ever since completing my university degree in American history – with some minors in Southeast Asian history and Eastern European history - I have sought out places of historical interest whilst on my travels. Obviously, part of this has involved seeing some of the world’s most famous sights. The Forbidden City in Beijing and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul are two fantastic examples of that. However, I must also confess that I am a major fan of some of the smaller snippets of history. I love the little things that you can just stumble upon when you travel. A great example of this was a deserted cemetery I found in Shenyang in northern China. It housed the bodi...Read More

I am a huge fan of all things historical. Ever since completing my university degree in American history – with some minors in Southeast Asian history and Eastern European history - I have sought out places of historical interest whilst on my travels. Obviously, part of this has involved seeing some of the world’s most famous sights. The Forbidden City in Beijing and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul are two fantastic examples of that. However, I must also confess that I am a major fan of some of the smaller snippets of history. I love the little things that you can just stumble upon when you travel.
A great example of this was a deserted cemetery I found in Shenyang in northern China. It housed the bodies of a small group of Soviet soldiers who had been killed in the final days of WWII as the Russians advanced towards Japan. It was not in any of the guidebooks to the region and was a place I never knew existed, but I found it immensely interesting.
The cemetery in St Jean Cap Ferrat was not quite as anonymous as its Asiatic counterpart, but it contained just as much history (I realize this article may seem to have a slightly morbid tilt, but I feel the motif of unheralded history is worth more consideration). The cemetery is mentioned in most of the guidebooks geared towards the South of France with most of them lauding it for the beautiful it provides of the Alps and of the port in St Jean.
Personally, though, I found it interesting because of its contents. The vast majority of the cemetery is taken up with the final resting places of those who have lived in St Jean. As it is one of the most places in the world, some of the memorials and tombs are quite impressive. There are one or two that are as big as small houses – though not as big as any of the houses on the Cap. However, on a small ledge above the main part of the cemetery is a small military cemetery, which has some tremendously interesting origins.
The cemetery houses the remains of about thirty Belgian soldiers from WWI. As there was very little fighting in the South Of France, it seemed strange to me that you would find Belgian soldiers in such climes. As it transpired, the soldiers had been involved in fighting close to Ypres on the main front in Belgium in 1915. They were victims of a gas attack and had been sent to the South of France to recuperate in a hospital owned by the King of Belgium. Much of the contingent recovered and returned north, but a small group died and was buried in St Jean. I found it all tremendously interesting.
The cemetery in St Jean is worth the visit purely for the views of the local area. However, the little piece of history is worth five minutes of anyone’s time.
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Member Rating 4 out of 5 on March 28, 2013

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Back to Menton

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The small town of Menton situated just a few kilometres from the Italian border is always worth a visit. It is quiet, but it has a wonderful long promenade that looks out onto the Mediterranean. The town is also wedged into a tiny strip between the base of the Alps and the sea, which means there are some fantastic views to be had in either direction – north or south. On some days, when the cloud is low, the mountains that tower above the town look as though they have faint haloes. The natural scenery and wonderful promenade are good reasons to visit Menton at any time of year. However, at the end of February you also have the Menton Citrus Festival. I realise this may sound like a bizarre attrac...Read More

The small town of Menton situated just a few kilometres from the Italian border is always worth a visit. It is quiet, but it has a wonderful long promenade that looks out onto the Mediterranean. The town is also wedged into a tiny strip between the base of the Alps and the sea, which means there are some fantastic views to be had in either direction – north or south. On some days, when the cloud is low, the mountains that tower above the town look as though they have faint haloes.
The natural scenery and wonderful promenade are good reasons to visit Menton at any time of year. However, at the end of February you also have the Menton Citrus Festival. I realise this may sound like a bizarre attraction, but surprisingly it does a fantastic job in bringing tourists to the town. Every year, there is a small carnival with floats decorated in oranges and lemons and a park that is full of sculptures made from oranges and lemons.
My girlfriend and I visited the Citrus festival in 2012, and were suitably impressed. We took the train and perused a series of sculptures that represented the different regions of France, the highlights of which were an Alsatian Chateau and a Parisian Metro station. Therefore, when we set off in 2013, we were expecting some big things. Sadly, the second coming of the lemons was something of a let-down.
The first problem was that we travelled by car. In itself, this was actually great as we got there in a brisk twenty minutes without having to fight for seats on the train. However, the problems began to arise when we tried to park. This is always a challenge anywhere in the Cote d'Azur. The region loves its tourists but does not like building car parks to accommodate them. Parking in Nice, Cannes and Menton is a trying affair even at the best of times. Therefore when the festival is in town, it is a pure nightmare. It took almost an hour to locate a parking space and even that was so far from the festival that it would have been almost as easy to walk directly from Nice.
After a thirty minute walk from the car to the festival, I was ready to be wowed by the sculptures. However, I was disappointed. Whereas in the previous year the sculptures had been detailed and full of imagination, this year they were really rather bland. The theme was Ju8les Verne's 80 Days Around the World and featured cities and scenes from the journey. Sadly, these were not well executed. The Statue of Liberty from New York was embarrassingly bad and Big Ben from London did not really live up to the name. There was also a bizarre display representing India with a large plastic lemon riding an elephant – which did not look much like an elephant – made of lemons.
The Menton Citrus Festival takes place every year and is certainly an interesting event. In some years, though, it is better than others. I would always advise going by train as the parking is horrid.
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The Rain

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It is a peculiarly British trait to be as obsessed with the weather as we are. It my sound like a cliché (It has grown to become one for good reason) to say that there are few thing we talk about more. It usually my father's very first question whenever he calls me: "What's the weather like over there Paul?" This is invariably followed by, "It is terrible here!" Having lived in Mongolia, where temperatures drop to forty degrees below zero and in Oman where they can be reach 45 degrees in the shade, I have usually given the old man plenty to discuss. However, since moving to France, I have noticed that the French too like to discuss the weather and are keen to find comparisons with England....Read More

It is a peculiarly British trait to be as obsessed with the weather as we are. It my sound like a cliché (It has grown to become one for good reason) to say that there are few thing we talk about more. It usually my father's very first question whenever he calls me: "What's the weather like over there Paul?" This is invariably followed by, "It is terrible here!" Having lived in Mongolia, where temperatures drop to forty degrees below zero and in Oman where they can be reach 45 degrees in the shade, I have usually given the old man plenty to discuss. However, since moving to France, I have noticed that the French too like to discuss the weather and are keen to find comparisons with England.

On both sides of the English Channel (or La Manche), we are fond of the odd national stereotype. To the Brits, the French munch on frogs legs, quaff red wine at alarming rates, wear berets, smell of garlic and will most likely summarily surrender to any passing German - even if he is merely a tourist. The French see the British as badly dressed, roast beef lovers who could not prepare a decent meal or identify a good glass of wine if our lives depended on it. Of course, both images owe more to stereotyping, cliché and mild racism than they do to reality. However, we seem to bumble along with comic images of each other.

The list of stereotypes I unfurled in the previous paragraph is pretty exhaustive. However, there was one I omitted from the French view of the British: The weather. I had not been in France long before I realised that many French are convinced that the British Isles are continually under incessant downpours. They seem to believe it rains everyday. And, whilst there is a nucleus of truth to this image, it is a massive exaggeration. Yet, as soon as the sky turns grey and rain droplets threaten to form, the French begin to compare Nice to England. Without fail, every time that it rains, one of my colleagues will wander into my office and ask if the weather reminds me of home.

At first, I found thus mildly amusing. And, in an effort to blend in and ingratiate myself, I would laugh. However, after a while, it began to grate. It grated because it was a predictable thing to hear, but also because I felt there was something of a double standard. In the summer, Nice has one of the best climates in the world. The sun shines, the sky is blue and there is often a gentle breeze to stave off the truly stifling temperatures that would otherwise grip the town. In the winter and also in spring and autumn, the climate is not so wondrous and for the local Nicoise or make fun of the English for their weather would very much be a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

The main thing to say about the flip-side to Nice's weather is that no matter the season, when it rains, it rains. In England, we love the drizzle, where the air is damp and you get soaked to the skin, but you never really see the water bouncing or flowing. In Nice, it is the complete opposite. The rain seldom lasts long, but it usually pounds down for a few frantic minutes. In these situations, there is more often than not a fantastic accompaniment of thunder and lightning. It is a beautiful sight to the lightning bouncing off the Alps or crashing into the sea. And, on one such occasion, it struck parts of the city with such force that it knocked out our lights and shut down five computers in my office - when that happened I pointed out rather concisely to my colleagues that things are rarely like that in England. Read Less

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Toothache in the Cote d'Azur

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During the course of my travels and life overseas, I have been relatively lucky with my health. I have never been seriously ill and have not endured a significant medical emergency. The closest I have come was when I ruptured the medial ligaments in my knee whilst playing football during the year I lived in Korea and when I contracted a rather nasty dose of bassillic dysentery whilst living in China. In both of these cases, I was lucky enough that the treatment for my predicaments was relatively inexpensive. Both the anti-biotics in China and the anti-inflamatories and physiotherapy in Korea cost me less than 40USD and I was back to health in relatively short periods of time.Whilst living ...Read More

During the course of my travels and life overseas, I have been relatively lucky with my health. I have never been seriously ill and have not endured a significant medical emergency. The closest I have come was when I ruptured the medial ligaments in my knee whilst playing football during the year I lived in Korea and when I contracted a rather nasty dose of bassillic dysentery whilst living in China. In both of these cases, I was lucky enough that the treatment for my predicaments was relatively inexpensive. Both the anti-biotics in China and the anti-inflamatories and physiotherapy in Korea cost me less than 40USD and I was back to health in relatively short periods of time.

Whilst living in France, I have also been lucky enough to avoid any serious ailments. My girlfriend, on the other hand, has not enjoyed such good fortune. She recently began having problems with her teeth. So, she registered with a local dentist and sent for treatment. It proved to be a horrific experience. The dentist informed her that she needed crowns affixing to two teeth that were in a state of severe decay. This seemed a sensible diagnosis and she agreed to ahead with the procedure. However, a few hours after it had been completed, she was in significant pain. To combat this, the doctor had given her 400mg Ibuprofen. These had minimal effect and as the night wore on, she began to feel worse. So, we decided to go to the Emergency Room.

As we live in the centre of Nice, our closest hospital was St Roc. I had heard very mixed things about it. Apparently, on a Friday evening, there were often drunks and those who had been involved in fights making it a less than inviting locale. However, when we arrived, it was rather quiet and we felt very safe. Unfortunately, though, our visit was not particularly helpful. We waited for about an hour before a nurse saw us. She seemed less than impressed that we were there with 'toothache' and simply gave us some 500mg of generic Ibuprofen. As you would expect, this did not help too much. As the nurse tried to shoo us away we asked if we could see a dentist, but she told us they didn't have one on call on either Friday or Saturday. We then asked if she knew any that were on-call in the city as a whole. She told us to look in the local newspaper.

We were lucky enough that that the dentist she had visited was open on a Saturday morning. S+n we went to see him. Quite astonishingly, he was angry that we had disturbed him and said he could not see us. It was only when we explained that we had been forced to visit the Emergency Room he relented. However, he did not examine her and just prescribed some stronger pain-killers. As we could have predicted, this helped for a while, but after the effects of the pills wore off, she was in pain again. She managed to get through Saturday evening, but on Sunday morning we were on our way back to the E.R where there was a dentist on-call.

This time, our experience was much better. We were quickly whisked from the E.R to the dental office where a young dentist examined her and surmised that there might be an infection. He prescribed some anti-biotics. This seemed like a solution. However, there was no pharmacy at the hospital. So, we had to find one in the city. This proved rather difficult. The dentist recommended one close to the train station, but this proved to be closed. We then had to drive around until we found another green cross. Thankfully, this one had a number on the door for an information line. My girlfriend called this and managed to get the address of the one pharmacy in the centre of the city that was open. As you might imagine, the only pharmacy open in Nice was hugely busy. It took us over an hour to get the medicine.

The moral of this story: do not get a tooth-ache in France. Read Less

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Going Old School

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I recently read Cheryl Strayed's fantastic book 'Wild, which sat atop the NY Times Best-seller list (For Non-fiction at least) and in which she details her journey from southern California to Oregon on the Pacific Coast Trail. She describes wonderful wilderness and the great feeling of adventure her trip engenders. At one stage she also talks about losing her bearings in the snow and feeling utterly lost. Coincidentally, when I was in the process of reading this book, I took a trip that made me feel exactly the same. At this point I will point out that the distances, terrains and environments involved were rather different. Strayed was in the American wilderness and on foot, whilst I was in French win...Read More

I recently read Cheryl Strayed's fantastic book 'Wild, which sat atop the NY Times Best-seller list (For Non-fiction at least) and in which she details her journey from southern California to Oregon on the Pacific Coast Trail. She describes wonderful wilderness and the great feeling of adventure her trip engenders. At one stage she also talks about losing her bearings in the snow and feeling utterly lost. Coincidentally, when I was in the process of reading this book, I took a trip that made me feel exactly the same. At this point I will point out that the distances, terrains and environments involved were rather different. Strayed was in the American wilderness and on foot, whilst I was in French wine country in my car. But, I could empathise with the feelings she experienced.

Since the advent of ever more advanced pieces of modern technology, it seems like it is almost impossible to get lost. You have GPS. You have Google Maps. And, you have scores of websites that can offer you directions to your destination of choice. It is easy, right? In major cities and on highways, I would argue that it is. I recently went to play golf in a village close to the town of Valbonne and Google Maps got me door-to-door (or, more accurately, door-to-tee) without the slightest of blips. However, if you factor the French countryside into the equation suddenly modern technology begins to look rather inadequate. My recent trip into the Var showed me that. It was as though we were not only getting extremely lost, but were also fighting a battle against modernity.

You may have read an article I wrote last year about a journey I took to a cricket competition in the village of Entrecasteaux when my friends and I got magnificently lost and found ourselves taking a tour of wine country. This year, mindful of the previous year's chaos, I decided to be extra prepared. Not only did I download Google Maps, but I also printed the directions it gave me. As well as this, I had one of my friends bring his GPS enabled mobile-phone in case of problems. I was sure that nothing could go wrong. I was confident modern technology would do me proud. Sadly, I was wrong. Despite having two Iphones and a Blackberry in the car and a hard copy of the directions as back-up, we still got lost.

Our journey into the Var started on the A8 highway. This proved to be easy enough as the directions were easy to follow and the GPS and Google Maps worked well. The same was true when we turned off the highway and took one of the main roads. However, as we got further into the countryside, we encountered two problems that really stopped us in our tracks. The first was that our phones ceased to work as we moved out of range. This nullified my Google Maps app and voided my friend's GPS. This left us tapping and clicking our devices in the vain hope that they would yield direction.

Sadly, they did not help. So, we went to the instructions that we had printed out. For the first few kilometres this worked well as we passed along relatively large roads and through small towns. However, as the roads began to get thinner and towns began smaller and more sparse, we began to find things more difficult. This was because the signs that had heralded places and roads began to disappear and be replaced by small road-side stones that gave directions and distances. These stones were far more difficult to see and did not give road numbers. So, we were in trouble. The directions given on Google all used road numbers. Without these, we had no way to navigate.

So, how did we actually get there? We had to go old school. We had to ask for directions . Read Less

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