It's great to be back on the Côte d'Azur. I like this time of year because there is normally lots of sunshine and not much tourist traffic. With the holidays behind us, everyone is back to their normal, everyday January routine: building sandcastles, selling & buying truffles, attending Hawaiian luaus, etc.
Hard at Work in Cannes
Truffle Fair at Bastide Saint-Antoine in Grasse
Hawaiian Luau in Antibes
It was just nine days ago that Rick & Joslyn disembarked in Calvi from their week-long cruise around Corsica aboard the sumptuous Paradigm, with tales of gastronomic meals, costume parties, water sports, and thoughfully planned itineraries. When we picked them up from the Port of Nice, they mentioned that Paradigm was on her way to Barcelona with another group of lucky guests of Ted & Arline, the owners of the luxury yacht. We were also told that Paradigm would be heading to Antibes afterward, and we assumed that it would be moored in Port Vauban here in Antibes, which is the largest pleasure craft port in Europe. With the arrival of Dave’s brother, Mike, yesterday, and our imminent departure to Burgundy, we didn’t expect to be around to see it while it was here in Antibes. But, lo and behold ! A quick glance out the window, and then a double-take, and then a closer inspection with the binoculars, brought Paradigm clearly into view – right in front of our apartment. It’s too bad that we didn’t know how to get a hold of Ted & Arline to invite them over for a glass of champagne, or maybe a Pastis.
After a very busy and successful stateside séjour, we are back in Antibes just in time for the summer festivities, starting very close to home. Our next-door neighbors, Julie & Rico, proprietors of the nearby Italian restaurant, Pane e Vino, got married ! They had their Civil Wedding Ceremony on Thursday at the Mayor’s Office, followed by un Cocktail on the lovely terrace of Restaurant Le Bastion, just two steps from our apartment. The champagne flowed and the hors d’oeuvres kept coming while the music wafted through the warm evening breeze, as Julie & Rico made the rounds while handcuffed to one another.
The Terrace of Restaurant Le Bastion
Un Cocktail at Le Bastion
Monsieur et Madame Sandonato in Handcuffs
The Wedding Party in front of the Antibes Cathedral
The Church Ceremony took place today at the Cathedral of Antibes in the Old Town. There must have been a lot of weddings today because there seemed to be a line to get into the church for their service, so they and their entourage had to wait their turn. They went in with Julie holding a bouquet of flowers with both a French flag and an Italian flag, while Rico was holding onto an Italian flag. Some other members of their entourage seemed to be holding onto Italian flags also. Dave and I were not invited to the church ceremony today, but we were encouraged to stop by to greet them in front of the Cathedral.
So, we’re curious as to which of
the two dates they consider to be their wedding anniversary? Is it the civil ceremony or the uncivil, I
mean, religious ceremony?
The New Bride and Groom
I stayed with Daniel's aunt and uncle, who live in Antibes, France. Antibes is in the south of France on the French Riviera. I had fun floating on my back in the Mediterranean Sea. Here you can see the castle where Picasso lived and worked. Now it is a museum with many of his famous works of art.
I enjoyed walking on the sandy beach, and watching all the colorful sailboats. Sailing is a very popular sport here in Antibes.
Sometimes I got tired from all the walking and sailing and swimming. It felt nice just to lie on the beach and relax with the other sunbathers. Sometimes there are jelly fish in the sea, but I didn't see any on my visit.
We took a very fast train from Antibes to Paris. Sometimes the fast train goes 250 kilometers an hour, which is about 150 miles per hour. It took 5 hours to get to Paris from Antibes, but it didn’t seem that long because we had a picnic on the train, and it was a lot of fun.
In Paris we stayed in an apartment in a neighborhood called Montmartre. We had a view of a famous church called Sacre Coeur right from our window. The church looks like a giant wedding cake.
We walked along a famous Parisian boulevard called the Champs Élysées.
At the end of the famous boulevard we saw a huge monument called the Arc de Triomphe, which is 164 feet tall, and you can climb to the top of it.
We also visited the Eiffel Tower, which is 1,051 feet tall. It used to be the tallest building in the world until the Empire State Building was built in 1931. Then the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world.
We went to an island in the middle of the river in Paris to see a church called Notre Dame. There is a really good book and an old movie about the church called “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”.
After all our walking and sightseeing in Paris, I got really hungry, so we went to another little island in the river in Paris where we found delicious ice cream in lots of different flavors. It was really refreshing.
One day we took a train from Paris to a city in Normandy called Rouen. This is where we saw a famous church that has been in lots of paintings, especially by an artist named Claude Monet.
This is the airline I used to fly to France. I had to get prepared to fly back home to California.
After a wonderful vacation in France,
I had a great flight home. And I had a
window seat this time !!
Dénivelée: +30m / -30m Durée: 2h00
One of the many nice things about living in Antibes is that we can pack a couple sandwiches, a couple bottles of water, walk out our front door at any time of the year, and take a beautiful hike around the Cap d'Antibes, along the mostly groomed Sentier Littoral – no driving, no hassle. It takes us 30 minutes to walk to the official start of the randonnée at Plage de la Garoupe, and from there it takes about two hours to complete the loop. The official name of the path is Sentier Touristique de Tirepoil, and it doesn't actually go around the whole Cap, but around a portion of it from the Baie de la Garoupe, around Cap Gros, and to the Château de la Croé near the Villa Eilenroc. It's at this point where you lose the coastline and have to turn inward if you want to do the loop. If you hit it right, you can do a tour of Villa Eilenroc before you continue on with the hike. Unfortunately, their hours are pretty limited – Wednesdays at 9:00am and 1:30pm – so, we have never hit it right. There are lots of scenic spots along the trail to stop for a picnic and to take a swim, although, the water is a bit cold this time of year, so we didn't bother to wear our swimsuits today.
The Rocky Cap D’Antibes
The Sentier Littoral on Cap d’Antibes
The
Alpes-Maritime: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea
After another very busy stateside séjour, we are back in Antibes, where the pace is not quite so hectic. We had time for a leisurely stroll around town today, where we came across another painting, like the ones we noticed about the same time last year. We found this one in the square in front of our apartment. It's one of ten reproductions of paintings done by artists inspired by the French Riviera. This permanent exhibit, called la "Côte d'Azur des Peintres" (the French Riviera of the Artists), is scattered all around town thanks to the contribution of the Conseil Régional Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur in collaboration with the Conseil Général des Alpes-Maritimes and the city of Antibes. The ones we've seen so far seem to be placed strategically in front of the actual landscapes that are represented in the paintings. In this one, called "Antibes", painted by Henri-Edmond Cross in 1908, nothing seems to have changed, except maybe some erosion of the rocks in front of the ramparts. It wouldn't look too much different if he painted it today. Other nearby cities on the Côte d'Azur are also participating in this exhibit, including Cagnes-sur-Mer, Le Cannet, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Officially inaugurated on March 25, 2007, the newly renovated Bastion Saint-Jaume in Antibes is quite eye-catching at the moment. Originally conceived in the 1700s, this ancient naval site, along with the port, was destroyed by bombing in 1944 by the Germans at the time of their departure, and then rebuilt a few years later. All naval activities at the site ceased in 1985. And now this new space will be used to welcome some of the traditional cultural activities that take place each year here in Antibes, such as the Voiles d’Antibes, the Village Saint-Pierre, etc.
What is especially eye-catching at the moment is the giant sculpture called Nomade by a contemporary Spanish sculptor named Jaume Plensa. The Nomade is from a private collection, and it is made from a base of painted stainless steel letters. It uses light, sound, and language to express its message. This eight-meter high sculpture, which one can walk into, represents a person, crouching with his arms around his knees, facing the sea. Plensa suggests that language, spoken or written, goes beyond providing a simple mission of communication, but can also be assimilated into a sort of envelope, which covers the matter and energy that forms our being. He says, “Telles des briques, les lettres ont une potentialité de construction, elles nous permettent de construire une pensée”. (Such bricks, letters have the potential to construct, they enable us to construct a thought.)
Can it be a coincidence that the artist’s name is “Jaume” Plensa and the sculpture is installed at Bastion Saint-“Jaume” ??
Jaume Plensa’s Nomade in Antibes
A View from Inside Jaume Plensa’s Nomade
We finally made it to the Nice Jazz Festival, after we had been talking about going since 2003. The setting was magical in the hills of the peaceful Cimiez neighborhood of Nice, among the Gallo-Roman ruins and the groves of olive trees. Our tickets gave us access to the three stages where the music continued all evening. We were handed a program when we entered so we could keep track of who was playing when and where. We started the evening on the terrace of a Festival café, where we had a light niçoise dinner while listening to Randy Crawford and Joe Sample on the piano just next door to us among the olive trees in the Scène Jardins. Then we wandered over to the Scène Matisse to listen to some Socca Jazz before heading to the Scène Arènes to listen to Sonya Kitchell. The main attraction for us was Madeleine Peyroux, who played in the ruins of the ancient amphitheatre of the Scène Arènes, where we got excellent seats for her performance. The ambiance was sensational, even if her performance was a little slower than we prefer. Things picked up quite a bit afterwards over at the Scène Jardins where we caught up with Laurent Voulzy performing his popular Rockollection song, with everyone singing and dancing along.
July is all about Jazz in Antibes, starting with Les “Before” de Jazz-à-Juan in the beginning of the month, followed by Jazz-à-Juan taking center stage for ten days in the middle of the month, and ending with Les Nuits de Juan closing out the month of July. And that’s not to mention the parades of music in the streets throughout the month. Most notable in this category is the omnipresent Oscar Washington’s New Wave Brass Band, whose busy schedule has them marching all over the streets of Antibes and Juan-les-Pins in the warm summer sun, with their colorful parasol bobbing up and down and all around. Another important aspect of the Jazz Festival is the Festival “Off” de Jazz-à-Juan, better known as, simply, Jazz Off. These concerts are performed most evenings of the Jazz Festival under two different venues. The first, and more casual, venue is outside, under the small grove of pine trees known as the Petite Pinède, where different jazz bands perform most evenings at 6:30pm, free of charge to the jazz-loving public. The other Jazz Off concerts are performed in various hotels around town at different times in the evening, where, for a special price, you can enjoy the music along with an apéritif, or a buffet, or a full-fledged dinner.
We enjoyed three nights in front of the main stage of Jazz-à-Juan this year, starting with Tigran Hamasyan at the piano & the Jazz-à-Juan Révélations All Stars on the 14th, followed by a great night with The Ricky Ford Coltrane Project & Roy Hargrove Acoustic Quintet on the 17th, and ending with Richard Bona & Gilberto Gil on the 20th.
We also really enjoyed a couple of Jazz Off performances, including the Jef Neve Trio, who hail from Belgium, and, from our old neighborhood in California, we got to see the Stanford Jazz Orchestra, directed by the animated trumpet player, Fred Berry, and featuring another trumpet player & Californian, Jon Faddis, who has played with Charlie Mingus and the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Band.
The Stanford Jazz Orchestra featuring Jon Faddis
For our first weekend back in France, after a busy five-week stateside hiatus, we got to peruse some interesting artwork and soak up some rays in the beautiful outdoors at the same time. In this year’s Sentier Artistique L’Onde’Art, about 20 artists displayed their work along the popular hiking trail that follows La Brague river between the two villages of Biot and Valbonne. In this landscape, the artists are able to use the natural elements to enhance their works: the reflection of the water, the sunlight, the colors of nature, the rocks, the trees, the shrubbery. It was truly magical (féerique).
Dragonflies ? Angels ?
By Olivier Roche
By Jean-Louis Charpentier
A Plant Camped Out by the River
By Michèle Gaudard
By Jean Rosanis
By Sally Ducrow
By Peppe Cappello
A Work in Progress by Gabriel Fabre
Water-Filled Rubber Gloves By Doo Hwa Gianton
Earth Tones
By Eric Corbier
By Cathie Cotto
We headed east today to explore some small Italian villages in the hills above the Italian Riviera. It took about an hour on the A8 autoroute from Antibes (which turns into the A10 autostrada once you reach Italy), exiting at San Bartolomeo al Mare and following the SS 1 Aurelia for about 3 kilometers, to our first destination, Cervo, in the province of Imperia in the region of Liguria. This medieval village of about 1200 inhabitants sits atop a 66-meter high cliff overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean, which seemed a bit moody today, with a little bit of gray fog floating by once in while. The colorful 18th-century Baroque Church of San Giovanni Battista dominates all the winding, arcaded walkways and piazzas throughout the village. The church is sometimes referred to as Chiesa dei Corallini in reference to the fact that the church was built primarily with the offerings that the local fishermen donated from the proceeds they received from the sale of their coral. The piazza in front of this beautiful church is the venue for the Festival Internazionale di Musica da Camera (International Chamber Music Festival) held here each summer.
We didn’t have a lot of choices for lunch today. Things are pretty quiet this time of year and many restaurants have their annual closures, so we didn’t get to try the Ristorante San Giorgio ( Via A. Volta 19, tel: +39.1.83.40.01.75), as we had hoped. We did, however, get a perfect table right next to the large windows overlooking the sea at Ristorante Serafino (Via Matteotti 8, tel: +39.1.83.40.81.85), where we received no menus, just an oral description of what they were offering today. We noticed that not everyone got the same offerings, but we were happy with what we ordered: a local white fish shredded and drenched in lemon juice and a flavorful local olive oil, nero di seppia (cuttlefish cooked in its ink), spagetti with shellfish, ravioli stuffed with local seafood, and everything was accompanied by a local white wine called Riviera Ligure di Ponente Vermentino 2005. The proprietor even presented me with an orchid upon our departure – maybe he was just happy to have our business during this slow time of year.
After a hike just above the village of Cervo, among groves of beautiful olive trees and beautiful views, we returned to the car and headed back toward the west to our next destination in the hills above the Riviera dei Fiori (the Flower Coast), this time avoiding the autostrada in favor of the coastal road.
Badalucco in the Argentina Valley is another small fortified medieval village of about 1200 inhabitants, which sits at 179 meters high along the River Argentina. From the autostrada A10, you take the Arma di Taggia exit, and continue up the valley for about 12 kilometers. It was even more quiet and deserted than Cervo today, but very interesting to stroll around. In the process of restoring the village, it has been turned into an open-air art gallery with the walls and sides of buildings displaying large murals, painted ceramics, wooden art objects, sculptures, frescoes, etc. The sunlight was diminished by clouds today, but I would love to return when the sun is bright and more conducive to viewing all the artwork along the winding pathways of the village. Maybe we’ll make a return visit in September for the Festival dello Stoccafisso (Stockfish Fair), where they pay tribute to the dried fish whose stock provided nourishment to the locals as they fought off their attackers in a 17th-century siege.
Our last stop on our Italian Village Tour today, was a larger town of more than 13,000 inhabitants, which you pass on your way to Badalucco when you take the Arma di Taggia exit off of the A10 autostrada. Taggia is actually split into two parts. Along the coast is the seaside village of Arma di Taggia, while three kilometers into the Argentina Valley is the medieval village of Taggia. We only had time to visit the medieval Taggia, and not really much time for that even because it was starting to get dark. It was much livelier than the previous two villages, maybe because it was ten times larger. We only spent enough time there for a quick look around, and to pick up a few things for tonight’s dinner (bresaola with rucola, shaved pecorino, a generous drizzle of truffle oil, with a crisp white Riviera Ligure di Ponente Vermentino vino). So, once again, we have to plan a return trip to do some real exploring of both the old town of Taggia and the newer seaside part of Taggia di Arma.
We started our visit with a lovely lunch of baked sole with herbs in a saffron sauce accompanied by saffron rice and haricots verts and a chilled rosé, followed by strawberries with chantilly and vanilla bean ice-cream, at L’Auberge Fleurie (Rue piétonne – 11 et 13 rue des Mesures, Villeneuve-Loubet Village, tél: 04.93.73.90.92) in the middle of the old town of Villeneuve-Loubet Village. Since the museum didn’t open until 2:00pm, we had plenty of time to savor our meal at this colorful restaurant. It was just two steps from the restaurant to the Musée Escoffier de l’Art Culinaire, which was the reason for our visit to this small Provençal village, just the next town over from Antibes on the way toward Nice.
The museum is situated in the house where Auguste Escoffier was born in 1846, with each room preserving many of the appliances, utensils, books, recipes, menus, photographs, and other memorabilia from his distinguished career. The “Father of Modern Cuisine” enjoyed creating dishes in honor of his special guests, which is how his famous “Pêche Melba” came into being. He created it for the Australian opera singer, Nellie Melba, who sang at the Covent Gardens Opera House while she lived at the sumptuous Savoy Hotel in London where Escoffier was the Chef de Cuisine. Among many other dishes, he also created “Fraises à la Sarah Bernhardt”, and a dish that we often see on menus in France, “Tournedos Rossini”, after the famous Italian composer. Escoffier was also the innovator of the “Prix Fixe Menu” during his tenure at Le Savoy. His innovations also extended to improving the atmosphere of his kitchen team and minimizing confusion and misunderstanding by dividing up the tasks in the kitchen. The team was organized by their responsibilities of sauce chef, fish chef, vegetables chef, roast chef, larder chef, pastry chef, confectioners, etc.
He is probably best known for what is often referred to as the Bible of French Cuisine, “Le Guide Culinaire”, published in 1903, with approximately 5000 recipes and garnishes. An abbreviated version, “A guide to Modern Cookery”, was published in English in 1907. In August Villeneuve-Loubet Village hosts a celebration of Escoffier called Les Fêtes Gourmandes, with many of the village restaurants providing menus with dishes prepared from his famous tome, often listing the page number from “Le Guide Culinaire” where the recipe can be found.
