Beaulieu.
MARSEILLES
MENTON 143½ 11½ [BEAULIEU], famed for its large olive trees. A little above
the station is one of the oldest trees, and near it the H. des Anglais among “countless terraces, where olives rise unchilled by autumn’s blast or wintry skies.” Down towards the village is another old olive tree, not far from a restaurant. Near the Church on the Monaco road is the Restaurant Beau-Rivage, where a Bouillabaisse lunch can be had. In the creek below are small boats for hire. Beaulieu is really a beautiful place. It is situated in one of the most sheltered nooks of the Riviera, at the foot of gigantic cliffs with patches of strata of reddish sandstone. The edges of this grand precipice are fringed with trees, which in the bright atmosphere look almost as if they were transparent; while below, groves of stately olive trees cover the base and struggle as far up as they can by the fissures in the rocks. Behind the olives, and intermixed with them, are orchards of orange and lemon trees, bending under the weight of their beautiful fruit. Trees and tall shrubs hang over the edges of the abrupt banks, which enclose the tiny creeks and bays bordered with diminutive sandy beaches, or with long ledges of marble rocks, dipping gradually down into the deep-blue water, carpeted in some places with the thin flat siliceous leaves of the Posidonia Caulini, a Naiad not an alga, which covers the shore of the Mediterranean, and of which great accumulations are seen thrown up at various parts. It makes a poor manure, but prevents in some degree evaporation.
Port of St. Jean.
A charming road, at some parts rather narrow for a carriage, leads from Beaulieu round by the edge of the bay and east side of the peninsula to the [Port of St. Jean]. The real carriage-road commences at the railway bridge, goes round by the west side of the peninsula, and descends to St. Jean, a little before reaching the chapel of St. Francis. The continuation past the chapel, of the road, extends to the lighthouse, passing the signal-tower to the right.
The port of St. Jean, Inn: H. Victoria, is used principally by the tunny fishing-boats from February to April. It makes a very pleasant residence for artists and naturalists. It is situated among creeks and bays, gardens, orchards, villas, and woods, in the most fertile part of the peninsula. Beyond, on the highest point of the peninsula of St. Hospice, is a round tower, the remains of the fortifications razed by the Duke of Berwick in 1706. The more ancient crumbling masonry around belonged to a stronghold of the Saracens, whence they were driven in the 10th cent. “A fir-clad mound amid the savage wild bears on its brow a village, walled and isled in lone seclusion round its ancient tower. It was a post of Saracens, whose
fate made them the masters for long years of lands remote and scattered o’er a hundred strands.” —Guido and Lita, by the Marquis of Lorne. Below, towards the point, are a cemetery, a church, 11th cent., visited by Victor Emmanuel in 1821, and a battery.
At the south extremity of the peninsula of St. Jean is the lighthouse (second-class), built in the 17th cent., but repaired, and the top story added, in 1836. It is 98 ft. high, or 196 ft. above the sea, and is ascended by 120 steps. The light is white and revolving, and is seen at a distance of 20 m. The Antibes light is fixed, and is of the first-class. By the east side of the lighthouse is the grave of Charles Best, who died at Tenda, on the 30th day of July 1817, aged 38. The tomb is hewn in the rock and arched over. His friends have laid him in a grand place to await the call of the resurrection trumpet. Large euphorbias and myrtles cover this stony part of the peninsula.
Petite Afrique. Eze.