Riviera Towns

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

At the restaurant opposite the Cagnes railway station the waitress welcomed us as old friends. She told us how lucky we were to come on a Friday. Fish just caught that morning—the best we would ever eat in our lives—were waiting for us in the kitchen. We flattered ourselves that the disappointment was mutual when we had to tell her that there was time only for an apéritif. Precisely because it was Friday and not Sunday, there was no reasonable hope of running into Monsieur le Curé or Mademoiselle Simone or a game of boules, if we climbed the steep hill to Cagnes. On our last visit, we had seen from the top of Cagnes a walled city crowning another hill several miles inland. Saint-Paul-du-Var was our goal today.

Electric trams run to Grasse and to Vence from Cagnes. The lines separate at Villeneuve-Loubet, a mile back from the Nice-Cannes road. The Vence tram would have taken us to Saint-Paul-du-Var along the road that began to avoid the valley after passing Villeneuve-Loubet. It was one of those routes nationales of which the France of motorists is so proud, hard and smooth and rounded to drain quickly, never allowing itself a rut or a steep grade or a sharp turn. This national highway was like all the easy paths in life. It meant the shortest distance comfortably possible for obtaining your objective. It eliminated surprises. It showed you all the time all there was to see, and kept you kilometrically informed of your progress. It was paralleled by the electric tram line. It enabled you to explore the country in true city fashion.

We were walking, and the low road, signpostless, attracted us. It started off in the same general direction, but through the valley. It was all that a country road ought to be. It had honest ruts and unattached stones of various sizes. Cows had passed along that way. Trees met overhead irregularly, and bushes grew up in confusion on the sides. The ruthlessness of macadam, the pressure of fat tires, the scorching of engines, had not banished the thick grass which the country wants to give its roads, and would give to all its roads if the country were not being constantly "improved." There were places where one could rest without fear of sun and ditch-water and clouds of dust. Why should one go from the city to the country to breathe tar and gasoline? Why should one have to keep one's eyes wandering from far ahead to back over one's shoulder for fifty-two weeks in the year? We wanted to get away from clang-clang and honk-honk and puff-puff. Since the real vacation is change, we welcomed the task of looking out for hostile dogs instead of swiftly moving vehicles. Our noses wanted whiffs of hay and pig, and our boots wanted unadulterated mud.

We were not allowed to have our way without a warning. There always is someone to keep you in the straight and narrow path. As we were turning into the low road a passer-by remonstrated.

"If you're going to Saint-Paul-du-Var," he explained, "you want to keep to the high road. It's very muddy down there, and will take you longer."

When our adviser saw that we did not stop, he raised his voice and called, "There are no signposts and you may get lost."

"You take the high road and we'll take the low," sang back the Artist.

He who had meant well disappeared, shaking his head. No doubt, as he shuffled along, he was muttering to himself over the inexplicable actions of ces drôles d'Anglais.

The miles passed coolly and pleasantly. Trees and bushes did not allow many glimpses of the outside world. The dogs that barked were behind farmhouse gates, and we had use for our stones only at an occasional jackrabbit. "At" is a convenient preposition. It gives one latitude. Jackrabbits on the Riviera are not like human products of the south. They jump quickly. They jump, too, in directions that cannot be foretold. After one particularly bad throw, the Artist explained that he did not enjoy inflicting pain. His boyish instincts had long ago been controlled by reading S. P. C. A. literature. I told him that I thought he had given up baseball too early in life. So had I. The jackrabbits escaped.

I am rarely oblivious to the duty of the noon hour. Although I knew the Artist's habit of stopping suddenly, and the hopelessness of budging him by plea or argument as long as the reason for stopping remained, it had not occurred to me that there would be a risk in taking the low road. We had started in plenty of time, and as we were out for a medieval town, I thought he would not be tempted until we reached the vicinity of a restaurant. But about a mile below Saint-Paul-du-Var the low road brought us to a view of the city that would have held me at any other time than twelve noon. I tried the old expedient of walking faster, and calling attention to something in the distance. When the Artist halted, moved uncertainly a few yards, and stopped again, we were lost. He did not need to pronounce the inevitable words, "I'll just get this little bit." The Artist's "just" means anything from twenty to ninety minutes.