Riviera Towns

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

CHAPTER VI

MENTON

In architectural parlance the cornice is the horizontal molded projection crowning a building, especially the uppermost member of the entablature of an order, surmounting the frieze. The word is also used in mountaineering to describe an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a precipice. In the Maritime Alps it has a striking figurative meaning. There are four corniches—the main roads along the two sections of the Riviera, Menton to Nice and Théoule to Saint-Raphaël, where the mountains come right down to the sea and nature affords no natural routes. The Grande Corniche and the Petite Corniche run from Nice to Menton, and the Moyenne Corniche from Nice to Monte Carlo. The Corniche d'Or or Corniche de l'Estérel is the new road from Théoule to Saint-Raphaël. The word is incorrectly used, for the most part, concerning the two coast roads, the Petite Corniche and the Corniche l'Estérel. For although these beautiful roads do at many points stand high above the sea, they descend as often as possible to connect with the coast towns. But the analogy with the architectural term is perfect in so far as the Grande Corniche and the Moyenne Corniche are concerned. At every point these wonderful roads, undisturbed by tramways and unbroken by towns (except La Turbie on the Grande Corniche and Éze on the Moyenne Corniche), you feel that you are traveling along a horizontal molded projection above temples built with hands and the activities of humankind.

From Nice to the Italian frontier the railway, darting in and out of tunnels, keeps near sea level. A small branch climbs from Monte Carlo to La Turbie. The tramway from Nice to Menton follows the Petite Corniche, with a branch to Saint-Jean on Cap Ferrat.

For tourists, Nice is the center of the Riviera, the place to come back to every night after day excursions. Everything is so near that this is possible. Nice is the terminus of railways and tramways east and west. It is the home of the ubiquitous Cook. You can buy all sorts of excursion tickets, and by watching the bulletin posted in front of the Cook office on the Promenade des Anglais, it is possible to "cover" the Riviera in a fortnight. But this means a constant rush, perched on a high seat, crowded in with twenty others, on a char à banes, and only a kaleidoscopic vision of Mediterranean blue, hillside and valley green and brown, roof-top red, wall gray and mountain white. At the end of your orgy, instead of distinct pictures, you carry away an impression of the Riviera in which the Place Masséna is a concrete image and the rest no more than dancing bits of colored glass. Saint-Raphaël and Menton are the luncheon breaks of two days, and the Grande Corniche is a beautiful vague mountain road over which you whizzed.

And yet there are those who go to the Riviera every year for a daily ride over the Grande Corniche, and who dream during ten months of two months at Menton!

Sitting with our legs daggling over the stone coping at the entrance of the port in Nice, the Artist and I figured out—on the basis of just time for a glimpse and a few sketches—how long it would take us to wander through the Riviera. Reserving March and April each year, we discovered that the allotted three score and ten, seeing that we had already come to half the span, would be inadequate. And there were other parts of the world! So we decided to see what we could, eschew the "day excursions," draw on the memories of former years, and let it go at that. Grande Corniche and Moyenne Corniche would be explored afoot on sunny days and gray; shelter would be sought at Menton; and on the return to Nice, Monte Carlo and Villefranche would be the only tramway stops for us.

To Ventimiglia, as if he foresaw what part of the Riviera would eventually fall to France, Napoleon I was the builder of La Grande Corniche. His engineers, planning for horse-drawn vehicles in an age when time was not money, made the ascent easy by striking inland for several kilometers up from the valley of the Paillon and circling Mont Gros and Mont Vinaigrier. For the first two miles you have Nice and Cimiez below you. Then the road turns, passes the observatory of Bischoffsheim (who won posthumous fame by his having built the house where Wilson lost the battle of Paris in 1919), and goes over the Col des Quatre Chemins. Here begins the matchless succession of views of the loveliest portion of the Riviera coast. Below you is the harbor of Villefranche, between Montboron, which hides Nice, and Cap Ferrat jutting far into the sea with Cap de l'Hospice breaking out to the left. The sea is always on your right as you continue to climb. Ancient Éze is on a lower hill midway between you and the Mediterranean. If you have made an early start from Nice, La Turbie will come most conveniently in sight a little before noon.

The only town of the Grande Corniche high up from the sea is on the line given in ancient maps as the frontier between Gaul and Italy, and it is evident that the Roman road followed here the route chosen by Napoleon. For here the Senate raised the trophaeum Augusti to commemorate the subjugation of the Gauls and the new era of tranquillity from invasion for the Empire. On its site one of the most interesting medieval towers in southern France was the ruin par excellence of the Riviera until a few years ago. It is now "restored" so well that it leaves nothing to the imagination—a crime quite in keeping with the spirit of the new age of the "movies." Its architect wanted you to see at a glance just what it used to be. You feel that he would have put arms on the Venus de Milo! As we stood there, a guide came up and began to tell us the history of the tower. We moved over to the terrace. From Montboron to Bordighera the Riviera lay below us, a panorama which commanded silence. Up came the guide fellow, and started to name each place.