Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

Nice is the true centre of the catalogued beauties of the Riviera, and in consequence it has become the truly popular resort of the region. In spite of this it is not the most lovable, for garish hotels,—no matter how fine their “rosbif” may be,—chalets coquets, and sky-scraping apartment houses have a way of intruding themselves on one’s view in a most distressing manner until one is well out into the foot-hills of the Alpes-Maritimes and away from the tooting, humming electric trams.

Nice

The port of Nice is not a great one, as those of the maritime world go, but it is sufficient to the needs of the city, and there is a considerable coastwise traffic going on. The basin is purely artificial and was cut practically from the solid rock. With its sheltering mountain background it is exceedingly picturesque and well disposed. The tiny river Paillon runs into it from the north, a rivulet which in its own small way apes the torrents of the Var in times of flood. At other seasons it runs drily through the town and bares its pebbles to the blazing southern sun. It serves its purpose well though, in that its thin stream of water forms the washing-place of the washerwomen of Nice, and, from their numbers, one might think of the whole Riviera. The process of pounding and strangling one’s linen into a semblance of whiteness does not differ greatly here from that of other parts of France. There are the same energetic swoops of the paddle, the thrashings on a flat stone, the swishings and swashings in the running water of the stream, and finally the spreading on the ground to dry. Here, though, the linen is spread on the smooth, clean pebbles of the river-bed and the southern sun speedily dries it to a stiffness (and yellowness) which grass-spread linen does not acquire. In other respects the washing process seems quite as efficacious as elsewhere, and there are quite as many small round holes (in the most impossible places), which will give one hours of speculation as to how they were made. It’s all very simple, when you come to think of it. Things are simply rolled or twisted into a wad and pounded on the flat stone. Where nothing but linen intervenes between the paddle and the stone, a certain flatness is produced in the mass, and the dirt meanwhile is supposed to have sifted, or to have been driven, through and out. Where there are buttons—well, that is where the little round holes come from, and meanwhile the buttons have been broken and have disappeared. The process has its disadvantages—decidedly.

The old château of Nice and its immediate confines sound the most dominant old-time note of the entire city, for, in spite of the old streets and houses of the older part of the city, the quarters of the Niçois and the Italians, there is over all a certain reflex of the modernity which radiates from the great hotels, cafés, and shops of the newer boulevards and avenues.

To be sure, the “château,” so called to-day, is no château at all, and is in fact nothing more than a sort of garden, or park, wherein are some scanty remains of the château which existed in the time of Louis XIV. The hill on which it sat is still the dominant feature of the place, although, according to the exaggerated draughtsmanship of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the château and its dependencies must have been a marvellous array of spectacular architecture. The summit of this eminence, hanging high above the port on one side and the Quai du Midi and the valley of the Paillon on the other, is reached by a winding road, doubling back and forth up its flank, but the only thing that would prompt one to make the ascent would be the exercise or the altogether surprising view which one has of the city and its immediate surroundings.

The sea mirrors the sails of the shipping (mostly to-day it is funnels and masts, however) and the distant promontories of Cap d’Antibes on the one side and Cap Ferrat on the other. Beyond the former the sun sets gloriously at night, amidst a ravishing burst of red, gold, and purple, quite unequalled elsewhere along the Riviera. Of course it is as glorious elsewhere, but the combination of scenic effects is not quite the same, and here, at least, Nice leads all the other Riviera tourist points.

To the north are the lacelike snowy peaks of the Alps, cutting the horizon with that far-away brilliance and crispness which only a snow-capped mountain possesses. The contrast is to be remarked in other lands quite as emphatically, at Riverside, in California, for instance, where you may have orange-blossoms one hour and deep snow in the next, if you will only climb the mountain to get it; but there is a historic atmosphere and local colour here on the Riviera whose places are not adequately filled by anything which ever existed in California.

Nice is surrounded by a triple defence of mountains which, supporting one another, have all but closed the route to Italy from the north. This mountain barrier serves another purpose, and that is as a sort of shelter from the rigours of the Alps in winter. The wind-shield is not wholly effectual, for there is one break through which it howls in most distressing fashion most of the time. This is at the extremity of the port, where the wall is broken between the hill of the château and Mont Boron. Formerly this gap bore the old Provençal nomenclature of “Raoubo Capeou,” which, literally translated, may be called the “hat-lifter,” and which the French themselves call “Dérobe Chapeau.”