Travelling Backwards
Why do we like travelling forwards in vehicles?
I suppose it’s because we like to see where we are going and in most journeys we do in cars, buses and planes we always face that way. I should say here, that I once sat backwards on a powerful motor-bike and was driven through the Mersey Tunnel. I didn’t have a helmet on either! Was it scary? Not really! But it was Panto Week in Liverpool – i.e. Rag Week in the University.
On Wednesday from Nice to Marseilles I travelled backwards, just as we often do in trains and it got me thinking.
It’s probably safer in a crash as you’re forced into the seat and don’t end up as a missile propelled forward to the seat in front. But then you don’t have too many train crashes!
I’ve actually flown backwards a couple of times in de Havilland Tridents, where half the seats were backwards. It wasn’t a problem and neither did my passengers complain when using the backwards facing seats in my Cessna-340A.
So perhaps we’re prejudiced against travelling backwards.
Trundling to Marseilles
Trundling is the word, as the TGV took just under three hours to get from Nice to Marseilles and then four and a half to get from Marseilles to Lille. And it’s not one and a half times the distance.
After my experiences on the journey down with the catering, I decided to bring my own, which I bought from a small supermarket near to the station. I arrived on the train with two bottles of Coke, some Roquefort, some butter, a pack of Trufree crackers, crisps, some fruit bars, two bananas and a free plastic knife. Never forget that, when you have a picnic.
Lunch, Puzzles, Phone and Notepad
Note too the paper cup from Paul. I can’t drink too well out of bottles, but found that this cup I got with coffee at the airport is excellent to stop my dribbling. But my menu shows the problems you have when travelling as a coeliac. The Roquefort was nice though and went well with the crackers.
The train left on time at 10:28 and it is very much a stop start journey with stops at Antibes (10:50), Cannes (11:00), St. Raphael (11:34), Les Arcs (11:52), Toulon (12:37) and it arrived at Marseilles at 13:20. That was just over twenty minutes late, but then the line from Nice to Marseilles is not a TGV line and carries all types of local traffic.
I think if I go south on the train again, I’ll go as far as Marseilles and then either go to a resort near there like Bandol or hire a car.
Just out of Nice I passed the Marina Baie des Anges.
Marina Baie des Anges
It describes itself as the world’s most beautiful marina, but that is probably subjective. Anyway, I think it’s awful and is starting to show its age from the railway.
We once went there with our two youngest children and had a holiday in a boat on the Mediterranean. It is perhaps a holiday we never talked about much and we never did something like that again. All I can remember was my youngest’s passion for eating duck every night in the various restaurants we visited and an outboard motor that was very temperamental.
Most of the journey to Marseilles was along the coast and you passed from one bay to another.
Agay
Here is the bay at Agay. This was a place that we visited in the boat and it is a lovely sheltered anchorage.
So although the journey is slow, there is a lot to look at.
A Train and a Half
Or is it is half a train and a double-half train?
A Standard TGV Reseau and a Duplex
This is the train I took from Nice to Lille. Note that it is a standard single-deck TGV Reseau, with a Duplex coupled on behind.
It might look odd, but it does give a degree of flexibility. In fact the two halves split at Lille, with the Reseau going on to Brussels.
Nice Airport to Nice Station
Read the information at Nice Airport and it gives the impression that it is not recommended to take the train, as this is a fifteen or twenty minute walk to Nice St. Augustin station. As my friend had to take the plane, they had the hire-car and left before me, I decided that as I had plenty of time, I’d chance the walk in the sun.
It was easy and I did it in under fifteen minutes from the terminal and then had to wait about five minutes for a train which took just six to get to the centre of Nice. As the trains are every ten or fifteen minutes and the buses only run every half-hour, I would always take the train.
Suburban Train at Nice St. Augustin Station
I should say that in the three years since I last visited the Cote d’Azur, public transport has improved immeasurably. These trains are all new and then there’s the trams and the buses.
Nice Station
On Wednesday, I had to return after four days and five nights in the sun. It would appear that one of the troubles of going by train is that as you take a whole day to get there, you spend an extra night in the hotel.
Nice station is typical of its time with a large iron shed and a station building built in the mid-nineteenth century, which is more or less original. There are various works taking place to improve it and I hope that they are being done as sympathetically as those in Place Massena in the centre of the city.
Monaco
Monaco is to me a soulless place and a small excursion from Cap Ferrat took us to the Principality. I didn’t get out of the car and took just one picture.
Monaco
It shows the barriers that are being put in place for the Monaco Grand Prix on May 16th.
I used to always want to go to the Monaco Grand Prix. But after going to Spa a couple of years ago and leaving without knowing who’d won, I would now always watch Formula One on television. Even that now is perhaps questionable, as it is so boring after the rule changes.
But Monaco will always be remembered for the victory of Stirling Moss in the Lotus 18 in 1961 against three (Yes! Three!) Ferraris. There is some film of it here on Sir Stirling’s web site.
When Metier was sold, I was advised to go somewhere like Monaco for a couple of years to avoid the tax. I didn’t! And having been a couple of times to places like Monaco, I can’t say I regret it at all.
St. Paul de Vence
I couldn’t go to St. Paul de Vence, or St. Paul as it seems to get called now, without taking a few pictures.
It is a beautiful village with views right down to the sea.
La Colombe d’Or
La Colombe d’Or at St. Paul de Vence is one of the world’s great restaurants. Not in the sense of the food, which is very good, but in the whole ambience, as you sit surrounded by millions of euros worth of modern art.
The restaurant has hardly changed since we went there all of those years ago. There is some more art and you can stay in the attached hotel, but that is perhaps all. Even the menus are still the same.
The experience was just as good.
The House with the Private Beach
When we sold Metier in 1985, we bought a house on the Cap d’Antibes called Les Ondes on the Chemin des Ondes.
I had been worried that images from Google showed what looked like a large development where the house had been. But when I walked up the road, the house was still there and appeared to have changed little since we sold it in the early 1990s.
The beach had changed little too, although you will notice there is now a sign, which shows that it is a public beach. It was for most of the year private though, in that there was no parking nearby and others couldn’t be bothered to walk from Juan or Antibes.
But they had made the road one way up the hill!
We spent several happy summers at Les Ones, but in the end sold it as it was always getting burgled when we were there. We also had three hire cars stolen from outside. Talking to staff in the hotel, they felt that things had got a lot better. I hope that’s right. But then it was never too bad until May.
One holiday stands out. My wife and I took, one of her barrister colleagues, Martin, away to the house for a few days. He was and hopefully still is very outspoken. He would lie on that beach and say in a loud upper-class English voice, ‘Look at that lump of lard over there’ at some lady who’d been eating for two. Luckily, no-one understood his English or perhaps most were laughing with him.
That holiday too we went to a Michelin starred restaurant in Antibes, where the wine waiter was the spitting image of Stephen Fry, doing an impression of Lord Melchett from Blackadder, doing a cariacature of a wine waiter complete with tastevin. He never understood why we kept laughing at him.
I also remember this so well, as Martin paid for his holiday with a painting, that sits in my dining room.
The Anonymous Widower 