Day 13 - Eze Village

Day 13—Friday, May 22, 1992

Slept in till 9:00 a.m., then packed up and moved out of the CAP 2000 hotel to pay a visit to the CAP 2000 mall. This mall isn’t all that much different from a modern American Mall other than there were a couple bars in the place, which were doing a pretty brisk business for this hour of the day. We opted instead for a more breakfast-oriented establishment on the second floor to have our morning coffee. Afterward, during a brief tour of the mall, we returned to further inspect a sharp-looking outfit we’d spotted on our way in. It was awfully nice, but also rather expensive at 180 francs for the white skirt with white lacing alone. So we didn’t buy it, and of course, soon regretted our decision.

With Sharon at the wheel, we headed out of Nice to St. Tropez via the autoroute. Our drive began under sunny skies that grew cloudier and cloudier as we went. We exited the autoroute near Route D25 and retraced our entrance of yesterday into St. Tropez; however, this time we didn’t stop at the parking lot but drove through town, following the poorly displayed signs to Tahiti Beach, a couple of miles away. At Tahiti Beach we parked and hiked down to the beach, which was as expected was nearly empty given the ominous weather conditions. The beach itself was so-so and the water was nothing spectacular, although there were a number of outdoor cafes along the beach, most of which were closed. One place that wasn’t was a little shop specializing in overpriced bathing suits and three of the pushiest saleswomen one could ever have the displeasure of meeting. They talked Sharon into trying on a couple of suits, both of which would have been O.K. had they carried a price tag for considerably less than the $100 and $140 one’s they did carry. Despite the hard sale, which included the timely fashion tip that early sixties styles—the Bardot look—were all the rage this year and that in fact the suits were actually a bargain, we left without purchasing one.

We left Tahiti Beach and drove back to St. Tropez, where we parked in the same lot as yesterday and looked in the same shops as yesterday. Our purpose in stopping at St. Tropez was to see if the weather would change for the better, in which case we would go back to Tahiti Beach. We ate a tasty, mini-cheeseburger and then walked along the concrete pier, but the weather didn’t change, so we left St. Tropez. As we did yesterday, we drove to Nice, only this time we went via the autoroute. Again the weather got nicer and nicer as we got farther and farther from St. Tropez. Outside of Nice we again got caught in the tunnel of traffic that is the Promenade des Anglais, which was unfortunate because the Mediterranean just to our right was a brilliant and alluring shade of green, but there was simply no place to stop to take a good look at it. We drove into the heart of the city, hoping to find one of the hotels listed in Rick Steves’ book, but we couldn’t even find a street sign to figure out what road we were on.

Frustrated by the lack of signs, we decided to again abandon Nice and with me at the wheel drove out of town. We encountered more traffic madness and ended up in the town of Villefranche. After finding a parking spot, we walked around a fortress-cum-hotel near the sea, which was most memorable for featuring a large statue of a woman with enormous boobs. We joked that the guy who commissioned the statue had instructed the sculptor he didn’t give a damn about what the woman looked like so long as she had huge ones. Sharon drove out of Villefranche, which proved to be no more fun than driving into it. Our next stop was the town next door called Beaulieu sur Mer. We hiked around this lovely little town, which perhaps may have been past its prime but was still quite elegant. Our path took us along the beach and then down to the marina, where Sharon bought a “Beaulieu” T-shirt.

From Beaulieu we took the coastal road to Monaco, arriving in time for Sharon to enjoy rush hour traffic while we drove around looking for Monte-Carlo Casino. We found the fabled casino, parked in a nearby underground lot, and walked around the building before going in and testing our luck. Once inside we had to check my camera bag at the check-in counter; then we studied the collection of statues inside the stately foyer. The statues were mostly of fat people, leaving us to wonder what they were “going for” when they put these things in here (there were a number of similar statues outside as well). Finally we gambled. It cost something like 20 francs or 20 dollars to get into the main casino, so we just played the slot machines in a little room on the ground floor. When we were finished, we’d netted $3 to $4 and 2 Monte Carlo chips worth 5 francs apiece—but only in a Monte Carlo slot machine. And much of our winnings were blown on the cover charge to use a nearby restroom. We walked around town a little bit, pondering whether to eat there or move on. We concluded it was too expense and drove out of town.

We drove back toward Beaulieu via the middle road and stopped in the first town we reached, which was Eze. Eze had an old castle overlooking the sea and not much else. By this time it was nearly dark, and we were both famished. So we ate at the first restaurant we came to, which served food reminiscent of a Denny’s restaurant (actually Sharon’s fish dish was more like undercooked Mrs. Paul’s). After dinner we checked into the first hotel we found, which was the Belize. The room charge at 300 francs seemed quite reasonable given the hotel’s proximity to the castle (right in front). But the room was a dive and the night manager proved to be a complete jerk.

We bought a bottle of Beaujolais from the complete jerk manager for 80 francs intending to drink it in the castle. Then we traipsed through Eze castle at night. It was a very enchanting place, except Sharon wasn’t wild about the cemetery. We found a spot to drink our wine, but the cork broke when I went to pull it out (the hotel manager had opened the bottle and jammed the cork back in the bottle, obviously weakening it in the process). So we drank the bottle in our hotel room. The wine started off O.K., but soon became cloying and cheap tasting, which got me thinking, why didn’t the bottle have the name of the fermenter on it? The only marking was the word “Beaujolais,” as if it were generic. What it was, was another of the manager’s rip-offs.

We got to bed about 1:30 a.m., after keeping our every other night string going.

HIGHLIGHT: The elegance of Beaulieu over the big winnings in Monte Carlo.

LOWLIGHT: The big jerk in Eze beats out the Nician traffic.

NOTES: This day was very unfocused and thus not one of our best, and in fact along with Andorra day probably the least fun.

REFLECTIONS FROM 2020:

As with Day 10, this day was often frustrating, but it was also memorable. At times for the wrong reasons, but also for the right ones, such as the beauty of Beaulieu and the grandeur of Monte Carlo.

I thought the hotel and nearby mall were called Cap 2000, but per the internet, they’re called Cap 3000.

I looked long and hard on Google Maps for the statue in Villefranche and came up with two candidates, both near the Hotel de Ville. The second has by far the bigger knockers, so it must be the one.

The Belize hotel appears to be long gone, and the town of Eze looks to have become a tourist mecca, just like every other town in the area. The castle ruins are still there, although more in ruins than I recall, but of course it was dark at the time of our visit.