summer holiday in the south of france
It remains sweltering here in the UK. I've been on holiday in the South of France, which seemed a little redundant because it's been the same temperature here in the UK (28 - 30 C) as it was on the Cote d'Azure.
We visited Cannes, Antibes and Nice, and stayed in Vallauris, a little town in between Cannes and Antibes which is famous for it's pottery.
Being a film fan, I was looking forward to Cannes - but it's so touristy and busy. It was giving Ibiza, the harbour was rammed with people selling stuff so I really didn't see much of the film connection at all. We did walk along a section of "Chemin des Étoiles" (Path of the Stars) though - here are a couple of my favourites:
Pedro Almodóvar
David Lynch <3
Isabella Rosselini
Dennis Hopper
Michelangelo Antonioni
Van Kilmer
Wong Kar Wei
Nicolas Cage
Nicole KidmanNice and Antibes are very beautiful and a little less hectic feeling. We got talking to our uber diver (who, it turned out, had spent 3 years in the UK playing football professionally for Plymouth Argyll!) and he said "Cannes... is too much, it's for us in five years when we've made it rich. For now Antibes is good!"
In Antibes, we were walking around the harbour after dark when a man in a dinghy stayed taking to us - he said he was drunk, didn't know where his boat was or if his dinghy would start. We humored him for a little bit. Then he launched into an impassioned plea.
"Girls, remember men appreciate everything you do for them...
The only thing that can truly break a man is losing the love of a good woman... I've been broken
Be kind to the men... Only if they deserve it".
Giving big divorced energy!
As he eventually started the boat and sailed off, he shouted back that he was off to the Carribbean. Maybe we missed our shot at a millionaire.
I spent a lot of my holiday reading by the pool or on a lounger at a beach club. After finishing What am I, a deer? by Polly Barton - a dreamlike, fictional account of an unnamed translator who moves to a new city to take up a job and her crushes, relationships and love of karaoke - I moved on to something very different: Riders by Jilly Cooper.
You can tell from the cover above what kind of book this is - I love how camp it is. The book is incredibly 80s in attitude, conservative (it's obvious Cooper is right-wing from her writing, even if you didn't know her political views), horrendous sexual politics, and obsessed with class. We're reading it for book club and I think it'll be interesting to contrast it with Britain today. Also, if you can get past how offensive it is (not a small feat) she does knows how to write a page-turner. It's a workman-like drama with its tongue in its cheek, where an illicit affair, a horse-jumping accident, or an ill-advised marriage happens pretty much every chapter. Rest in piss Cooper, you old Tory.
Given the temperature it's impossible not to think about global warming. This trip was a girls trip with friends I don't see as much any more, giving us a chance to spend time together and relax and swim in the beautiful Mediterranean sea. But it doesn't feel right. I ended up chatting to an American next to me (the most chatty people on earth) about the wildfires in Canada. The world's on fire. This is all mixed up in my head with thoughts about not feeling like a "girly girl" and the life I want to live more generally...
I have some other posts I want to make, about the kitsch pottery museum in Vallauris and the Picasso connection, the crazy European pharmacy signs and the food. But for now I'll sign off and say goodbye ~