It’s a Wrap: Summer 2014 in the Côte d’Azur

Posted on August 29, 2014March 17, 2021 by jemma

I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to spend a week in my bed.

This from Lolo, my ebullient nine-year old. Who knew summer could be so exhausting.

As French Lessons wraps up for the summer of 2014, we admit that life in the Côte d’Azur can be a bit strenuous – mostly in a good way, of course. And we’ve done our best to share some of the more interesting stories along the way.

Most recently we’ve reflected on the past, harnessing the world’s rightful absorption in World War II commemorations. Our take was a compilation of research and personal memories around the precious commodity of food, preceded by the local recollections of an astonishingly vibrant 100-year old.

We’ve certainly looked at us-versus-them topics, trying to distill once again what makes France so appealing and so frustrating at the same time. If it’s not the hoity-toity pharmacies, it’s the tax-laden economy. Or perhaps it’s the country’s live-and-let-live service mentality.

We’ve also dished out the diamonds, touring one of the Cap d’Antibes’ storied mega-properties and getting up close and a little personal with Monaco’s Prince Albert II. We’ve even taken a stab at celebrating America from the heights of the five-star Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat.

Or we’ve simply sat back and allowed pictures to tell the story, first of the Côte d’Azur’s more mellow, pre-summer season and then, perhaps a bit too quaintly, of our love for Antibes, our summer hometown.

A little creativity brings a bumper crop.

Through these celebrations and small heartaches, we realize 2014 was a summer like no other. For one, we had a bumper fig crop from our glorious figuier. It’s amazing what you can do with a little ingenuity – and a new golf ball catcher.

More importantly, the influx seemed more modest this year in Antibes and neighbouring Juan-les-Pins. We don’t have hard stats, but you could feel a relative calm – certainly through the end of July, anyway. There were days when you could actually park a car in town without needing to be utterly and terribly creative. Locals fed us anecdotes about restaurants and businesses; outside those serving the very high end, figures were down around 20% at the end of July. Juan-les-Pins’ big casino saw a drop of more than 30% in the same month. One friend called this summer Juan-les-Pins’ worst in ten years and predicted a lot of storefront changes in 2015. Frankly, for all of us folks who simply stroll the streets this jam-packed corner of the world, the results were a bit cheerful – but we do share our sympathies with the friendly commerçants.

Clouds – wispy and otherwise – have been a regular feature this summer.

Could it have been the weather? On a “date night” in early July, Philippe and I headed to Plage Les Pêcheurs, a beach restaurant in Juan-les-Pins. Fortunately we chose the table under the awning. Passersby on the beach brushed off the night’s earliest sprinkles and turned inland and gawk at the fireworks in the mountains. That night’s storm tallied 206 lightening strikes in the Alpes-Maritimes departément. Two weeks later – all too shortly after Lolo came indoors from her inaugural windsurfing lesson – an afternoon storm logged an impressive 377 strikes in our region – in just two hours’ time.

All this grandeur in a land that sees only drops of rainfall during the typical July! The forecasts may have kept the juilletistes, as July vacationers are fondly called, at bay. (This month, at least in Antibes, the aoûtiens seem to have outranked the juilletistes, finally pushing our poor nine-year old over the top and under her bed sheets.)

Is it really 1:00 p.m. in the middle of an Antibes summer?

But there’s a deeper, more ominous difference in this summer’s season, too. More friends talk about leaving. They’re talking about really leaving. No longer are their words the whimsical, rosé-enhanced dreams that you have about greener pastures. French people are worried about their futures. Taxes, regulations and a major distaste for the federal government have sapped the national work ethic, and the economy fast approaches a downward spiral. (The French statistics agency puts a more positive spin on everything, describing this summer’s second quarter of consecutive zero growth as “holding steady”.) Sadly for the country, the next wave to leave could very well be its small business owners and entrepreneurs – the ones who have so far kept the economic gears greased.

The summer of 2014 certainly has been outside the norm. But a few steady themes run through our summers, too. Yes, we’ve had lots of visitors again this year. Yes, we’ve dealt with pests – the geckos as usual, but instead of an enormous garden snake this summer we’ve enjoyed a young headful of des poux. Lice. Apparently there was an epidemic.

Yes, too, to spending an evening or two across the road chez the hard-partying Hauptmanns. One dinner for eight around their terrace table included an erudite gay couple and a former UK Attorney General, so I guess we made a decent quorum. Lubricated by the fruits of the Hauptmann’s prolific family vineyards, we chatted in English, French, German, Russian, Norwegian and Hebrew until the wee hours, deciding at last that our host country is both wonderful and unsustainable.

This summer we’ve also maintained a couple rather intriguing themes related to our Bellevue. For one, someone again – out of the blue – wanted to buy the grande dame by the sea. Angela, our impassioned estate agent, rang one afternoon in early August. Just checking, she asked, but could your house be à vendre?

Non, I said, stunned – but then couldn’t help find out the detail. A Frenchmen tracked Angela down through the neighbouring port. She thinks he represents a Russian family; they love Bellevue from the outside.

With French taxes being as they are (and considering what they still could become), you wonder who is sanely thinking about buying anything around here these days – unless, of course, the Russians experienced a giddy, at-first-glance coup de cœur with Bellevue, just as we did nearly a decade ago.

Again this summer, too, we’ve broadened Bellevue’s own story.

Marie, our fiery English personal trainer friend, always has the local scoop. Visiting Bellevue one lunchtime a couple weeks back, she gazed out from our terrace into a bay full of megayachts.

The people staying on Tatoosh are lovely, she told us. She’d just been whisked out to Paul Allen’s 303-foot yacht for a couple sessions – and a leisurely lunch to boot.

Madonna onboard or not, you can’t help but ogle at Luna’s own “beach”. — Madonna onboard or not, you can’t help but ogle at *Luna*’s own “beach”.

Marie’s gaze passed onto the navy-hulled, 377-foot Luna, formerly part of Roman Abramovich’s personal fleet – this one of his yachts having an extended “beach” platform at the stern. Madonna was onboard last week, Marie said as nonchalantly as she could knowing full-well that the gossip was juicy. Our personal trainer friend paused only briefly for effect. Apparently Luna has pap shields, she continued.

“Pap”, she had to explain for us, was short for “paparazzi”. The special shields somehow blocked photographers’ over-eager lenses.

Megayachts, Madonna and pap shields – time with Marie is always a treat – but the next bit of news interested me even more. A few days later I visited her in her old-town studios.

I have a gift for you for lunch the other day, she said quite simply. I’ve found someone who used to live in your house.

That same afternoon Philippe, Lolo and I invited Geneviève and her children to visit Bellevue. They were leaving their summer townhouse in Antibes’ old town the next morning to return to Switzerland. School started imminently. It was now or – well, a while from now.

The view certainly says something to me, too.

Ça me dit quelque chose, the willowy blonde said as she peered out over our terrace into the bay below. Her language floated between French and English. The view told her something. She remembered Bellevue from long ago, but she knew our grande dame by her former name of Lou Gargali.

Geneviève’s visions were more snapshots than rolling video. She was very young, only three or four years old, when her grandparents rented Lou Gargali for the summers. It was the late 1960s and early 1970s. This woman, I realized, was my peer. She and I were in the process of forming our earliest childhood memories at the same point in time. While she lingered here in Antibes on our balcony, soaking up the seaside view from Bellevue’s sturdy frame, I stood on the other side of the Atlantic looking out over the bow of a houseboat, the wind streaming through my long, curly hair as my family cruised the meandering Mississippi.

Suddenly the soul of Bellevue – or Lou Gargali, as she was – seemed more durable than ever. She has witnessed much in her years – we already know that, having found several of her earlier occupants like Arlette Aussel, who lived here as a girl in the early 1940s; Jean-Claude Logut, whose childhood ran here through the later 40s and early 50s; and Michel, who often vacationed here as a teen with the Everard family in the 60s. But Geneviève was the little girl who occupied Bellevue when I, too, was a little girl. Somehow her memories on this terrace added personal depth perception to my understanding of our dear old Bellevue.

Geneviève’s initial recollection of life within Lou Gargali’s walls was her humidité. Humidity was the reason that her grandmother had insisted on changing this seaside property rental to another home just down the coastline. Geneviève remembered a dock outside Lou Gargali (a feature that would’ve been forbidden as French laws had recently banned private constructions at the shoreline – but as ever, there must’ve been some flexibility in the law’s implementation). She and her family fished a lot, right outside our home and along the length of the beach. The catch was bountiful. They hooked grey mullet, grey-and-pink fish pronounced zheer-AY, and beautiful round, silvery fish with spiky tails pronounced sart. There were moraines, too, and octopuses, starfish, crabs, tomates de mer (literally “sea tomatoes”, or common sea anemones), and sea urchins. The kids even chased hermit crabs.

Ça me dit quelque chose, she said. She summoned the same phrase while standing at the base of Bellevue’s wide circular staircase that unites the floors. Geneviève knew this place. She remembered, too, the image of a fountain that once occupied the gardens. No matter the decade or the age of the beholder, we are sure of one thing: Bellevue makes a lasting impression.

So again this summer, thanks to the good fortune of our longevity and connections within this community, we wring out a few more visions from Bellevue’s past. It makes me wonder who might queue behind me at the boulangerie up the road, or who might sit beside me at a sidewalk café in the old town while I sip an intense, foam-dolloped noisette? What story might this person share if only I asked the right question?

These daydreams must wait for next summer. As Lolo beds down under her warmer blankets, Philippe is ready to go back to work in Toronto. He says that he needs a rest.

Me? I’m not ready to leave our corner of France. I don’t think I ever am. There’s this marvelous, never-ending stream of stories that seems to wash up on Bellevue’s doorstep every summer, week after week, unannounced.

Which is exactly why we look forward to welcoming you to French Lessons once again next year.

Antibes Remembered: The Joy of French Food

Posted on August 22, 2014August 19, 2014 by jemma

A few summers ago when I was a regular at Antibes’ municipal archives, I stumbled across a thick research paper that I’ve not forgotten. Within a simple plastic binding one scholar had amassed, en français, a battery of information about daily life here in this town of tourists, sunscreen and gelato. The timeframe of his research was World War II.

As 70^th anniversary commemorations run the length of the Côte d’Azur, it seems an appropriate juncture to share a piece of that research paper. And what better way to consider Antibes’ day-to-day, wartime experience than to look through a narrow lens at one of its most vital, sensory and – especially for the French – soul-defining slices of life: food.

In April 1940, seven months into World War II, Antibes’ boulangères only could make bread in larger, less stylised formats. There were no skinny ficelles, no zigzagging epis and no petits pains loaded with figs. Boulangères also had to skimp. A “one-kilogram” loaf could weigh, au maximum, 700 grams. A “500-gram” baguette weighed up to 300 grams.

May 1940 brought the distribution of the first food-rationing cards.

The same month saw new restrictions on food intake: No alcohol on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. No butchers’ meats on Wednesdays and Thursdays. No meat at all on Fridays. And Sundays were the only chance for treats; all pâtisseries, biscuiteries, confiseries and glaces were officially banned for the rest of the week.

All these goodies were off-limits except on Sundays.

No sweets – not even a humble scoop of ice cream – except on Sundays? New sweet shops have opened in Antibes with a regular cadence recently, while every boulangerie, café and restaurant seems to double as pâtisserie and glacier. Even Antibes’ beaches get in on the act. Four kiosks anchor the long sandy stretch running outside our Bellevue’s windows. Beachcombers flock there for sustenance, especially for ice creams – pink, brown, white, green, orange and tan; on cones, in pots and on sticks; sprinkled with nuts, covered in chocolate, or deliciously plain, cold and smooth on the tongue. Ice cream is as expected in France as bloodsucking taxes.

In short, life during World War II is fairly unimaginable today – and that’s not only because, 70 years on, most of the world wasn’t even alive back then. And while this city – like most all of the Côte d’Azur really – fared better than many places in the war’s wrenching path, life was hardly easy.

Real rationing began in Antibes in August. Shoppers had to limit the bread, sugar, coffee, meats, pasta and cheese that dropped into their baskets. The rules changed regularly through official notices. Soon the restrictions extended to practically all foods and basic necessities.

Fresh peas are the foodie’s springtime treat. What greater delight they must’ve been during the war! I first met Arlette Aussel several summers ago when steeped in research notes about Bellevue. She was a pretty, petite, almost-80-year old, and she and her husband visited our home, which – as small-world stories go – happened to be her own family’s rental home. Madame Aussel was about 10 years old at that time. The cautionary 1930s were merging into the more treacherous 1940s.

We toured through Bellevue’s rooms and corridors in a trip down memory lane. Things have changed significantly. Walls have moved. Rooms have grown or disappeared entirely. Eventually we walked out onto Bellevue’s upper terrace, a broad, open space that faces out to the sea. Mme Aussel’s face softened. It was the flicker of a memory.

I shelled petits pois here with my sister, she said. She smiled slightly, her blue eyes entranced, somehow searching for a deeper vision. During the war, she continued hesitantly and then smiled broadly. We were happy!

Peas were plentiful on that particular day. Her family would buy in bulk, canning the extras for winter – or for even harder times. Other days Mme Aussel and her sisters went down to Bellevue’s shoreline to fish for crevettes, succulent shrimp that nestled between the rocks. You did what you could. Sometimes you even bent the rules.

Local storekeepers were hardly scrupulous about the regulations; they happily hid merchandise behind their counters for good clients. Meanwhile, certain doctors handed out prescriptions for “special diets” perhaps a bit too easily.

The Milton household next door to Bellevue was known to have a particularly well-stocked food cellar. But Georges Milton was a popular singer and actor. He was recognized everywhere in town.

Mme Aussel – who today would be the last one to break the rules – confessed to her own bouts of circumvention. A member of the Jeannettes (the equivalent of Brownies in the US), she joined her troop most Thursdays on the grounds of a nearby stately home, Le Bosquet. The young girls stole figs from Le Bosquet’s laden trees. They pulled carrots from the estate’s gardens and ate them raw. (And as the small-world story continues, Mme Aussel herself now inhabits that very home.

Adults had an official means to soften the grip of rationing. By collecting non-ferrous scrap metal, they earned extra rations of wine. The community unsurprisingly had amassed a hulking mountain of the scrap metal by the time autumn 1941 rolled around.

On one occasion food appeared almost magically as the young Mme Aussel walked to school. Tracing the rocky, algae-strewn shoreline from Bellevue into town – the same stretch that today boasts the long, sandy beaches and four snack kiosks – the schoolgirl found . . . oranges!

At this point in the war, Mme Aussel said, there was no fruit to eat. But right there at her feet, the shore was full of oranges!

A boat had sunk in the Mediterranean and this part of its cargo washed ashore to the rocky shoreline of Antibes. With her school friends, Mme Aussel broke into the precious balls of citrus in great anticipation. She cringed in retelling this part of the story: The oranges, she said, were all salty!

The war tore on, and food supplies were a perpetual and worsening problem.

By May 1943, new rations brought only 1,500 calories a day to the frame of each Antibois. On distribution days the queues outside food shops grew, as did the black market.

Libération – the glorious day that fell on August 24, 1944 for this town – brought the heartiest reasons to celebrate. Soon there was another:

White bread, that staple of French society, was available from the fourth day after Libération.

But rebuilding takes time. The days remained oppressive.

Bread was available, but rations continued. The prices of food and household goods climbed.

Life was difficult for a very long time after the war, centenarian Lucienne Frey told Philippe and me during last week’s interview. We kept a carte d’alimentation (a food-rationing card), she said, for at least two years after the war. I’m not sure how long exactly. It included quantities of bread and meat you could buy.

At the same time, you could find ways to lighten the burden.

With the promise of six, you counted yourself lucky.

There was a big farm in Antibes, Mme Frey said. I’d go buy milk there directly. They’d put the milk in demi-litre and litre bottles. It was good to go out to the countryside, she said, conjuring up the sense of freedom the airy fields seemed to offer from the recovering city of Antibes.

But the farmer didn’t give everything to everyone, Mme Frey remembered. They put a little aside. The farmer might say you’d get eggs next time. Six eggs – and you’d be very contente.

Coastal activity had been forbidden in certain areas during the Occupation, so the waters around Antibes had repopulated nicely. Fishermen scooped the bounty into cotton nets. Sardines ranked as the favourites.

Jean-Claude Logut’s family rented out our Bellevue directly after the war years when he was a young boy. Now in his mid-70s, the hearty Mr Logut shared an apéritif with Philippe and me on Bellevue’s terrace a couple summers ago. He stood at the terrace railing, looking out into the bay.

With a bit of post-war ingenuity, you could trap fish in these rocks.

Some nights when the tide was high, he and his younger brother Philippe treaded over the rocks and algae at Bellevue’s shoreline and took the family’s small boat to “go fishing.” The young boys were creative. From a nearby building site they took bricks, the kind with six holes bored through their interiors, and placed the bricks in nooks of the stone jetty at the neighbouring Port de la Salis.

The next morning, Mr Logut said delightedly as the memory replayed in his mind, very early when the tide was still low, we returned to the bricks and found fish. They were small minnows . . . about this long – and here he made a four-inch gap between his thumb and forefinger – but they were fish!

Size hardly mattered. These fish represented ingenuity, victory and an extra, small ration all rolled up in one.

Chez Josy is home to Antibes’ best pan bagnat – and a little advice about how to enjoy it. — *Chez Josy* is home to Antibes’ best *pan bagnat* – and a little advice about how to enjoy it.

Time marches on. The four beach kiosks outside Bellevue do a thriving trade this summer, at least on the sunny days. My favourite hut is the furthest from our home, but the best thing at Chez Josy isn’t its Magnums, Cornettos or Carte d’Or ice creams. It’s the owners’ homemade pan bagnat – basically a salade niçoise (tuna and vegetables (finely diced here) with slices of hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes and anchovies) mounded on a fresh, French bun. Never, Chez Josy confirms proudly, do they skimp by mixing in onions. Crunchy, zesty and salty, this pan bagnat is even tastier eaten by the sea.

With food so plentiful now in the 21^st-century, good French cuisine comes with a little (often deserved) French culinary attitude – whether at a Michelin-starred restaurant or a humble beach kiosk. I order my pan bagnat from a lanky young man with cropped, curly brown hair. While he’s busy preparing the sandwich, I grab his attention again. Would you mind adding some mustard? I ask.

Oh non, madame, the young man says. C’est pas possible. Non, c’est ne vraiment pas possible! It’s really not possible. Il faut goûter d’abord. You have to taste it first!

In modern French times, food still matters. It remains a very big deal.

I savour my pan bagnat – without mustard – on the beach wall as the bay splashes relentlessly onto the sand below. Just as it is, the sandwich is perfect.

And this pan bagnat is certainly a whole lot tastier than salty oranges. It was right here, beneath my dangling feet, that oranges floated ashore some 70 years ago – ages past, before there were kiosks and ice cream, parasols and suntan lotion.

Let me not forget.

Profile: Madame Lucienne Frey, Centenarian

Posted on August 15, 2014August 28, 2022 by jemma

These days I’m très fière – very proud – to tell people my age, Madame Lucienne Frey says with an easy smile. They celebrated my 100^th birthday at the mairie this spring. The mayor, who I know a bit, gave a reception.

Mme Frey is pleased with her newly acquired threshold – yes, certainly – but she’s not overly charmed by it. She hardly lets age define her.

I told the maire there are a lot of people who reach 100. Why celebrate me? she wondered. She sits before Philippe and me, a willing audience, in an easy chair. Her soft grey cotton dress is offset by a long, artistic strand of salmon, charcoal and grey stone beads. That salmon colour coordinates perfectly with her lipstick and low leather pumps. Her eyes are alert, and her thick hair is pulled back loosely. She is, quite simply, beautiful.

Being 100 years old hardly defines Madame Lucienne Frey.

The maire told Mme Frey they were celebrating her because not all 100-year olds arrive at this age in quite the same shape. And he was hardly the first one to notice.

Mme Frey mentions her cardiologist. There’s hardly a hesitation in her speech, no predictable pause as her elderly brain reaches for words. She easily shares with us her cardiologist’s big hope: He told me that if he could figure out a way to live to 100 like I have, he’d sign up in a second.

The first time I met Mme Frey, people around me were more interested in her son-in-law. Robert Charlebois is French-Canada’s answer to Bruce Springstein. Philippe knows him from Quebecois circles. A couple summers ago we invited Robert and his wife Laurence for aperitifs on Bellevue’s terrace. Who’d they bring along but Laurence’s elegant and quick-witted mother who lives up the road.

As we sipped rosé and nibbled on olives, a handful of swimmers on the rocky beach below Bellevue turned their attentions toward our balcony, snapping a few shots when Robert moved to the railing. Well-known as the son-in-law may be, though, the real star to me that early evening was Mme Frey. I was in the throes of researching Bellevues’ history and voilà, here on my own terrace was living history. I dove in for her insights – only then guessing she must’ve been in her eighties.

With anniversaries of the World Wars overtaking the airwaves and bookstands this summer, I was keen to contact Mme Frey again. That’s how Philippe and I find ourselves not far from Bellevue, in the centenarian’s gracious salon overlooking the neighbouring gardens.

Laurence and the famous Robert helped us find her this time – as did a few locals. Everyone seems to know who Mme Frey is, too.

Are the flowers for me? An earnest-looking man asks as he mounts his scooter this morning. We’ve gained access to Mme Frey’s gated community but are none the wiser.

Tout au bout, the earnest man says when he learns of the destined recipient. He points straight ahead.

Philippe and I stop at the end of the lane. A man sits on the steps of a well-maintained apartment block with two young girls. We ask for Mme Frey.

La centenaire! He says. He buzzes us in. Second floor, he tells us. First door on your right. I’ll ring her for you.

Family populates her handsome bureau alongside Mr Churchill.

Mme Frey’s sitting room is a jewel box of photos and collectables – a gathering of precious memories but hardly uncontrolled bric-a-brac. A few paintings line beige walls while rows of framed photos spread over bookshelves that contain French literary titles and at least one book on the Masada. Occasional tables and chairs dot the room, as does a handsome inlaid bureau with more photographs on top. The far wall is mostly open, a gentle breeze blowing in from the terrace through pastel striped, silk curtains.

Something to drink? Water? Mme Frey asks from her easy chair. Un petit pastis? It’s 11:20.

Un pastis?! I say. I ask if she drinks this strong, local brew.

Non, not now. She says. Only in the evenings. And mixed with a good bit of water.

Philippe joins me today out of courtesy and interest and, it must be said, to help me grasp the fullness of this French discussion. I can keep up with the broad brushes, but I fear missing the detail – or else inhibiting Mme Frey’s thought flow by asking for too much clarification.

She surprises us both by offering to speak in English – in English. Hers is a beautifully clear diction to my Anglophone ear.

I spent the war years in New York, she says. My mother was only 20 when I was born, and she panicked at the idea of war. When my father mentioned New York, she jumped on the opportunity.

It takes Philippe and me a while to realize that Mme Frey is talking about the World War I years. That’s the only way this story makes sense. Surely the young family travelled across the Atlantic by boat (and then only a couple years after the Titanic disaster). Mme Frey spent five years in New York before returning to Paris, probably again sailing the seas.

I came back speaking French with an American accent, she says. The kids made fun of my accent.

I nod, knowingly. These days the American twang in Mme Frey’s voice is gone, what with a year at an English boarding school, aged 16, and all those intervening years of life since her earliest days in the US. She slips back into French.

Mme Frey met her first husband on the train from Marseille to Paris. She was 24 years old, travelling home with her mother and stepfather. They’d bribed her into joining their winter holidays by allowing her to drive the family’s car. On the return journey the family put the car on the train and waited on the platform. And waited. When was the train coming? they wondered aloud to each other.

A man in a pink shirt materialized from nowhere and joined their conversation. The train was delayed because of snow, he said. Once on board, it turned out that his compartment was next to theirs. The train departed Marseille, and this man and the young Mme Frey moved from their seats into the corridor to talk.

I spent a good portion of the trip trying to figure him out, she says. He wore a pink shirt, and that wasn’t so doable in those days!

The couple stood the entire journey back north, when at last the pink-shirted man asked if he could take the young lady to lunch. It was 1938 in Paris. A second World War would imminently cross Mme Frey’s path. Still the new couple dined together and went to the cinema. Shortly they got married.

In 1939, on the very day war was declared, Mme Frey’s new husband told her to go out and buy every pair of shoes she’d ever wanted. I’d been eyeing a fancy pair, she says, but they were very expensive. He said to go get them anyway. I wore those shoes for a very long time. (In honour of the 70^th anniversary of Antibes’ Libération, French Lessons will delve into more wartime details next week.)

Just after the Occupation, an estate agent friend encouraged Mme Frey’s husband to buy a house in Antibes. It was très bon marché, he was told – a good deal. They should buy the place as an investment.

So in 1947, during that nebulous period between the inauguration of wartime monuments and the re-launch of the Cannes Film Festival, the couple bought this house – sight unseen. It was in the Garoupe, a wooded area beneath the rubble of the Cap d’Antibes’ yet-bombed-out lighthouse. Mme Frey journeyed south, alone, to get the first glimpse of their purchase.

There were so many pines, she says. You had to chase the sun across the garden because the pines made too much shade.

She shares her shock when several years ago her daughter took her on a drive around the Cap – a so-called trip down memory lane. They discovered the house no longer existed!

It was a construction magnifique – solide, confortable, Mme Frey says, still half-reluctant to believe in its demise. The neighbour bought the property, demolished the house and built a workout room.

But you don’t want to hear just about me! she says, years of refined living eclipsing any notion of a captive audience. Tell me about you! She hands out polite compliments to me, the biggest one probably being that I’m young.

But I want to stay young like you! I insist. You must have very good genes.

Yes, Mme Frey, says. She has good genes. But it’s also une question de morale. The bottle is always half-full, she says. She uses that very metaphor in French.

Still, she admits to missing golf. She used to go regularly to the local course here in Biot. It took only 10 minutes to get there, she says, but today it takes 30. If only she could manage a little golf! But, she says with a good-natured laugh, how do you do it with a wheelchair?! (During our visit Mme Frey walks around her apartment with a cane, but the distances are well shorter than 18 holes.)

Golf was her main sport. Waterskiing and tennis were the others. I’m très indépendante, she says. I played tennis but only en simple, never doubles. She has no problem losing games through her own mistakes, but she hardly wants to depend on a partner.

Good genes, a solid morale, and a strong sense of independence, I think. That’s what the cardiologist needs to reach 100 years of age in such great shape. That’s what I need, too. That’s what we all need.

At the time Mme Frey first came to the Cap d’Antibes, she was in her early thirties. Paris was still home, but with her husband and two daughters she began to travel here for holidays – Easter, summer and Christmas. She didn’t actually move to Antibes until 1994, aged 80, when her second husband died.

Je n’ai jamais regretté ce choix, she says. I never regretted that choice.

Mme Frey remembers their vacation home in the pine forests of the Garoupe. We bought a Christmas tree that reached up to the ceiling, she says. It was a custom she adopted from her earliest years in New York. Eventually, though, the shadowy, pine-filled garden got the best of her. On the advice of another estate agent, Mme Frey’s family bought a different home in the area, this time on what was a small, dirt path at the top of the Cap d’Antibes.

It was a large home on Chemin de Mougins, she says. We had three stories, a pool, a gardener and a super view! Her clear, dark eyes sparkle through stylish, two-toned frames as she remembers this last feature. When I walked into the house and saw the view, my heart skipped a beat. You could see all the way to St Tropez!

After the death of her husband, Mme Frey met the man who’d become her second husband at a dinner event. He was grand, bien et beau, she says – tall and good-looking. They sat side-by-side at a table of 10, the seating having been pre-arranged by the host. And on this sociable occasion she posed a simple question to this tall, handsome man: Why are you so sad?

Years later, after the couple married, Pierre Frey said he was struck that she was able to see so clearly into his heart. He was charmed by her insight and fell instantly in love.

So the list again extends itself. Alongside good genes, a positive attitude and a fierce independence streak, and maybe a strong second language to boot, you now need special insight in order to live a long and full life.

This Mr Frey, it turns out, was the founder of the luxurious French fabrics house by the same name. Having originally established his company in the north of France, he lost everything with the German invasion. But he started all over again, the second time in post-war Paris, and thanks to a son and then three grandsons from his first marriage, the business continues to carry his name today.

Mme Frey’s only input into the esteemed fabrics company was to choose colours for the new season. Mr Frey would bring colour swatches home to his wife and rely on her choice.

It’s a gift from her rocker son-in-law, Robert Charlebois.

That’s one thing I always had was good taste, Mme Frey says. Her words come without an ounce of boastfulness. She’s simply stating a fact. Glancing around her graceful salon – and again noting her coordinating salmon lipstick, necklace and pumps – it is clear that colour and taste remain important in her life. Even at 100 years of age.

Drat. We’ve discussed genes and attitudes, language, independence and insight. Now we also need taste.

On our way out, Mme Frey takes Philippe and me on a brief tour of her salon. There are countless photos of family – here as children, there with their own children, and there as they all celebrate her 100^th birthday. On the bureau there’s a photo of a friend with Winston Churchill. Tucked inconspicuously into the corner of the room is a small, console piano.

Playing two hands simultaneously is the key.

It’s from Robert for when he comes to say, Mme Frey says. He asked if I wanted a piano, and I told him non, not really. It takes up space. So he said not to worry. This one is small and white and blends in with the furniture, so I’m okay with it.

On our way out, I notice a game of Scrabble on her table. Two wooden trays of letters await their next turns. L’Officiel Scrabble dictionary lies on the wooden table beside the playing board, as does a fat Petit Robert dictionary and a good magnifying glass.

Do you play Scrabble? I ask.

Oui, Mme Frey says with evident glee. I play two hands at the same time. Both hands by myself. This way I can’t cheat!

Photo Essay: A Simple Love Letter to Antibes

Posted on August 8, 2014August 7, 2014 by jemma

In New York, I had grown up around a lot of worldly kids – kids who’d lived abroad and spoke three or four languages, who did summer programs at Heidelberg and spent their holidays in places like Rio or Innsbruck or Cap d’Antibes.

My eyes skidded on this line from Donna Tartt’s acclaimed (and now Pulitzer-winning) novel, The Goldfinch. Cap d’Antibes was – according to her 13-year-old protagonist, and quite possibly the author herself – one of those most sophisticated of places.

We discover Antibes in a Botswana bookcase.

The name of our dear Antibes and its integral peninsula certainly get bandied about. While French Lessons went off on safari last week in Botswana – an elephant-load of thanks to Philippe, by the way, for filling last week’s spot with an offbeat and provocative view of France’s economic travails – the bush hotel’s small library offered one title that hit out at my eyes just as Donna Tartt’s line did. Beggarman, Thief, a novel by American author Irwin Shaw, received a surprising new title for the German market: Ende in Antibes.

Antibes, and its reputation, obviously get around. This summer French Lessons has at times jumped on this worldly bandwagon, offering glimpses of the Côte d’Azur’s more glitzy antics – from meeting with Prince Albert in Monaco to dining (American Independence-style) at the luxurious Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat. But these events took place over there, just down the twinkling coastline from Antibes.

Yes, sure, a short bike ride from our own Bellevue is the Hôtel du Cap. It’s one of the most glamourous addresses anywhere. And all those years ago, Coco Chanel did “invent” the suntan in this corner of paradise. But while Monaco’s royals and Cannes’ film festival keep the French Riviera basking in its legendary limelight, Antibes sits more quietly in the middle of these two cities. Somehow, amid the celebs’ playground, Antibes manages to preserve its roots. It retains its connection to all those good, quintessentially French things that the visiting, stylish and multilingual world wants to see.

We’ll come clean. French Lessons is feeling the call of the African wild. The writing brain is still lolling under big African skies. While we get back to our usual senses and prepare for a meatier subject next week, here’s an insider’s glimpse at Antibes shot by our lenses this summer. There’s much to admire, as several masters – Monet, Meissonier, and Boudin among them – pointed out long ago:

Antibes still has its narrow lanes . . .

. . . even if some folks have quirky ideas about how to keep them festive:

Our summer town guards certain traditions, too. The higgledy-piggledy Safranier district, one of Antibes’ oldest, is inhabited by independently-minded folk who’ve labeled their patch a commune libre. Last month we stumbled into the free municipality’s annual, open-air ball:

Antibes also upholds the intrinsic French adoration of food, whether its restaurants are nestled into small lanes . . .

. . . or along the sandy beaches:

And why not start the adoration closer to its source? The Marché Provençal is one of the prettiest markets around, whether you’re picking up spices . . .

. . . or sausages . . .

. . . or vegetables:

Also available here are fleurs de courgettes. Cooking with zucchini flowers is a particular art. (We tried it once with scant success.)

When it comes to food preparation, beauty is just as important as taste – even if you order a simple salad at La Brasserie . . .

. . . or an ice cream cone at Pinocchio’s:

And – whoa – this magnificent artwork came out of the ovens when we ordered a cake for our friend’s 40^th:

Jean Luc Pelé, a local pâtisserie, is known for its imagination. Take their colourful display of French macarons. Alongside traditional strawberry, lemon and Nutella varieties, these bakers have created flavours like litchi and champagne. Recently they’ve gone further out on the limb:

Fois gras with figs, or salt, or gingerbread, or onion preserves? Maybe – but then in the form of a cookie?

But rest assured. Alongside such creativity, the old ways linger. A few traditional pointus occupy the small port next door to Bellevue . . .

. . . and it’s still happily-ever-after under the bleu-blanc-rouge at the city’s mairie:

Yes, the rest of the world may know Antibes à la The Goldfinch. On one hand, it’s where a diverse (and sometimes glittering) clientele chooses to live it up during the summer holidays. But there’s a well-guarded authenticity here, too. At the end of every day, everyone simply drinks in the fireworks.

Last week in Botswana I was chatting about Antibes with one of the hotel staff. Lu is a well-travelled South African, and she knows Antibes. Of course she does. But what she likes about this town, she said, is hardly its Côte d’Azur glamour. No, she likes our town because it has managed to escape the Riviera’s usual madness.

Like us, what Lu likes about Antibes is that it has retained a sense of the real France.

Latte Art: A Primer in French Economics

Posted on August 1, 2014September 3, 2014 by jemma

French Lessons hands its pen over to its first-ever guest writer today – and who better to fill the role than the witty Philippe! Here’s his keen-eyed view of the world, focusing – as friends would expect him to do – on the more curious and jaw-dropping ills of France’s imploding economy.

“C’EST LA CATASTROPHE!” Angela, our real estate guru, declares with great animation over a lunch of pave de saumon and ratatouille provençale. It’s hardly the food that has her down. The world around her is a complete catastrophe because of declining visitor numbers.

Since our family’s arrival in Antibes in mid-June, there have been visibly fewer people at the beaches, golf courses and markets than last year. Fairly incredibly, you can even spot free parking spaces in town.

Du jamais vue! Never seen anything like it! Angela says. This season, the summer of 2014, is the fifth year in a row that tourism numbers have fallen – not only in Antibes but on the whole of the Côte d’Azur. “All the main street merchants are clamouring for the City to do something,” she says.

Of course they are. In France, the State is the answer to everything. During the good times from 2002 to 2008, prices in Antibes went up well past what was reasonable. Now everyone suffers the consequences. A cup of coffee in the old town sets you back $5, and a beer at Le Crystal, a well-established bar in Juan-Les-Pins, will drain you of $14. Tourism in Spain, meanwhile, is up 42% this summer. Guess where everyone has gone?

Or take ice cream. Even Marc, the friendly owner of Pinocchio’s, the best ice cream shop in Juan-les-Pins, tells me his numbers are down 20% from last year. “We are the last thing anyone cuts,” he says, “because for a few euros you can always please yourself with an ice cream cone.”

Victor, co-founder of Choopy’s, braves France’s entrepreneurial waters . . . — Victor, co-founder of *Choopy’s*, braves France’s entrepreneurial waters . . .

This summer Jemma and I discovered Choopy’s, a coffee shop in the heart of old Antibes that has the best cappuccinos in town. Each mug is finished off with a touch of latte art by Victor, third-place winner of the 2013 France Latte Art Competition. Choopy’s also has WiFi, which came in handy as ours at Bellevue was out for no less than three weeks. (Nothing gets done fast around here.)

It so happens that one of my New Year’s resolutions was to learn how to create latte art, the milk-foam-and-coffee designs that top off cups in the fancier cafés. Having made lattes at home for over 25 years, I figured it was time to learn something new. One evening I meet Victor near closing time, around 6pm, and for the next two hours he gives me a tutorial on latte art and restaurant ownership in France.

Victor graduated with a master’s degree in international business five years ago. While at university he worked as a bagagiste, a bellboy, in a local hotel where he met Julie, who was finishing her four-year culinary degree and working in the kitchen. Between them, they managed to save $14,000 and upon graduation left to travel in Australia for a year. When they returned to France in 2010, their job prospects were dismal. Today it’s only worse; unemployment for the under-30s now runs over 25% in France. (Among minorities, it’s even over 50%.) So Victor and Julie created their own jobs by borrowing on their Aussie experiences and opening a coffee shop selling cupcakes and art-adorned espresso drinks.

As new entrepreneurs, they soon discovered the full weight of the State. You want a sign on your building with the name of your business? You have to pay a tax to the municipality. You want a few chairs and tables outside? That’s another tax. You want to pipe in music over the internet from the US? There’s a music tax, of course, just like there’d be a TV tax if you cared to offer that feature. These taxes come on top of the more typical real estate, business and value-added taxes. The list goes on and on.

Then you need to hire people. But watch out – the State makes it impossible to fire anyone, and the social charges are infernal, typically adding 75% to an annual wage packet. If, for example, Victor pays an employee EUR 2,000 ($2,700) pre-tax each month, the true cost is more like EUR 3,500 ($4,700) per month. If the employee is single, s/he will net, after-tax, EUR 1,674 ($2,250), making – all-in – an effective 53% tax take by the Government!

France – if we may say so – can hardly call itself competitive. The folks most affected by the country’s unruly tax levels are its small entrepreneurs – those people who are working on thin margins in the first place. But spot the disconnect. Entrepreneurs are the very people creating jobs – in a country with five million unemployed or under-employed citizens! The newspapers don’t report percentages anymore so as not to scare people, but considering that the country’s population is 66 million (including kids and the elderly and those who don’t even care to work), you get the picture. Unemployment is around 10% – surely higher.

So back to Victor and the cupcakes. He and Julie and their two employees sell hundreds of cappuccinos a day, alongside a daily 50-200 cupcakes, and salads and gluten-free bagels to boot – all made fresh by Julie. It’s a punishing existence, Victor says. The couple starts work by 7am, baking and purchasing food fresh from the market in time to open by 9am, 6 days a week, 50 weeks of the year.

Creating wealth under these conditions is next to impossible. Choopy’s managed to eek out a small profit in its first year of business – only to see it evaporate last year.

Since François Hollande’s election as French Président in 2012, more and more taxes have been announced, chasing capital right out of the country. Then in January came the latest twist. Hollande drew the scorn of his fellow countrymen when he was caught by paparazzi visiting his mistress at midnight on a scooter. The French were hardly shocked by the mistress. They were stunned by the fact that, as Président, he lacked total decorum!

Since a string of scandals a few years back – these being of the financial variety – all French ministers are required to declare their net worth. So we decided to take a look. Manuel Valls, the new Prime Minister, is the economically-savvy one. In his 52 years of life, he has managed to garner two apartments of less than 1,000 square-feet each, valued at $770,000 minus loans of $270,000, for a net value of $500,000. Oh, and he has $7,000 in his bank account.

Valls is one of the better-off members of the French Government. Harlem Désir, the 55-year-old State Secretary to European Affairs, has $59,000 in six bank accounts and a 12-year-old minivan that he thinks might be worth $2,000. None of the 32 ministers in the present Government owns a single stock or bond!

Is this Government up to the task of rectifying France’s innumerable ills? Like its gaping budget deficit?

Here’s a real my-my. The last time France had a balanced budget was in 1974! Yep, 40 years ago. Think about it. France hasn’t balanced its books for 40 years – and now that it’s in the middle of a crisis, you think this left-leaning government will be able to do so? Not a chance, I say.

Just to give the reader some perspective, less than four years ago the State of California was the poster child of mismanagement with its record budget deficits and a badly broken political system. The good citizens of that state finally woke up, smelled their gorgeous cappuccinos, and elected to take action. The turnaround has been dramatic. The state’s 2014 budget of $106 billion is not only balanced but it has a tidy surplus of $6 billion.

California has 38 million people, and its GDP is close to $2 trillion. By comparison, the whole country of France counts a much greater population – 66 million – and together all these people produce a national GDP that’s quite similar to that of California at $2.2 trillion. Lots more people for about the same output.

Then we compare the governments’ ledgers. Whereas the revamped California has more than balanced its books, producing an actual surplus on its $106 billion in revenues, France has a budget deficit of $110 billion – more than the whole of California’s entire kitty. And how much did France have in its annual purse to create such an overwhelming gap? A whopping $2.4 trillion!

But, oh, there are such needs for all that money! Who else is going to pay the salaries of the country’s 5.5 million public-sector employees? California only has to worry about paying 410,000 governmental workers. (Okay, maybe this comparison isn’t completely fair as the French State controls some 1,200 companies employing a further 800,000 people, but you get the flavor.)

So, you may ask, how’s the party going to end?

Since Roman times, Governments faced with this situation have made one of two choices: They’ve either embraced austerity by cutting services and raising taxes – as California did; or they’ve defaulted – like Argentina has done many times in the last 20 years – and then these countries have devalued their currencies, imposing a tax on the entire population in order to restore national competitiveness.

In the 20^th century, that’s to say from 1905 to 1986, France has devalued its currency no less than 17 times. Devaluation is the easy way out for politicians who don’t want to take hard decisions that they’d have to defend to a population who, at the least sign of change, takes to the streets and throws bricks at its leaders. General de Gaulle himself put the situation into words in the 1960s when as Président he famously said, “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

But now France is part of the Euro. The Germans, who had a bad taste of inflation back in the 1930s, will have nothing to do with inflating the single currency. So what’s going to give? My prediction: The French, along with the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks, will end up with a Southern Euro while the Germans, Dutch and Nordic communities will have their Northern Euro.

Two hours and ten cappuccinos later, Victor’s two most precious bits of advice to this keen student were these: First, produce a great espresso with rich dark foam. Then, second, froth whole milk to the consistency of paint. Once you attain this gloriously state of creaminess, you should be able to hold the stainless steel frothing pitcher with your bare fingers for three seconds without burning them. Any hotter and les micro-bulles, the tiny bubbles in the milk, get too big and you lose the consistency required to make beautiful latte art.

Um – let’s just call Pierre’s attempt here “a bleeding heart”. — Um – let’s just call Philippe’s attempt here “a bleeding heart”.

Then, and only then, you’re ready to create. If you can make a white circle in the center of your cappuccino, Victor says, you’re on your way to designing anything.

Yeah, sure, and 1,000 cappuccinos later I’ll be perfect! I’m already dreaming of the day I can make a beautiful heart for Jemma on her breakfast cappuccino. It may look like a circle, but I’m sure she’ll take it as a heart!

The day after my session with Victor, I lunch with the Director of the Picasso Museum here in Antibes. Jean-Louis looks like an artist with his disheveled hair, five-day beard, jeans, t-shirt and a well-worn corduroy jacket. His budget at the museum was cut 40% two years ago by the town’s mayor, he tells me, but he was admonished not to lay off any employees. Now he has employees who can’t do anything because he has no money to produce new exhibitions.

Antibes’ venerable Picasso Museum saw its budget cut by 40% last year. — Antibes’ venerable Picasso Museum saw its budget cut by 40%.

Jean-Louis is fortunate, though. People keep coming to the Picasso Museum because most visitors are tourists, and they’ll come simply because Picasso is Picasso. For most museums, though, such a budgetary slash would spell death. Is the Picasso Museum’s head bitter?

Not a chance, he says. Look around. Where else in the world would you rather live?

He’s got a point. So I ask him, Do you think the French will change and finally elect politicians who can take the hard decisions?

Jean-Louis shakes his head. France, he says, is old. Have you ever tried to change the mind of old people?

French Pharmacies: Regulation Where It Matters?

Posted on July 25, 2014July 25, 2014 by jemma

Ahhh, Madame L! It’s good to hear from you again!

The voice on the line is warm, syrupy even. I’m making my introduction, reminding the doctor who I am after nine intervening months away from Antibes – and he’s telling me that I’m his favourite patient.

It’s cent pour cent the truth! He says. 100%!

I’m wondering what I’ve possibly done to merit such an accolade. Surely it’s the sociable dinners and top wines that our families have shared now and again over the years that has elevated my status in his patient roster. What’s more, I realize our local family doctor is addressing me in English. Mostly English anyway. For years he pressed me to work on my French, completely withholding his fairly fluent English at first so I couldn’t slip into my native tongue in describing whatever ailment had brought me to see him.

Wow! Well, merci, merci, I say. But I’m keen to move the conversation on. Our good doctor employs no receptionist – not an uncommon situation for single-person cabinets in France – and he could well have a patient sitting in the straight-backed chair across from his desk. I’ve sat there myself in the past, so I’m ready to get straight to the point.

How was the winter in Canada? he instead asks.

The French are obsessed by the idea of Canadian winters. If it’s not our doctor asking, it’s the server at the local boulangerie, the head of the estate agency, the gardener – basically everyone we’ve rediscovered here this summer.

Très froid, I say, très difficile, somehow unable to rid myself of the previously imposed French. I know these words are exactly what locals are hoping to hear. That our winter was hardly a piece of cake – far worse than usual actually – only proves, despite the economic climate, how wise people are to stay year-round in the Côte d’Azur.

Finally I launch in, aware that the presumed patient there in the doctor’s chair could shortly be me. We’re travelling en Afrique in a couple weeks, I say, and I need a prescription for malaria tablets for Lolo and me. Maybe a prescription for just-in-case anti-diarrhea antibiotics, too – the special stuff beyond the over-the-counter meds that you take to places like Africa should things get really rough. (Philippe, I should say, never worries about such details. When he travels he thinks he’s Indiana Jones – and then he’s the first one cracking the family medicine kit.)

My agenda lays open in front of me, ready to fix an appointment.

Instead the doctor starts in on specifics. Where are you going exactly? When and how long? As our telephone conversation continues, I imagine the other patient seated across from him waiting, annoyed, bowing now to inspect his fingernails.

The full range of our doctor-patient consultation is taking place on the telephone. Within the minute we’ve reviewed the necessary antibiotics, even if the doc specifies half the usual dosage for malaria.

Just head over to the pharmacie, his warm voice assures me, and you’ll get whatever you need. Tell them I sent you. If you have any problems, let me know.

With that, the discussion ends. Before ringing off, though, we’re outlining our families’ summer travel schedules and fixing up a date.

If only all medical consultations were so effortless! Last year, before heading to developing parts of Asia, Lolo and I had separate, formally scheduled appointments with travel specialists in Toronto. (Indiana Jones, of course, didn’t need any assistance.) We left each appointment charged with sheaves of informative papers and official prescriptions with exacting dosages, usages and side effects of anti-malarial and anti-diarrhea drugs. Things were hardly so cozy in Canada.

French pharmacies can be just as pretty on the outside. — French *pharmacies* can be just as pretty on the outside.

Neither are the French pharmacies that fill these antibiotic prescriptions anything like those in the Anglophone world. They aren’t Walgreens or Shoppers Drug Mart or Boots, vaulting box stores where you stroll the aisles with ample shopping carts and peruse the shelves at leisure. In Canada, the US and Britain, you can twist caps off gels and lotions and sniff for the best fragrances. You can loiter in the aisles comparing the active ingredients in Advil and Tylenol and Sudafed, reading every smidgeon of fine print on every box if you’re so inclined without a soul approaching you. And if you do have a question, you can cruise the store’s long, anonymous aisles for hours on end with your cart click-clicketying along while you hope to happen upon a member of staff who might give you the time of day.

Space is an issue, especially as the sliding doors snap shut behind you.

Not so in France. No, each French pharmacie is special. Hardly a member of a sterile, international chain – pharmaceutical chains aren’t allowed in the country, after all – each shop is a perfect little jewel, wrapped up with sliding glass doors and tied with a bright green, flickering neon cross outside that announces this establishment is an authentic, French pharmaceutical institution. The insides are usually brightly lit and small in size. Bottles and boxes line the shelves, neatly organized by function and brand name, and often in the precious quantities that befit any organization of distinction and luxury.

Along the far wall of the pharmacie, you find a white-coated pharmacist hovering behind the counter, guarding the back wall of colourful medicine boxes. Only a pharmacist, or a group of pharmacists, is allowed to own a pharmacie in France, so in entering the shop you are, by definition, walking on his terrain. You need to consult the pharmacist, or an assistant, in order to purchase any drugs – from simple aspirin on up the food chain. No box, non-prescription or otherwise, inhabits any shelf that’s directly accessible to customers.

In the past I preferred to skip these typical pharmacies and head to a large, very unFrench-sounding store in the center of Antibes called Schlecker. Here I could push my shopping cart unacknowledged through long-ish aisles and choose the usual pharmacy products myself. Or so I thought, anyway, until one day I needed a bottle of Advil. Schlecker didn’t sell Advil, or anything like it. The only spot allowed to sell OTC drugs in France is the fully-fledged, green-cross-toting pharmacie.

(These days, poof, Antibes’ Schlecker store is gone. In its space has gone up a shop called Utile (which means “useful”), a basic grocery store in close proximity to two other grocery stores. I do not find the change at all utile.)

So now I simply bring the basic, OTC medicines from Canada – things you often have around the house anyway for aches or colds. Even with passing years, I’m still not fond of that air of intimidation in French pharmacies – some off-putting combination of hoity-toity brands and the need to enter the shop with a solid purpose. And I really have no desire to be duped by what I reckon (from adverts anyway) is a key sales focus: magic potions that natives rub on their bodies to fix every conceivable corporal ill, from fine hair to dark spots to stubborn cellulite.

Pharmacies across the Atlantic have unusual ideas, too.

Okay, that wasn’t meant to sound so harsh. To make peace, here’s a sign I saw outside a Toronto compounding pharmacy a couple months ago: Poo-pouri – Stop embarrassing bathroom odor before you go. Insanity is a global problem.

But last summer’s run-in continues to put me off. I popped out to the pharmacie – the local one where our good doc has sent me again today – to collect a few ordinary items and to fill a (verbal) prescription for Lolo. Combing the neat shelves and spinning racks, I couldn’t find a single nail file or packet of dental floss. I stumbled on a special foot cream that looked interesting (oh, was I succumbing?) but put the tube back on its careful display as I refused to pay, what, $18 . . . at which point a white-haired man in a blue-checked shirt stared down at me with eagle eyes and asked if he could help.

J’ai une question pour le pharmacien, I told him, feeling almost guilty for loitering. I pointed toward the back counter where I was heading to join the queue.

Oui? he said.

What – did he want me to ask him the question? Who did he think he was? And who did he think I was – a shoplifter or something? What’s wrong with the idea of browsing at will?

Everything has its place in a pharmacy. — Everything has its place in a *pharmacie*.

The white-haired man interrogated me over my verbal prescription, asking for Lolo’s exact symptoms, questioning the unnecessary strength of the potions I thought I required and whether the doctor giving the prescriptions actually had seen my daughter. (Non, he hadn’t in this case either.) The credentials of the white-haired man in the blue-checked shirt somehow allowed him behind the all-important pharmaceutical counter to retrieve Lolo’s medications. In fact, I realized, he was quite possibly the pharmacien himself.

Today again, I have reason to head to the same pharmacie up the road. My prescriptions again are verbal ones. I enter the sliding glass doors and hope for the best. With conviction I pick up a couple items on my list and walk directly to the counter at the back.

The white-haired pharmacien doesn’t appear to be in, but one of his assistants, a woman in her thirties, pleasantly asks how she can help. I explain my situation – the verbal prescriptions from the doctor up the road – with a combination of certitude and apology.

The assistant is happy to help. Boxes of anti-malarial tablets and the headier diarrhea antibiotics slide freely across the counter. Si vous en avez besoin – if Lolo or I need to take this diarrhea stuff – the directions are inside, she says.

And that’s it. No papers, signed and certified by the right people, cross the counter at the far end of the pharmacie. No notes are made on any personal computer files. And no one ever asks about prescription insurance. After generous government reimbursements, many drugs in France are close to free.

The assistant rings out my other items at the same time. On ne l’utilise pas chaque jour, she begins, holding up one box. I shouldn’t use it every day.

Her instructions continue as she slips the various items into a thin, plastic bag. Use this twice a week only. Apply it in the place of a your usual product. A small ball should do. . . . Her guidance is precise and exacting.

I listen, amused, to the earnestness in her voice. I find no need to take notes. I’ve used this stuff before. And anyway – good grief, have I succumbed? – it’s hardly the sort of prescription drug that can do a bunch of damage. The product she’s describing with such diligence is simply a tube of whitening toothpaste.

Côte d’Azur Property: Hot, or Not?

Posted on July 18, 2014 by jemma

A property flier recently dropped into Bellevue’s postbox. It’s hardly newsworthy that some real estate agent was talking property on the Cap d’Antibes – but then this was hardly your run-of-the-mill pamphlet.

The arrival of this magazine has caused a stir at Bellevue.

First off, it was a proper magazine with a spine. It had nearly 100 full-colour, glossy pages inside.

Second, I actually wanted to look at the magazine. Real estate fliers drop with a regular cadence into our postbox, some even with handwritten notes in French or English or Russian from hopeful agents saying they’d be more than thrilled to help us sell our property or buy a new one. These fliers promptly see the inside of a trash bin, but for some reason – call it socially acceptable snooping – I can’t help flipping through this new bit of publicity.

An opening note greets readers in the mandatory three languages. A second home, the agency’s directors say, should inspire its residents. It should encourage their creativity. Soon, very soon, I’ll discover a surprising absurdity in these pages – but for now I don’t. I’m led along the merry path. Does a panoramic sea view and clear blue sky nurture my soul? Or is it ancient country charm?

Perhaps I need a penthouse overlooking Cannes’ famous Croisette shopping district. Here’s a spot with three bedrooms – 900 square feet costing a cool $5 million.

Eeny meeny miny mo. It’s tough to choose between a penthouse near Cannes’ famous shopping district . . .

Prefer to spread out more? Why not visit the Cap d’Antibes and check out this “charming” three-bedded seaside villa? It’s four-times bigger than the Croisette penthouse with a quarter-acre of land to boot. (For $17.5 million, I’m hoping “charming” has a more positive spin than it usually does – that the word isn’t barely cloaked code for a place where the poor buyer will be stamping his own style on every floor tile upward.)

Or why not purchase on Cap Ferrat, the prestigious locale where French Lessons enjoyed its rather un-American Fourth of July? Here, in fact, is a villa offering direct sea access (in a fashion that obliterates the need for any Stairmaster) for – gosh, how does one set a price on the priceless? Let’s call it even at $38 million.

. . . and this gorgeous, $38 million villa in Cap Ferrat . . .

As the magazine’s pages veered eastward toward Monaco, so increased the frequency of the phrase “Price on request”. I continued flipping, cruising through a veritable photo album of angles and vistas and exquisite viewpoints that you never, ever get to see in real life: the back of ancient Èze Village as it reigns above the Mediterranean Sea alongside the dual tips of the Cap Ferrat peninsula; or a seaside view from an Èze-sur-Mer villa that surely (if rumours are correct) counts Bono as a neighbour.

I share the glossy magazine with Philippe. Property’s a big deal here in the Côte d’Azur – in our own lives, too. In fact, whenever anyone asks why we spend our summers in Antibes, I can’t answer without mentioning our home. Bellevue, our grande dame, is what keeps us here, right here.

. . . and the chance to share the view with Bono.

Last month the local Nice Matin newspaper interviewed the head of a big, international estate agency that has opened in neighbouring Juan-les-Pins. The article ran over an entire page entitled l’économie.

The top-tier property market has been very complicated over the past couple years, the président of the local agency told the paper, especially with the French government changing its tax messages and turning the screws on Russian visas. But the glass is half-full, he (unsurprisingly) says. With the administration’s latest leanings, we should see a new trend emerging, one that flings wide the investment doors to clients from Russia, England, the US, Brazil, Northern Europe – and let’s not forget those oil-rich nations! Asians are sticking to Paris and the winegrowing regions for the moment, the agency’s président concedes, but they’ll eventually head south, too – just as the Americans and Russians did when they made their first inroads.

The future is bright – of course it is – but the président warns it’s still a buyers’ market. People won’t pay up for any old thing these days. What’s more, when it comes to the highest quality properties, they’re mostly not for sale. The owners are selling only if they actually need the money.

I nodded on reading this last bit. Philippe and I jumped at a chance to visit one of the Cap d’Antibes’ storied mansions late last summer. A local friend mentioned another friend who might be interested in selling a sprawling property on the tip of the Cap, fronting magically onto both the Bay of Golfe-Juan and the so-called Bay of Billionaires. (The real name of this cove is l’anse de l’argent faux – the Bay of False Money – but I’m guessing some estate agent rebranded it.)

L’anse de l’argent faux: Is it really better called the Bay of Billionaires? — *L’anse de l’argent faux*: Is it really better called the Bay of Billionaires?

So – why not? – Philippe and I went shopping. With property such an important aspect of real life in the Côte d’Azur, it seemed the right thing to do. But we hardly had an estate agent in tow. No, this was the sort of property that never was openly for sale. It had been in the family for a quarter-century but someday, the landowner knew, the time would be right.

Led around personally by the owner with our mutual friend in tow, we toured seven spacious bedrooms, summer and winter salons with towering arches and pillars made of Tuscan stone, and an interior courtyard dotted with plane trees – their shadows casting an air reminiscent of the picturesque boules square outside the Café de la Place in Saint-Paul de Vence. We waltzed between the estate’s morning and afternoon gardens with their fresh and saltwater swimming pools, juggling vistas of the storied Îles de Lérins on one side with the Cap d’Antibes’ most opulent, renamed bay on the other.

Altogether the estate covered over an acre-and-a-half of the most prime, seaside terrain. So comfortable and all-inclusive was life within its walls, we learned, that the owner often remained here for over a week without even setting foot outside the gate.

I soon began to worry that Philippe was taking on his property-seeking role a bit too wholeheartedly.

But this is the type of property that only sells when the moment is right, absolutely right. A major Russian oligarch offered $135 million for the place, we learned. Money was hardly the issue. The offer was declined on more subjective grounds. The tycoon was furious.

Fortunately the mention of this sum put a kibosh on Philippe’s mushrooming vision.

As we enjoy the modesty of our Bellevue again this summer, the glossy Côte d’Azur property magazine makes its rounds with visitors to our home. They thumb its pages, tempted by the photos and gobsmacked by the fact that someone, somewhere, is paying millions of dollars – sometimes tens of millions of dollars – for properties whose size, relatively speaking, can be measured in lengths of a baguette. And then down goes the magazine again, travelling from table to table in Bellevue’s living room as the weeks pass.

This shameless piece of literature lays on a table in full view when a dear local couple visits for a late afternoon apéritif. It embarrasses me that we’re flaunting such blatant, pleasure-seeking propaganda – that somehow its mere existence will grate against the sunny dispositions of the octogenarian couple who has just walked through our door. But I shouldn’t worry. These folks know the truth of this corner of paradise – and an intrinsic folly that lies within the magazine’s pages.

Jean and Arlette have long links to Bellevue. He’s a sprightly storyteller whose great-uncle built our home in the 30s. She’s his exquisite spouse who lived in this very house as a young girl while World War II broke out, quite literally, on her doorstep. (For their stories, see the series of posts about Bellevue from 2011, starting with this one.)

The four of us move onto Bellevue’s terrace, taking in the view of old Antibes while the daylight softens and cicadas punctuate the air with a rhythmic rubbing of their wings. Over a rainbow of sweet macarons and tea, we discuss the intervening winter and our recent holidays. And as is typical in all our catch-ups, I also launch a few more questions about the historical tale of our Bellevue.

One of today’s questions, I am sure, has an obvious answer. I’m almost reluctant to pose it – except that it’s central to understanding how life has evolved over the generations of Jean’s family. The Guides arrived in this area way back in 1520, laying claim to an enormous – and I do mean enormous – chunk of the Cap d’Antibes and adjoining areas. Today certain handsome parcels remain in the family, but the bulk of their land was sold off, bit by bit, by Jean’s ancestors. Today that sold land comprises some 400 individual lots.

Certainly, knowing what everyone knows about France and its government and its obsession with all things property, the Guide family must’ve found its mass of landholdings expensive. They were mostly unproductive hectares – and French taxes are French taxes. Jean’s ancestors surely ranked among the cash-strapped lords and ladies of the Côte d’Azur.

Not so long ago, no one cared to visit the walled, military town of Antibes.

That’s why they began letting go of their land, right? I ask Jean, embarrassed to sound dimwitted in clarifying such an obvious point. The Guides – generally speaking – they sold their land in order to find a better balance between cash flow and taxation demands, right?

Non, Jean’s gravelly, octogenarian’s voice says with evident humour. Not at all. He seems amused at how easily corrupted I am by the area’s current property obsession. You must remember the Cap d’Antibes was far away from everything. The Cap was a remote stretch of land. Sheep grazed out here.

Jean’s gaze shifts across the bay onto the old, limestone city and what remains of its rampart walls. He continues, Antibes was a walled city. It was a military town. People visited Nice and Cannes back then, but they had absolutely no desire to see Antibes.

As the cicadas strum their gentle symphony, Philippe and I nod while Arlette watches demurely as her husband’s passion grows. Now and again, he tells us, estate agents came to his ancestors with proposals to purchase land.

A parcel here, a parcel there, Jean explains. And his family said, why not? The land on the Cap d’Antibes had no value: It’d had no value for 400 years!

He performs a perfect shrug but his eyes remain playful. Who ever guessed things would change?

Celebrating America’s Birthday – à la française

Posted on July 11, 2014September 3, 2014 by jemma

Cap Ferrat is vers trente-cinq pourcent russe, the mayor says of his elite electorate. The towering Frenchman pauses in his reply to my question, then backtracks. The community is about 35% Russian or Kazakh or Uzbek, he says – people who come from that region.

The gently spoken giant continues to define the neighbourhood. Italians make up about 25% of the seaside town. (Their border is a long leap to the east.) There’s a smattering of English who’ve been here for ages. But the French – as they die, he says, they can no longer afford to live on the peninsula.

A small handful of us crowd around the mayor this evening on the elegant terrace of the five-star Grand-Hôtel du Cap Ferrat. Standing beneath wide, canvas parasols, our panoramic view is worthy of its celebrity reputation. The hotel’s exotic gardens sprawl beneath us. Beyond them lay the rocky shoreline, the glittering Med and the megayachts that float regally between Monaco and Nice.

Est-ce qu’il y a des Américains et des Canadiens ici? I can’t help asking about Americans and Canadians living on Cap Ferrat. Tonight of all nights the detail seems relevant.

Practically none, the mayor says with – was it a twinge of nostalgia? The fiscal laws have changed too often in recent years.

Cap Ferrat’s mayor highlights the countries’ special relationship.

Moments ago, Cap Ferrat’s mayor was addressing about 60 of us members and invitees of the so-called American Club of the Riviera. Assembled on the terrace of one of the Riviera’s most celebrated hotels in one of the region’s most prestigious communities, we sipped champagne from slender glasses while the mayor offered a rather loving account of the long and special history between our two nations, France and the United States. If I understood his words correctly (French remains difficult in more nuanced discussions; the instant my mind wanders, I’m punted out of the conversation into left field), freedom was a theme of his talk. But that makes sense as tonight the American Club of the Riviera is celebrating Independence Day, the Fourth of July, on the day itself.

I’ll come clean. I didn’t want to come tonight. Lolo and I were landing at Nice Côte d’Azur Airport just beforehand, with a week’s worth of luggage. More profoundly, I’ve always held misgivings about these types of events. I’d rather integrate, not segregate. I’d rather understand, as best I can, the reality of life here in the Côte d’Azur – as real as it ever can be, of course. “Going local” is how I’ve always tried to approach life outside my native US, whether living in London or Johannesburg or now Antibes and Toronto. The last thing I needed on the Fourth of July in France was to wave the good ol’ Star and Stripes with a bunch of Americans.

But Philippe, my Canadian husband, had other ideas. He wanted to make the effort tonight. He hardly cared about the Fourth. He simply wanted to find a golfing partner.

So I obliged. On the invitation of an active American Club member who was out of town, we made our plans. Both Philippe and Sabrina, our beloved French au pair, met Lolo and me at the airport, where we went our separate ways. Philippe looked appropriately festive in a blue summer suit with a bright yellow, linen shirt. He brought my red dress so I could do a quick change in the hotel’s white marble vestiaire. Now all red and yellow, we look like one of America’s great success stories: McDonald’s.

The Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat is one of the most prestigious addresses in the Côte d’Azur. . . Photo: Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat — The *Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat* is one of the most prestigious addresses in the Côte d’Azur. . . Photo: *Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat*

So far, though, the most American thing about tonight has been – well, us. I’ve met a bunch of guests, only two of whom were fellow countrymen. I’ve learned a whole lot about the special friendship, and the economic and political leanings of Cap Ferrat’s jet-set constituency – or I’ve done my best anyway. Philippe, meanwhile, hasn’t found a single person who even enjoys golf.

Wafting around in this gorgeous but supremely un-American setting on the Fourth of July, we are finally urged (in American-accented English!) to head to our assigned tables. The dining room oozes sophistication with its soft, neutral tones and pots of white orchids serenely lining the walls. Broad, round tables are draped in white linens and set with shimmering wine glasses and silver cutlery. We go in search of Table 2.

People often have asked how I celebrate important US holidays while living abroad. Does the Fourth of July count in this roster, I wonder? Squashed between Philippe’s own Canada Day (July 1) and Bastille Day, the French national holiday that envelops our every breath here on July 14, we’ve taken to celebrating the three nations’ birthdays in one, single pyrotechnic feast – on July 14, of course. Anyway, I’ve grown cautious about big Fourth of July celebrations abroad ever since an English friend playfully labeled the holiday “British Thanksgiving”.

. . . where, among other things, the panoramic view is breathtaking. Photo: Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat — . . . where, among other things, the view through its exotic gardens is breathtaking. Photo: *Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat*

Table 2 at this year’s American Independence celebration with the American Club of the Riviera is populated by a French couple, a Quebecois-French couple, a German-English couple, a German woman and an American woman. Besides this other American, I’m surrounded by foreigners to these festivities. As a table we discuss our affiliations with the US. Some have worked there for a few years. Others simply like a good party.

The American Club of the Riviera used to be more American, the English woman says, almost apologetically. She’s beautiful, dressed in red and authentic sparkle. She and her German husband joined the club for the fun.

The other American woman, it turns out, isn’t a member of the American Club either. She grew up in Downers Grove. Downers Grove – so this side of Table 2 learns from our animated conversation – is in northern Illinois, a handful of cornfields away from where I grew up. Joy shares the fair complexion and broad cheekbones of my Swedish step-relatives. She hands me her calling card, printed jointly with her husband’s name.

George didn’t want to come tonight, my new American friend says. He was afraid the event would be too American.

I smile (as Americans do), though I understand far more than she realises. I also am beginning to appreciate how misplaced this fear was. I inspect the card in my hands.

But your husband is George! I say suddenly. He writes papers about history and the military. You live in Antibes! He’s been studying the military history there for years!

Joy is nodding, smiling cautiously. I carry on. I’ve been emailing with your husband for a couple years now!

This comment intrigues the majority of Table 2 more than it should’ve. I’ve never actually met George, I hasten to say, but his name remains in my research files.

To the non-Americans sitting around this table, the US must appear surprisingly small and interconnected.

Dinner at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap Ferrat is, I must report, anything but American. I’m hardly complaining. Chef Didier Anies ranks among the esteemed class of craftsmen who carry the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Basically put, he’s best of class. He rustles up Crème de Petits Pois, Œuf Mollet, Tartine d’Aubergine, Magret Fumé et Parmesan, Herbes Potagères – the most delicious-ever concoction of pea soup, soft boiled egg, eggplant and smoked duck with parmesan, all seasoned with fresh herbs – in the place where, at a more typical Fourth of July dinner, you might find a bag of Ruffles with ranch dip.

Food is, after all, key to celebrations. If there’s one American holiday I’ve always observed no matter where in the world I’ve lived, it’s the food-fest of all foods, Thanksgiving. (By Thanksgiving, I mean the proper US one – not the half-baked Canadian version that takes place a month too early.)

Thanksgiving is all about food. Americans around the world – this one included – go to enormous lengths to unearth whole turkeys, fresh cranberries and canned pumpkin. We become charismatic about the occasion, joining together disparate groups small and large, fellow countrymen and foreigners alike, to celebrate this annual day of feasting. And no one turns down an invitation to a Thanksgiving meal – even if I find myself concocting a story about pilgrims and Indians, turkeys and corn, to create some significance for the festivities.

As I search in vain for the American in this American event on Cap Ferrat, the main course arrives. In place of burgers and hotdogs, potato salad and corn-on-the-cob, comes Daurade “à la Plancha”, Chutney de Tomate au Gingembre, Navets, Pignons, Estragon – a delicately salty white fish accompanied by tomato and ginger chutney, turnips, pine nuts and tarragon.

I’m so not missing the US.

Talk at Table 2 turns to football. Such conversation would hardly be unusual at a Fourth of July picnic, except that tonight’s football is played with a round ball – and, well, the US already has been knocked out of the World Cup. But tonight’s dinner began during the second half of a crucial (at least for this part of the world) quarter-final game: Germany vs France.

Does anyone know who won? Philippe asks with some urgency.

Germany did, the German says a little too quickly. It is a statement, without a fragment of hoopla attached. Beside him sits the French-French couple. The German insists his country’s victory is no problem because the couples are all good friends.

Before there’s any question of crowd control, the server presents Baba au Rhum Tradition – a sweet sponge cake soaked in rum that might take the place of chocolate cake or s’mores or Jell-O pudding on the Fourth of July in the US of A. Now that we’re all talking sport, I encourage Philippe to pursue the issue that brought us to Cap Ferrat tonight in the first place. Does anyone here play golf?

No, no one at Table 2 plays golf.

The Fourth of July wraps up without the usual bang. That’s to say, in a country obsessed with festivals pyrotechniques that stretch through its towns and villages literally the whole of the summer season, not a single flare mounts skyward on Cap Ferrat this evening of July 4. Not that Philippe and I expected anything. In making our reservations, we understood that any fireworks popping into the night sky undoubtedly would be thanks to partying Russians.

Which, I suppose, is appropriate for this occasion.

The tables begin to disperse. Only now do I spot a fragment – a true hallmark – of the Fourth of July in our midst. Having spent the mealtime focusing on my tablemates, I failed to notice the table itself. At its center is a low, circular bowl containing red roses, white calla lilies and some genre of blue flower that I can’t identify. (Can any of you?)

In the corner of the room, Philippe is engaged in a last-minute conversation with a couple I haven’t met. I join them. She’s Parisian. He’s from London – but his accent is hardly British.

Where are you from originally? I ask.

Where exactly?

Rogers Park.

In another weird case of the US of A being a small, interconnected land, Rogers Park is a few shopping malls east of Downers Grove – and just the launch of a bottle rocket away from my alma mater. But these days Alan and his Parisian wife spend their summers in Antibes – just up the road from our Bellevue.

What’s more, the two men are delighted they’ve found each another. They are deciding where to play a round of golf.

Photo Essay: Côte d’Azur Life Before the Throngs

Posted on July 4, 2014June 28, 2014 by jemma

As Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, French Lessons travels to their mother country for a spot of tea. But we’ll hardly leave our Francophile readers hanging! Back in the Côte d’Azur, the summer season is lurching into full swing.

First to arrive are les juilletistes – people who take their holidays during juillet, the month of July. Following quickly on their heels will be the so-called aoûtiens, who take the subsequent month of août off. A favourite destination for these holidaying masses? You’ve got it: French Lessons’ backyard.

To quote some British banter we heard on Riviera Radio, the Côte d’Azur’s English-language station: Enjoy the next couple weeks because then it’s all over.

That fine advice came over the airwaves a few weeks ago. Now the French Riviera is at its holiday crossroads. Here’s a glimpse of this summer before the madness even began:

Parking has always been a problem in Monaco. Signs like this one dot the principality’s roads, telling drivers not only where to park – but how many spots are left, too.

Meanwhile, our hometown of Antibes may have celebrated the opening of (the finished part of) its new parking garage, but that hardly solved the problem:

Philippe swerved our car into a narrow spot along this road, and I ran out to take a few shots on my phone. The two truckers stood in a shady spot on the opposite side of the intersection, chuckling – hopefully at my eagerness rather than the sight of me in pilates gear. I flashed them the thumbs up for their perfect ingenuity before popping back into the passenger’s seat.

But our biggest problem this season can be summed up by this classic:

You never realize the depths of your addictions until they’re suddenly out of reach. Fortunately a couple WIFI-friendly cafés opened up recently in Antibes. Three cheers – no, a full-on, Fourth of July fireworks festival! – for Le Goût-Thé, which offers a true writer’s paradise:

. . . and for Choopy’s, home to France’s reigning Number Three in latte art and to the Bounty (pronounced BOON-tee) cupcake:

So we are managing quite nicely around the Côte d’Azur’s hiccups. And yet. And yet, there’s something far more fundamental – some je ne sais quoi – that keeps us coming back here, year after year, for more . . .

Let the season begin!

Royal Monaco: A Glimpse Backstage

Posted on June 27, 2014June 26, 2014 by jemma

I’m off to see the Prince and Princess.

As my husband Philippe and I cruise the Côte d’Azur’s A8 motorway toward Monaco, I’m brimming with confidence. Our fashionista daughter has just told me, in no uncertain terms, that this white lacey dress does not suit me.

The woman who sold it to me in Toronto a couple weeks ago said she “got shivers” seeing me emerge from the change room. She was a pro. The dress was even on sale. I was simply delighted it took only an hour of last-minute shopping to reach my false style nirvana. Now I feel all wrong.

Philippe and I have left Antibes in good time. He’s dressed in a slate blue, Italian summer suit – one he just purchased in Cannes’ swanky Croisette shopping district – along with a brand-new pair of dark navy loafers. He looks the part.

It’s extremely bad form to arrive later than the royals, he tells me. His long-time friend invited us to this evening’s intimate gala and has been feeding him bit by bit with the protocol.

I fill part of the hour’s drive with details of the Prince and Princess. I’m hardly a royal watcher, but news of a chance rendez-vous with royalty filled me with a heady concoction of excitement and anxiety. Better to figure out their names ahead of time, I figured. Maybe a bit of background knowledge, too.

Albert II is one of the wealthiest royals on the planet, I tell Philippe, what with his stake in Monte-Carlo’s famous casino and a bunch of other Monaco landmarks. I’m reciting what I learned earlier this afternoon. My favourite salon in Antibes has WIFI – something we aggravatingly STILL do not have at home (see the prior post) – so what better way to catch up on life than to book a pedicure? I would simply kill two birds at once because shiny red-orange toenails would jazz up my cheap, five-year-old, silver high-heeled sandals.

All the fuss is over a chance to meet Monaco’s Prince Albert II. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

With my feet plunged into a bucket of tepid water, my iPhone in hand and my nose in Wikipedia, I learned about Albert II’s perpetual state of bachelorhood (and its offspring). I learned about his elder sister Caroline, the so-called “heir presumptive” – and why legitimate heirs are a big deal in this tiny principality that aims to stay outside the clutches of neighbouring France. I share all of this with Philippe as we cruise closer to the Principality of Monaco.

Wonderful Wiki also filled me in on the Princess. Charlene was born in Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe, but moved to South Africa and competed as an Olympic swimmer. She was also the latest famous bride with extremely icy feet in the run up to her big day – something to do with the rumour of another illegitimate child. But she carried on and became HSH The Princess of Monaco, a title last held by Grace Kelly. A few weeks ago, the palace – presumably with the greatest of joys – announced the Princess’ pregnancy.

These are the Prince and Princess I am about to see. Philippe and I do not arrive late. A couple women in black usher us into a reception hall along Boulevard des Moulins, just down the street from Monte-Carlo’s casino. Next to their somber clothing, my lacey white dress glows.

The reception room is hardly showy – no dripping chandeliers or gigantic bouquets of roses – but that’s what you’d expect in the circumstance. Straightaway I hear the voice of Victor, the fund manager friend who’s responsible for this invitation Philippe and I could hardly refuse. Victor has just joined a new bank in Monaco and somehow Philippe and I got short-listed for the opening gala: cocktails in their offices followed by dinner in the prestigious wine cellar of the Hôtel de Paris. The bank’s owners delayed tonight’s festivities for a couple months in order to fit it into the highly charged agendas of the principality’s top royals.

A Rolls Royce lingers outside Monaco’s most famous hotel. Photo: Steve Muntz

Victor and I greet each other with cheek kisses. A quick scan of the slowly populating salon reveals much black but also a couple light pink outfits and a white pantsuit. My lacey white dress glows a little less obviously.

Philippe and I chat with the assembling guests, sipping champagne but avoiding consecutive platters of beautifully assembled hors d’œurves. I don’t want to smudge my lipstick. I meet a woman who was born in Eritrea, moved to Belgium and then to Italy. Her son calls himself purely Italian. Another couple hails from Athens. He gives Philippe and me an overview of the Greek economy using a brilliant metaphor of how one should best operate a ship – but then that’s his business. The Eritrean-Belgian-Italian woman returns to introduce me to another woman, one dressed in all black with broad cheekbones and thick, dark curls pulled into a loose, bushy ponytail.

She is a true Monegasque, the multi-national woman tells me. Fourth generation. Her mother’s the one across the room in the white pantsuit.

The Monegasque in black fascinates me. She’s about my age. The idea that she – that anyone – can live within the two-square kilometers of Monaco all her life seems at once glamourous and infinitely cloistered. On our introduction, the poor Monegasque courteously outlines for me the global reach of her former classmates and the array of multinational friendships she keeps, probably answering the exact questions every foreigner asks. But my next words seem to take her by surprise. Have you ever met the Prince?

Of course I’ve met him, she says. Many times. Her tone wonders how I couldn’t possibly realise that.

So where do you see him? I continue, assuming Monaco’s royalty hardly parade up and down the principality’s undulating lanes or frequent its sidewalk cafés.

At private events, the Monegasque in black tells me. Surely she is relieved by the arrival of three photographers (one wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and tennis shoes) and a sense of movement out in the hallway.

Prince Albert II enters the room – at least that’s who I think he is based on the photo in Wikipedia and the way the crowd begins to assemble into neat rows at an appropriate distance. The Prince wears a dark suit with a perfectly pressed and bleached white shirt. His tie is a coordinating navy with a regal-looking golden pattern stitched into the fabric. He is neither tall nor short, particularly striking nor unfortunately plain, but somehow a palpable sense of anticipation hovers over this man’s entry into the modest reception room.

As the crowd gathers and conversations hush, this end of the salon becomes the center of attention. I find myself standing in the front row next to the fourth-generation Monegasque. The Prince makes his way toward us, shaking hands here and there. He looks at me carefully and, realizing he doesn’t know me, moves to my new acquaintance, offering her a handshake.

So she really has met him before.

A woman in black offers everyone a warm bienvenue to this happy occasion. I suddenly realize all evidence of alcohol has disappeared from the reception room – just like when the parents arrive back home unexpectedly early – and here I am in the front row, clutching my champagne red-handedly. I turn and pass my glass to Philippe, who’s better covered in the second row. Now he’s stuck holding two glasses.

A man in a dark suit makes another talk. The Prince stands at the front of the room, hands clasped, listening respectfully. By this time it’s clear he’s alone. The Princess isn’t going to show up. Shortly the Prince stands beside a low corner table and, holding the corner of a regal-looking cloth along with another dark-suited man, he lifts the material to expose a plaque bearing the announcement of today’s opening by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. Cameras flash.

The Prince says a couple words – literally. He seems shy of the spotlight, his eyes falling more comfortably through their wire frames onto the floor rather than the assembled audience. Moments ago Victor told Philippe and me the Prince is actually more confident in English; it was the language of his mother, after all. The formalities conclude.

A silver tray arrives with carefully placed drinks, and Prince Albert II takes the beer. Champagne and those gorgeous hors d’œurves again make their rounds, but I still avoid them. Philippe and I debate how we can meet the Prince. We hand Victor my purple, point-and-shoot camera and wait for our moment, which at last coincides with the royal’s move toward the door. A woman in black, the one who welcomed everyone, encourages Philippe. Now is an appropriate moment to address the Prince.

Excuse me, Philippe says in English to Prince Albert II as Monaco’s top royal shuffles toward the exit. There’s no mention of “Your Highness” or any other such niceties. Neither of us will consider these formalities until much later. Instead Philippe lays his hand on the Prince’s coat sleeve to grab his attention.

Prince Albert II turns toward Philippe. My husband offers his opening gambit: Would you mind taking a photo with my American wife and me?

Prince Albert’s dark blue eyes take in Philippe and me. He smiles cautiously. Yes, of course.

As others make space for our portrait for posterity, Philippe disappears. I’m left standing here in a slightly widened space with Prince Albert II. At least the English language is my specialty.

I’m really thrilled to meet you, I say, sure that for once – in the presence of Grace Kelly’s only son – I’m allowed to be totally American in my white lacey dress, red-orange pedicure and full-on, orthodontics-worthy smile. We’re shaking hands. The Prince’s hand feels unusually fragile and soft – silky even.

Princess Charlene now carries Monaco’s future top royal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

I’m really thrilled to meet you, I say, and then it flies out: But I can’t help asking. Where’s your wife?

I hardly give Prince Albert II a chance to respond. I was really hoping to say hello to her . . .

Philippe’s back. Finally. My wife has visited Bulawayo! he announces to the Prince, as if this is a more astounding idea than meeting someone in glittering Monaco who was born in the tiny, defunct, crime-ridden country of Eritrea.

But the mention of Bulawayo sparks Prince Albert II’s interest. Really? He smiles a bit more obviously now.

Not just once, I tell him. In fact, I have a dear friend who comes from Bulawayo, and today of all days is his birthday! We were just on email together . . . Why am I telling him this? . . . And I’ve lived in South Africa, too.

The words are a rush. I’m giving the Prince the fleeting bit of my personal résumé that coincides with the life of his Princess wife.

But now you live here? Prince Albert II asks.

Well, in . . . I decide not to mention Antibes. We live here for three months of the year and the rest of the time in Canada.

I’ve clearly swerved off any established royal protocol, though I’m not sure what royal protocol exactly should be anyway. And Philippe simply stands there on the other side of the Prince, enjoying the whole of this moment.

Fortunately I’m saved from myself as the Prince, Philippe and I pose for a couple shots in front of the purple, point-and-shoot camera. I’m not looking during the first one. The men are trying to figure out why the flash isn’t working during the second.

Charlene’s not here because she’s not feeling well, the Prince offers, at last given pause to speak.

Ah yes, we’ve all heard the news of the baby! I declare, suddenly spokesperson for the whole world (and quietly praising the brilliance of Wikipedia). Félicitations!

Yes, the baby, so that’s why she’s not here. But I’ll tell her someone was asking after her.

Oh, yes, please do!

You should meet her sometime.

Yes, of course, that’d be lovely, I say, smiling my biggest, most American smile ever and wondering where, by chance, do you meet a Princess? In a department store? At the palace’s pearly gates?

So, the Prince says, bon chance – good luck – with your stay here this summer!

Thank you! And bon chance with the baby . . . (Am I really, truly saying these words?)

Prince Albert II again shakes Philippe’s and my hands with an incredibly soft hand and he’s on his way. In lockstep the champagne and fancy hors d’œuvres disappear from the room, too.

Evidently the Prince isn’t joining us for the gala dinner. How anyone declines an invitation to dinner in the fabulous cave of Monaco’s storied Hôtel de Paris, I am not sure. But then if you own a good chunk of town – including this, its most famous hotel – well, you’ve probably seen it all before anyway.

The glamour of royalty has vanished from our evening with a wave of its glittering, magic wand. But Philippe and I are still in Monaco – and glamour is practically the principality’s raison d’être.

The Ferrari Daytona Spyder is parked curbside along one of the principality’s major routes.

It’s not every day, for example, that you pass a 1972, rain slicker yellow Ferrari Daytona Spyder parked curbside. Philippe recognizes it en route to dinner, along with its $1.5 million price tag.

It’s not every day that you’re welcomed so warmly inside the Hôtel de Paris, which boasts a three-star Michelin restaurant and too many gold prizes to name. Several years ago I was shown the exit for being dressed too much like a tourist.

It’s hardly every day you’re ushered backstage of the Hôtel de Paris, down plain hallways and utilitarian staircases until the corridors narrow, bringing with them a runway of votive candles and the emerging, musty smell of a cave. No, it’s not every day that the chief sommelier tours you through his acclaimed wine cellar, the cave hollowed into rock that hid the principality’s best wines while World War II pummeled the French Riviera – the very cellar that still counts some of those same bottles among today’s 420,000-bottle inventory. It’s not just any old day either that you stand in

The Hôtel de Paris’ homemade petits fours finish off a princely meal . . . — The *Hôtel de Paris’* homemade *petits fours* finish off a princely meal . . .

the furthest reach of this cave, on the very stones where Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III once stood with family members – like my new friend Albert – to celebrate rites of passage in their royal lives, quite probably consuming a few of the 200,000 champagne bottles the hotel sells every year.

And it’s not every night that you dine in the dimly lit room carved into the rock beside these wine racks, sharing a white-cloaked table with folks who bring local views from Ethiopia and Egypt, Italy, Switzerland and Lebanon. Royalty may not taste the same foie gras, fresh spring peas and petits fours that we do right now, but their images hang on the walls beside us in black and white photos – Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier III and, among others, the young Albert II.

. . . while the wine cellar’s royal ancestors watch our every bite.

We say our goodbyes and leave the royal caves, catapulted upward by way of a sturdy, brightly lit elevator. It’s apparently easier than retracing our steps. The lift doors open quickly, too quickly, onto Monaco’s nighttime streets. A few pedestrians amble by, caught up in their own conversations. A car streams along the road beside the small plaza where a small group of us stands.

The elevator doors snap shut behind me. The bubble pops. Tonight’s spell evaporates into the night air in a fine, effervescent mist. A pair of unmarked, stainless steel elevator doors mask the fantasy that lingers beneath our feet. Now, standing here in the square in my lacey white dress, the small box of chocolates in my hand is the only evidence that our pumpkin once was a shining, horse-drawn carriage.

Down the road from here a row of Ferraris, Bentleys and Rolls hugs the pavements in front of Prince Albert II’s famous casino. Somewhere across the yacht-strewn harbor, my new friend presumably tends to his wife, the Princess who bears in her womb Monaco’s legitimate successor to the throne.

Just like every day, Monaco’s heartbeat continues – but never can you call it “everyday”.

RIVIERA LIFE: HARDLY A DELUGE OF CHANGE

Posted on June 20, 2014June 26, 2014 by jemma

Eric, the male half of our favourite taxi-driving duo, collects Philippe, Lolo and me at Nice Côte d’Azur airport Saturday night.

La pluie! C’était un déluge! he tells us, his playful grin and thick Marseilles accent slurring the headlines: We narrowly missed a monster storm, complete with thunder and lightening bolts. As it happens, our flight into the French Riviera was uneventful, one of the calmest ever. Only a few puddles dotted the runway when we landed.

A couple guys load a summer’s worth of luggage into Eric’s minivan while ribbing him about his accent. Eric loves the attention. He’s dressed in turquoise suede oxfords that perfectly match the striking hue of his long-sleeved, button-down shirt.

“Où sont les talons?” I ask him. Where are your heels?

Eric laughs. It’s good to see us, he says. Usually Christelle, his wife, collects Philippe, Lolo and me at the airport, and the first thing we always discuss is her choice of shoes for ferrying passengers around all day. Every year she seems to add a centimeter to the heel. Then I spend the rest of our journey in Christelle’s back seat, quietly admiring her latest hair colour, the drape of her new strappy dress or the way the sunlight catches her arms and makes them glitter.

Tonight, though, we have turquoise, and quite a lot of it. I adore these early moments back in France when the country’s idiosyncrasies pop out anew. Distance is a privilege in this way. Spending the bulk of my year in Toronto allows France’s perfect Frenchness to remain fresh.

Nothing’s new, Eric tells us as we cruise the motorway toward Bellevue, our home along the sea. He expands on this subject while now-nine-year-old Lolo announces the posted drive times to the Antibes exit. Indeed, winding through our city’s dense road network, everything looks exactly the same – the shops and restaurants, the traffic junctions, the after-hours tidiness that will get swept away as soon as the world wakens. It feels as if we’ve only been away for a couple months – hardly close to ten.

What about le parking? Philippe asks, pronouncing it par-KEENG as the French do. He’s pulling at straws, trying to discover something new in town. He fixes on Antibes’ big construction project near Port Vauban that boasted the imminent arrival of 300-some new parking spaces in this cramped city. The first time we heard this happy news was a couple years ago. Then the diggers struck the ruins of a Roman boat. Last we saw, le parking at the edge of Antibes’ old rampart walls remained an enormous pothole. Is construction at last complete?

Oui! Eric declares. Then he clarifies. Oui, une partie. Part of it’s done.

Philippe and I laugh. Of course le parking is only half finished. No project around here ever gets fully erected, painted or certified. How the French population deals with the ongoing indifference is beyond me. Maybe they’re simply used to it.

The new parking garage is half-done – and half-open.

Mais il est ouvert! Eric insists with his grin. The finished part of the parking garage is at least open.

As the minivan approaches Bellevue, we spot something new. At the base of Boulevard Albert 1^er, the main road linking the town center and beaches, the pavement is completely torn up. The mayhem cuts off one of only two routes out of town.

A water purification project, Eric says, his broad Marseilles accent less chirpy now. It’s his entire explanation for something that will botch up Antibes’ already infernal traffic situation for the whole of the summer. Maybe longer. Who knows when anyone will bother to finish the work.

Bellevue is in decent shape this year – there’s no more peeling paint than when we last were here – but I soon realize the so-called déluge must’ve wiped out our WIFI. The WIFI: Our beloved link from inside Bellevue’s thick, limestone walls to the outside world!

The telephone line is our prime suspect. The receiver emits a low, crackling moan rather than its usual, pert hum.

What does this mean for the alarm? Philippe wonders aloud as we unpack our bags. The Côte d’Azur is prone to theft; we’ve already weathered one burglary several years ago. He rings the monitoring station around 1:00 a.m. on the rickety phone line.

Non, the attendant says, we aren’t registering Bellevue’s alarm.

What do I do? Philippe asks.

D’abord, call France Telecom. They will test your phone line remotely. If there’s a problem, they’ll give you an appointment to come look at it.

How long will that take?

It could take days. They are really busy.

Philippe flushes out his lungs. Tomorrow is Sunday and, well, Sunday is Sunday. He can’t even raise the initial flag until Monday.

If the phone line is okay, the attendant continues engagingly – after all, who else rings at one in the morning? – then you have to call the alarm company. They’ll see if there’s an installation problem. And if they say everything’s okay, you call the computer guy. The guy who installed your WIFI.

Philippe listens with some combination of anticipation, amusement and exasperation. He’s the type who drives fast, red cars and never, ever reads the directions. Can’t I do this all at once? he asks.

Ben non! the station attendant says. You have to do it in steps!

So in the meantime we have no alarm?

Well, if someone breaks in, the alarm will go off, the attendant says helpfully – but you’ll have to call me so I can call security.

Once again, France demonstrates that things don’t change. Ever. How the population puts up with this live-and-let-live service mentality, time after time, is beyond me.

Our local boulangerie hardly has changed its delicious fare. — Our local *boulangerie* hardly has changed its delicious fare.

Sunday, our first full day back in the Côte d’Azur, we revel in the glorious things that haven’t changed. The woman at our local boulangerie is happy to see Philippe, Lolo and me back in town. Boulangerie Pâtisserie l’Îlette still offers the artisanal baguettes, sumptuous quiches and sublime choquettes (airy mouthfuls of pastry sprinkled with coarse sugar) that we’ve come to know and love. We delight in the produce of a roadside market: crinkled coeur d’boeuf tomatoes, hearty leeks and enormous bulbs of purple garlic, their stalks neatly braided into bunches. The vegetables are perfect as ever in our dear France – even if in the same breath we wonder why it’s still impossible to find a fresh banana or a box of moderately healthy cereal in this global marketplace.

Sunday is also the day to renew friendships. Veronique and Laurent welcome the three of us for coffee and fresh, melt-in-your-mouth macarons. We’ve known each other since our daughters attended a local maternelle preschool together some six years ago. Now, after comparing the girls’ new statures and our strategies for helping them learn their multiplication tables last year, talk moves onto France’s traditional bout of grèves in the month of June.

Laurent whips through a half-dozen strikes on at the moment, from stoppages by Air France’s ground crew and the country’s train workers (including the day’s mysterious blockage of two packed, high-speed passenger trains here in the South) to strikes by intermittents (technicians and artists who support traveling fairs) and another little gem involving the Eiffel Tower.

All is reassuringly familiar, we say. Even if the rail strike alone costs France something like EUR 20 million a day, it’d be a shock to learn that anyone had started real reforms. Anyway, everything shuts down here soon for the summer. The Government could just think about the mess in the autumn.

I cannot help but ask on the way out of our friends’ home. It may be wrong; in her bestselling book French or Foe?, Polly Platt advised readers against using the loo in a French person’s home. It’s bad manners, she wrote. But here I am, and this is urgent. Fortunately our hosts are happy to share their WIFI code. Still, I begin to fret that our internet problems are an ominous start for my fancy new blog site.

On Monday, after chasing around for more groceries and a local SIM card, I confess the depths of my addiction. I hop on my bike in search of an internet café. But Monday is reassuringly still Monday in the Côte d’Azur. “Sauf lundi” (“except Monday”) is one of the most frustrating and charming aspects of life here whenever you venture outside the July-August high season. Sauf lundi, in fact, has become a tag line in our household, a convenient phrase for explaining a much more pervasive backstory.

A seat at the Royal Beach Hotel (normally) includes free WIFI.

On Mondays the city’s three cafes offering WIFI are closed. All three of them – alongside half of the city’s shops. I try a couple cafés that remain open. There’s lots of coffee on tap, the attendants tell me, but no internet. In a fit of genius, I bike back toward Bellevue and head with my laptop into the restaurant of the Royal Antibes Hotel.

Oui, a man declares from a booth in the empty restaurant. We have WIFI! His exuberance fades. But it’s not working now.

I begin to fret that the grand experiment called French Lessons will be riddled with unknown disasters all summer long – and yet. And yet I must reassure myself that after all these years, it’s easy to write with great intimacy about something that never, ever changes. And – can’t help but share – I’m already anticipating next week’s post: My little encounter with none other than Monaco’s Prince Albert II. It was unforgettable for me and (for better or worse) possibly for him, too.

Monaco’s Prince Albert II will make an appearance next week. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, as Philippe and I await the resumption of our WIFI, we shuffle through the pile of post that has arrived at Bellevue since last September. Interestingly, there’s an envelope addressed to Mr & Mme Amis Canadiens. Mr and Mrs Canadian Friends. It’s from the Association Les Amis du Sanctuaire de la Garoupe, supporters of the 16^th-century chapel at the top of the Cap d’Antibes. They addressed the envelope like this:

Mr & Mme Amis Canadiens
Villa Lou Gargali
Av de la Salis
06160 ANTIBES LE CAP

The name Villa Lou Gargali hasn’t been attached to our home for a good couple decades – easily more. And Bellevue is hardly situated on Avenue de la Salis. Somehow, though, the association’s letter got to Philippe and me. Like most everything in town, knowledge at the local post office presumably hasn’t changed much over the years either.

Or maybe, just maybe in this instance, the letter found us by divine intervention.

France’s Remaining Optimist: Sailing in Antibes

Posted on August 28, 2013June 4, 2014 by jemma

For these novice sailors... — For these novice sailors…

“Un, deux, trois . . .,” I count the blue-and-white-striped sails of little boats out in the Mediterranean bay, “. . . sept, huit, neuf, dix.” Good.

I say the numbers aloud while spying through binoculars from the arched windows of Bellevue’s library. The scene is pretty spectacular, I realize for about the thousandth time. Ten little sailboats bob around on the rippling water beneath me. Across the bay lies the medieval town of Antibes, all limestone and red-tile roofed, cinched together by the belt of its old, stone rampart walls. Beyond it, on a hill jutting into the same bay, is the star-shaped, 16^th-century Fort Carré, and anchored right there at the foot of this glorious ensemble is Roman Abramovich’s 536-foot Eclipse, the world’s largest private megayacht (up until this springtime anyway).

...the setting couldn’t be more picturesque. — …the setting couldn’t be more picturesque.

As if this view isn’t breathtaking enough, a ribbon of the Italian Alps pokes out of the distant skyline, making the whole scene appear too sublime to be real. It’s as if someone dropped an enormous canvas from the sky in order to play a whopper of a joke on all of us onlookers – and that must be precisely why Claude Monet repeatedly took the trouble to recreate the scene on canvas.

I cannot budge from Bellevue’s library window even though chores call. The view is gorgeous, true, but somehow I feel responsible for the well-being of the kids out there in those little blue-and-white sailboats. It was my eight-year-old Lolo’s idea to enroll in the week-long stage de voile, and I was only too encouraging. Sailing is, after all, in our veins, I told her. My grandfather and brother and cousins have all been big sailors, and I took a course a couple years ago at the same school (blog post “Antibes’ École Française de Voile: Come Sail Away,” July 15, 2010). Even Edouard Muterse, founder of our Bellevue and object of my recent research, always had a sailboat tied up here from before the turn of the 20^th century. In fact, he’d originally named our house after lou gargali, a particular wind that sailors encounter now and then in the early mornings.

Thanks to Claude Monet’s preoccupation with this view... — Thanks to Claude Monet’s preoccupation with this view…

It was absolutely set. Lolo would take the sailing course.

Lolo being Lolo, she managed to coax three local friends onto the waters with her this week. They are among the 20 children out there, all débutants – complete beginners – divided into 10 little boats and cut loose in the sweeping Mediterranean bay. In charge of this quickly scattering lot are two – only two! – moniteurs, who steam around full-throttle, to and fro, in sturdy, inflatable motorboats.

Like many parents I waited anxiously at the sailing school this morning until the kids were towed out to sea, a single-file parade of sailboats joined by short ropes connected stern to bow, stern to bow. It was, in many ways, Antibes’ own reenactment of Robert McCloskey’s acclaimed children’s book Make Way For Ducklings, the mother duck leading the way through Boston’s Public Garden Lagoon with her fuzzy handfuls Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack following directly behind, their little webbed feet paddling up a frenzy.

Now, with Bellevue’s front-row seat along this expansive stage, I can keep tabs on this set of fuzzy ducklings. Ten sails is good news. No one is lost. I rip myself away from the arched library windows and try to do something more productive. But shortly I’m back.

...visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art can admire it, too. — …visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art can admire it, too.

“Un, deux, trois . . . huit, neuf, dix,” I say again. I count aloud out of nervousness, perhaps, because no one is around to hear me. My husband Philippe has taken this pivotal moment to go golfing.

Counting to 10 takes longer this time. I have to train the binoculars around a white yacht that’s anchored just offshore here – that, and the fact that the fleet of Optimists is becoming more and more dispersed.

Optimist: It’s the perfect hope-over-reality sort of name for the oversized bathtub, kitted out with a tin-bit sail and plywood rudder, that Antibes’ sailing school uses for its pint-sized beginners. And frankly, there’s nothing bad about a touch of optimism in today’s sea of French morosité. In fact, Philippe and I gave Lolo an introductory sailing lesson last night over dinner – in English, to boot. A stray ballpoint pen became the wind direction, a napkin was the sail, and in this way we created different scenarios for our budding sailor.

“May I be excused from the table?” Lolo asked after precisely seven minutes of discussion. “I already know all that.”

Our little sailors in the bay... — Our little sailors in the bay…

So now, hovering behind the binocs, I should have no worries about my eight-year-old Optimist. Anyway, the weather is cooperating. There’s a steady wind that’s not too strong, and happily it’s pushing inland rather than out to sea. The waves are moving correspondingly toward shore, and a green flag at the beach indicates the jellyfish aren’t too bad at the moment. I needn’t worry either because my little Optimist is wearing a life vest. And most importantly of all, I’ve never heard of a moniteur actually losing a little duckling.

I can’t help myself. I’m back at the window again, face stuck into the binoculars. “Un, deux, trois . . . huit, neuf . . .” I count again. Nine sails. I’ve spotted two of Lolo’s friends, Ilan and Eros. Jack and Mack. The boys have been doing well this morning. They opted for a boat with a slightly different sail from the rest, so I’ve been able to pick them out on the bay, but it’s tough to spot Lack and Quack, Lolo and her friend Anaë. Surely the tenth boat is floating around out there somewhere. It’s probably just masked by another vessel, megayacht or otherwise. And worst case – the risk manager in me comes out again – it’s only a one-in-nine chance.

...somehow resemble the lead characters in this childhood classic. — …somehow resemble the lead characters in this childhood classic.

By now it’s nearly time to collect the little ducklings anyway. Jack, Lack, Mack and Quack are all coming back to Bellevue today for lunch and a swim, so I head out, tracing the sandy beaches along this side of the bay.

The blue-and-white sailboats are heading back to shore just as they left a couple hours ago, a moniteur’s inflatable mother ship towing her offspring single file behind her, a parade of miniature sailboats that looks almost too quaint against the backdrop of Antibes’ old town to contain palpable vessels. And there’s good news as I walk toward the sailing school: The charming procession contains 10 little sails.

I arrive at the school as the moniteur’s boat is pulling ashore. The sailboat directly behind him is empty. It’s empty. Surely those kids have joined other boats, I reason. The second sailboat holds the boys, Jack and Mack. The third boat is filled with kids I don’t know, as is the fourth . . .

“Mommy!” I hear Lolo’s voice. It comes not from the water’s edge but from beside me, somewhere out in the distance.

“Mommy!” she calls again as I scour hovering families and rows of sailboats parked along the beach. Then I spot her, my dear daughter, life vest on and soaked to the core. She’s holding a wooden piece of a boat.

But she’s smiling – sopping wet and even laughing. That’s all that matters. Her friend Anaë runs up behind her. She’s all smiles, too.

I don’t get the whole story as it floods out in a beau franglais between Lolo and her French friend. Something about the moniteur telling Lack to turn this way and Quack thinking he meant that, and then Lack tried to lift something that was really, really heavy, and soon water was gushing into the boat and . . . . The words of one fuzzy duckling tumble out over the lines of the other, a story emerging with a handful of U-turns.

Quite impressively, the girls managed to capsize the oversized bathtub, finding themselves bobbing beneath its overturned hull. Lolo recuperated the plywood centerboard, and Anaë found Lolo’s cap floating away, and the two girls were then whizzed back to shore in the second moniteur’s motorboat – superstar-style, the way they describe it, smiles beaming and hair flapping in the wind.

Only at night, as I put Lolo to bed, do I learn that my little Optimist actually should’ve been called the Destroyer. In the first three hours of her emerging sailing career, my daughter managed to sink the “metal and wood thingy.” That would be the rudder, I tell her – the whole steering mechanism of the boat. And now my Destroyer can’t wait for tomorrow.

Like always, just when things are getting good, it’s hard to believe we’re getting going.

“Enjoy the summer,” the latest issue of the English-speaking Riviera Reporter magazine said, “and let’s see what happens at la rentrée” (this being the famous, French “re-entry” when the whole nation returns to normality after a full-on summer season). The Riviera Reporter continued, “A considerable majority of the French feel that with all the social unrest quelque chose va péter – something is going to blow. Man the barricades!”

This summer French Lessons has done service to the simmering unrest, largely in the form of first-hand stories that flow from France’s ever-mounting taxes (Summer in the Côte d’Azur: The More Things Change . . . and Antibes’ L’Armoise restaurant: A (Delicious) Working Dinner).

By the latest news, maybe the country’s real Destroyer has been reading these posts. Just days ago, France’s Socialist government admitted the country can’t cope with more tax rises. On one hand, it has promised no new taxes (read my lips). On the other, next year’s budget is poised to sock the country with another six billion euros in new levies.

Man the barricades, indeed.

Otherwise this summer’s edition of French Lessons has chronicled what makes the Côte d’Azur so, well, Côte d’Azur – from its celebrities and headline-making news, to its history and multiculturalism, from its gastronomy to its outrageous sense of fashion. Take a cruise through the summer’s 11 posts if you’re worried you missed any of the fun:

June 15, 2013: Brittany vs French Riviera: Which is the Real France? – strikes, butter, and what makes France France

June 22, 2013: Summer in the Côte d’Azur: The More Things Change . . . – taxes and more taxes

June 28, 2013: The Châteaux of Bordeaux: France’s Hedonist Paradise – a 17^th-century Carthusian monastery, two Michelin stars and overflowing, long-stemmed glasses of Bordeaux’s grands vins

July 4, 2013: French Language: Form Over Substance – manicures, cheese and the world’s most beautiful language (as corrupted by my enthusiasm)

July 12, 2013: Astérix for Foreigners – France’s famous cartoon character on the loose in our home

July 19, 2013: Monaco’s Fête Picasso: The Art of Fashion – Picasso, local history and a remarkable sense of style

July 26, 2013: The Côte d’Azur: The World’s New Silk Road – more wine, a celebrity encounter, and the epicenter of new ideas

August 2, 2013: Jewels, Fireworks and the Odd Storm: Summers in the Sunny Côte d’Azur – a jewelry heist, the annual summer storm, and one festival pyrotechnique gone very wrong

August 9, 2013: Bellevue: On the Heels of World War II– a newly identified visitor sheds light on Bellevue’s wartime past

August 16, 2013: Readers Write In: French Lessons’ Summer Postbox– the fabulous French Lessons community has its say

August 23, 2013: Antibes’ L’Armoise restaurant: A (Delicious) Working Dinner – the French work ethic, gastronomy and a few more taxes thrown in for good measure

But now France’s rentrée is our re-entry, too, and back to Toronto our family of three must go. It’s all change. September, I think, must be the New Year. There’s hardly anything new about January.

The Eclipse megayacht emits a strange, magnetic attraction over these new sailors. — The *Eclipse* megayacht emits a strange, magnetic attraction over these new sailors.

The going has improved for our Optimist, by the way. By the end of the weeklong stage de voile, Lolo has figured out the basics, saying that she sailed so close to Mr Abramovich’s Eclipse that she could’ve almost touched it. I’m sure the Russian oligarch was delighted by her company (and presumably he backed his handlers off from launching the megayacht’s onboard missile defense system). What’s more, the sailing course also has shown Lolo her powers as a French translator for a couple English-speaking kids – and she has come away with a coveted, passport-sized document entitled “Certification.”

Her first driver’s license, aged eight. She hugs the little plastic-covered wallet to her chest in these final minutes at the sailing school. “How old were you, Mommy, when you got your first driver’s license?” she asks.

Okay, she has a point. As I gather up the flock to head back to Bellevue for the final afternoon of a full-blown kids’ camp, Lolo casts her eyes back out over the Mediterranean bay. She says with good determination in her treble voice, “Next year I want to do windsurfing.”

Now, as we all sit out the long winter months together waiting for the next season of sailing – and French Lessons – to begin again, perhaps you, dear reading community, share my very thought: I can hardly wait.