Le bilan

Le bilan is an accountancy word which literally might be translated as the balance sheet but is often used to convey the summing up. As I was on the midday EasyJet flight out of Nice yesterday surveying the Baie des Anges from up above I thought further of Daffers’ observation and did my ‘bilan’ of the enduring magic of the Riviera. After all it started as a winter resort, is insufferably overcrowded in July and August, is extremely expensive and we are not the only ones who complain of rudeness and lack of service. There is no one explanation it’s an alchemy of many.

Firstly there is the variety, individualism and beauty of each resort. Nice has already been well covered in these pages but what city in these PC days still fires a cannon at midday as famous British resident once did to remind his wife out shopping that he wanted his lunch?

The 95 year old owner of the Negresco Jeanne Augier, whose family acquired the hotel in 1957, still lives in her apartment in the pink cupola and refuses all offers for her hotel. Nice rumour has it that she will leave it to the cat’s home. Her favourite cat prowls around its plush interiors as if she owns the place which to some extent she does. In a relatively small area between Nice and Monaco you have Villefranche,a deep sea port where once the US 6th fleet docked, elegant and demure Beaulieu typified by its grand hotel,La Reserve; Cap Ferrat, the estate of the super rich and perched above in the hills the delightful medieval town of Eze.

The incivilty of the French has its good side as there is no way they will yield to mass tourism in the way Spain did in the sixties and Thailand does today. In the old quarter there are a few pubs catering for the Brits but the identity is firmly gallic.

Then there is the all powerful Maire. I compare my city Brighton to Nice. On Southern Railway there was a strike which was of colossal inconvenience to the passengers but the Mayor, whose name I and most don’t know, did little to resolve. In Nice this would never happen. Indeed the mayor would be at the helm in lobbying for a high speed rail link to London and an international airport. The Nice town planning, the use of space and water, the modern sculptures along the Promenade, the parks all create a beautiful,city for everyone – not just tourists – to enjoy.

Mayor Estrosi of Nice, by contrast to his Brighton equivalent is an a powerful, prominent and highly political figure who has recently given his support to Emmanuel Macron. Graham Greene famously in a public letter condemned the Medecin family of ruling mayors so there is darker side to this system but on balance the mayor is a significant driver in progressing a city.

Bob Tickler made the point that if you want to make money in art track where artists live. Chelsea, Camden Town, Fitzrovia, and Shoreditch all owe their significant price rises to the artists who colonise them. The South of France has been the home of and to Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Pierre Bonnard. Juan Miro and Raoul Dufy painted here. The Riviera has a rich artistic legacy.

I am sure I have missed something but I won’t be missing the annual Rust pilgrimage here.