Today demanded somewhere different. After a couple of glowering days, the Sunday weather forecast sounded good. Blue skies, clement winds, smooth seas. We decided to head for Villefranche sur Mer, erstwhile Mediterranean base for the Tsarist navy.
Villefranche is a deep bay just after Nice. A wonderful sight for tourists, but an exceptional haven for ships. Today, for instance, there was a meeting for lateen rigged boats: they sailed prettily in the roads, and their crews wined and dined copiously on the quayside (paella and rosé by the look of it).
Our visit was more strenuous. Starting from the sea-level railway station, we headed almost vertically up to the Mont Alban fort, some seven-hundred feet up the cliffs. We started in what was effectively a tunnel; la Carriera Scura, the dark street. Afterwards, it was just the equivalent of staircases in the open air. We lost count of the steps. Once down, we dooked ourselves in a pellucid sea before heading for an indifferent lunch in the lanes of the old town.
Visually, Villefranche sur Mer is one of the prettiest towns of the Riviera. The kind of place which makes you wonder why you have wasted so much of your life not living there. But once back in Antibes, we realised that picturesque cliffs aren't everything.
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