Layering

When walking around the old town of Antibes, it is important to remember the archaeological principle of layering. Over time, the level on which we walk has benefited from layer after layer of deposits, whether rubbish or paving or tarmac. Thus, the Chapelle du Saint Esprit, where the conseil municipal meet, has a doorway where the sill actually represents the lintel of the original structure. The past lies somewhere beneath our feet, measured in depth as well as age.

One of the structures which marked the old town was the result of a perennial concern over water supply. The Greeks, coming from a parched part of the world, knew all about cisterns and rainwater collection. A safe bet, considering the deluges of the autumn and spring here.

Next to the cathedral, in the heart of the old acropolis, I was walking across the newly laid cobble-stones. A manhole was open, with electricians trying to draw cable, accompanied by grunts of effort, through an underground passageway. Having read the account of archaeological digs by Clergues in the 1960s, I knew that there was a Greek cistern or reservoir near there. Looking down the manhole, there it was, a good eight metres deep, still in working order, with regulation gravel over the waterproofing, though not, for the moment, used by the water authorities. The octagonal pillar supporting the roof could have been made yesterday. It has survived its makers by well over two millennia.

The view from Turkey

When Antibes was bought by France from its financially straitened owners, a branch of the Grimaldi family, it had already become the front line on a hotly contested border with the ruthless Savoy dynasty, a kind of southern version of Prussia. The topography of the town became permanently changed, both through bombardment and through refortification. During this time, the anchorage in the bay of Cannes, sheltered by the Iles Lérins, became a strategically vital asset, pushing the projection of naval power west from Marseilles and Toulon nearer towards the pesky enemy town and port of Nice and its safe anchorage of Villefranche.

In the mid-sixteenth century, 1543 to be exact, the French king François Ier had the bright idea of hiring Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Turkish admiral, along with his fleet of 200 galleys and 14,000 of his formidable Janissary marines. Their job was basically to lay waste to the Christian litoral, killing and enslaving the infidels in the name of his most catholic majesty. They did this in a wide arc from Spain to Naples and beyond.

Thus it was that a Turkish fleet, bent on rapine and ethnic cleansing, lay peaceably at anchor off Antibes: peaceably as long as they were paid and fed. As a result, one of the earliest surviving images of Antibes is by the hand of a Turkish officer. The BH noted, however, that the roofscape is more typical of Constantinople than Antibes.

Facelift

After a long delay, during which time, with the shutters closed, we were (and still are) in complete darkness in the house, the builders have finally started the décroûtage, or removal of the old stucco from the exterior of the building. Using hammer drills and mallets and chisels, they prise off chunks of fatigued plaster, which then fall noisily either onto the scaffolding, or, more alarmingly, directly into the street. It's all a bit casual, and not entirely risk free. As you can imagine, this being the south of France, nobody is wearing a helmet or toe-tector boots.

Interesting, though, to see what the house is made of: essentially the walls are an amalgam of sea sand, rubble and ancient pottery. This seems to be the usual mix in old Antibes. Still, this pudding recipe has withstood persistent artillery bombardment in 1746-7 (Austro-Sardinians from the land, British from the sea) during the war of Austrian Succession, various earthquakes, and the dynamiting of the port, only a few metres away, by the retreating German army in 1944.

Estimates of the age of the house are hard to come by. We are definitely there in the Napoleon cadastre (land ownership map) of 1814, and seem to be in military maps going back to the 1740s, possibly even earlier. The house does not appear on plans from the seventeenth century, but these are pretty vague. There is a tantalising possibility of its presence in a pen and ink map from sometime in the sixteenth century, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, with galleys and galleons moored a few yards away in the harbour. What I do know, however, is that it is built on the site of a Roman garum or muria factory, whose settling tanks for brine run into the square opposite our house. Indeed, I have a fleeting suspicion that a large basin in the ground floor, mentioned by the builders as a nuisance, may not be the fishing-net proofing tank they think it is, but rather a convenient re-use of something older.

Antibes fish sauce is mentioned by Pliny the Elder (who at one point describes it as sanies, 'pus' or 'decomposing matter') but more positively by Martial in one of his epigrams of the Xenia, which were charming, witty little labels attached to presents.

XIII (103) Amphora muriae

Antipolitani, fateor, sum filia thynni:
Essem si scombri, non tibi missa forem.

A jar of fish sauce

I am, I admit, the daughter of a tuna from Antibes
Had I been a mackerel's, I wouldn't have been sent to you.

Despite Pliny's objections, and another, distinctly 'blue' reference to fish sauce in Martial (a girl who has consumed six helpings of garum is likely to 'deflate' her lover), this sauce was highly prized, far afield, so much so that an amphora bearing an advert for 'excellent Antibes liquamen' is to be found in the British Museum.

The stinky stuff, in a bowdlerised form, is still available today, in the form of pissala, the fishy goo which is combined with onions on the local variant of pizza, pissaladière. You can buy it, in none too sanitary conditions, from the yard of the ship's carpenter just before the Quai des Miliardaires.

Successful public art

Public art commissions always seem a bit iffy to somebody brought up in the UK. For a start, there is a tacit assumption that real art does not need subsidy: it has to stand on its own two feet. Furthermore, the history of the various millennial projects, the Dome in particular, with its buttock-clenchingly awful, Blair-imposed 'faith zone', teach us to be cautious about the quality of outcome.

One piece of public art in the north of England always impressed me, and that was the Angel of the North, just south of Newcastle, visible from the motorway and capable of inspiring and exciting even drivers rendered weary by the long haul up the A1.

Well, another piece of steel erection has, in my view, provided a worthy competitor, and it is only a few hundred metres away from our house, on the Bastion St Jaume. It is a sculpture by the Barcelona artist Jaume Plensa, entitled 'The Nomad'. It is made up of hundreds of large, sturdy capital letters, in white-painted stainless steel, which have been welded into an airy, magical ectoplasm of a person sitting down hugging their knees and looking out to sea, towards Italy and Corsica. The effect is stunning, and the art continues beyond the installation, as the sun imprints a shadow image slowly creeping across the smooth concrete pedestal. Money well spent!

Spit and polish

Today was a day when the scrubbers and polishers were hard at work. Some examples from the many: a shaven headed mariner lovingly polishing the chrome lettering of the good ship Dilbar (named after the tycoon's mother); a poor sod told to clean the waterline of another yacht whilst lying on his back in a softly inflated rubber canoe, slowly sinking into the none too clean, jellyfish infested waters of the port. But today's best polished toy award has to go to a car...

This impeccably lustrous black mastodon, a Roller the size of a Humvee, screamed along the quay, heeling alarmingly as it dodged cars and pushed pedestrians to one side. At one point it headed straight for me, and I thought I was a goner. Luckily, the ramparts contain arcades, like the permanent way workmen's refuges in railway tunnels, and I was able to jump into one of these just in the nick of time. The car didn't slow one jot for me, though I did have the pleasure of seeing it brake at the last minute when confronted with a particularly angular sleeping policeman. Judging by the protest of the suspension, and the fact that the car didn't jump in the air, the likelihood is that it was armoured.

Further round, near the Porte Marine, the offending car stopped, miraculously surrounded by people carriers filled with exceptionally large men in shades. Their expensive suits draped over their muscled frames like Christo's attempts to clothe iconic monuments. They just parked, blocking the port completely. Clearly people with influence. Not wanting to be roughed up as a paparazzo, I only risked a photograph from round the corner. Now that I can look at it in the safety of my own home, I realise that the murderous chauffard was none other than the chauffeur of the Prince of Monaco.

Cumul des mandats

One of the most striking things about French political life is the way in which notables, the big shots, simultaneously occupy posts in local, regional and national government. This cumul des mandats is described, according to one's point of view, as yet another selfish example of cronyism and clientelism (not to mention an agreeable multiplication of salaries, pensions and expense accounts), or as a practical, even selfless way of joining up the micro- and macro- government of a still very statist polity. Nice's mayor, Christian Estrosi, is also a minister in the present Sarkozy government, whilst the present UMP mayor of Antibes, Jean Leonetti, is not only leader of the town council, but also president of the much larger grouping which takes in the gigantic science park (and cash cow) of Sophia Antipolis, and, coincidentally, a deputy in the national parliament with a high profile role in medical legislation.

This kind of cosy multitasking has been going on for a long time. The present town council in Antibes meets in the disaffected Chapelle du Saint Esprit, in the heart of the old town. This building, along with the cathedral, sits upon foundations of much older buildings, Roman, Greek, and pre-classical. When archaeologists performed a dig in the chapel in the '60s, they came across a plaque in honour of the mayor (patronus), commissioned by the Roman-period town councillors (ordo decuriorum).

L(ucio) MATUCIO MAXIMO XVIRO STL(itibus) (iu)DIC(andis) TRIB(uno) MIL(itum) L(egionis) II ADIUTRICI LE(gato) PROVINC(iae) MACEDONIAE D(ecreto) D(ecuriorum) PATRONO

[To the mayor, Lucius Matucius Maximus, civil magistrate and soldiers' tribune of the second legion 'Adiutrix' and legate for the province of Macedonia. By order of the town councillors.]

Clearly the then mayor, a notable with imperial connexions and a considerable, probably senatorial cumul des mandats, was going to be away from Antibes a lot, leaving the affairs of the town with his adjoint, like Estrosi and Leonetti.

Endemic species on the Cap d'Antibes

Today we made a simple picnic, drove to the Garoupe, and did the coastal walk around the Cap d'Antibes. The weather was, for the first time this year, absolutely gorgeous. The sea was moved by a slow swell which made for photogenic churning froth against the rocks, to set off that unlikely but true mediterranean blue. The rocks and fissures were clothed in the best of bloom: the wonderful violet pink of the ficoids - like miniature sunflowers on acid, the mauve of the, well, malvaceas, the yellowish, soapy white of the impossibly fragrant cryptosporum bushes. It was a botanical riot...

But there is one ground-hugging bloom which is endemic to the coastal path, indeed it colonises the whole area. It is generally to be found in recesses and in the shade, but occasionally it is out there, in the open. It is a self-fertiliser with a big white corolla of petals, irresistible to flying insects, visible from many metres away. There is no visible stalk. Its scent frequently vanquishes the cryptosporum, and it survives drought, sun, salt, wind - anything nature can throw at it. It must be the most successful species on the cape. A weed which will have to be brought under control.

It forms a shameful tapestry anywhere homo azuriensis, particularly in extended family groups, comes into contact with nature. Its name: used toilet paper. Its anchorage into the soil: human excrement.

Le froid insoutenable de la Côte d'Azur

I have long held the suspicion that the restaurateurs of the Côte d'Azur, along with many of their confrères elsewhere in the Hexagon, were largely the culinary equivalent of the screwdriver economies, ie mere final, unskilled assemblers of products manufactured elsewhere.

One reason for suspecting this is the paucity of fresh produce being delivered. No butchers' vans, no greengroceries...

Another is the surprising uniformity of the menus.

But the final pièce de conviction is the frequent arrival of one of the massive fleet of vans belonging to the wholesaler Les Surgelés d'Antibes. A look at the visual catalogue of their ready-made products, appetisingly painted in faux naïf style on the facade of their headquarters, shows an almost perfect match, visually and even verbally, with what is on offer in most of the restaurants around here.

Carte Vitale, encore...

Long-time readers of Antiboiseries will remember that from time to time I have mentioned the saga of my application for the Carte Vitale, a microchip-bearing health card which you need to see a doctor or get prescriptions from the chemist. The sorry sequence started in January 2009, and has involved numerous letters, phonecalls and false alarms. It has certainly raised my blood pressure.

Well, yesterday, I received through the post a Carte Vitale. Who knows whether it works or not, but it is a reassuring shade of vile green and loud yellow, and it has a wee portrait of Yours Truly in the top right hand corner. As with all things to do with French officialdom, there are no instructions on how to use it, only boasts about how wonderful it is.

Climate gradients

Yesterday, a public holiday in France, was a crap day. We set off from Antibes in bright sunshine. The smart thing was to avoid the coast, both because of the holiday and because of the Cannes film festival. So, after the usual grim tangle of coastal traffic, we headed into the hills above Vence, up to the Plateau de St Barnabé.

This lunar landscape should have been at its springtime best, with all the strange plants vying with each other, and the birds trying to out-tweet their neighbours. As we drove up the col de Vence, surrounded by a riot of colour (poppies, euphorbia, grape hyacinth, thyme), the weather turned gloomier and colder.

Once arrived at the carpark (well, pasture) at St Barnabé, we had to negotiate one mighty puddle. The wind was already carrying the first drops of rain, and the clouds were spilling over the crest like the artificial CO2 smoke in pop concerts. Refusing a generous offer of bread and rosé from an archery club, we strode purposefully along the track out of the hamlet (four houses or so).

Hardly six hundred metres down the muddy track, it began pissing down, and the sound of distant gunfire or thunder began to be heard. It sounded strange for thunder, and I suggested, wrongly, that it was a quarry banging off. In a few minutes, the rain had become violent, and the thunder and lightning positively theatrical in their excess.

Luckily, we were able to shelter under the overhang of an abandoned chalet, where we froze, eating our picnic to the accompaniment of deafening cosmic disintegration, for the next two hours. Finally, too cold to stay put, we hunched up and ran the mile or so to the car, soaking ourselves in the process.

After a few minutes with the car heater on, we rolled downhill, till we found a riding stable, now inundated, but which had a small, log-cabin bar-restaurant. Seeing woodsmoke coming from the rudimentary chimney, we stopped in hope of obtaining a warming coffee. Not only did they have coffee, but they had home-made cakes and a log fire. Bliss, and steaming clothes, as we downed rustic patisserie.

Once back on the coast, a good thousand metres below, we discovered that it hadn't been raining at all in Antibes, where people were sunning themselves in the rue de la République whilst listening to the madhat melodies of the Fanfare Pistons, the band of the Ecole Centrale de Lyon. Why hadn't we just stayed put?

Pasta calcistica

Antibes may give the impression of spiritual indifference and lukewarm religiosity, but maybe we were looking in the wrong places. There is one enduring cult, and that is football. The two almost local teams which seem to collect the most devotions from the faithful are AC Monaco and OM Marseilles. The first wears red and white strip, the second blue and white.

The rituals of these cults take place in giant stadia, with television providing the usual miracle of ubiquity for those unable to make the pilgrimage to the mysteries. But what replaces the sacrificial feasts? I found out today at the pasta shop. 'Farfalle' in the teams' colours, with the national team there as a back up. I wonder what spiritual (trinitarian?) vibrations the tricolour pasta has, as it simmers and boils, and what miracle of transubstantiation takes place, once combined with parmesan or pecorino?

Stony faced

Much of Antibes is made out of something else. For instance, the houses down the road, just beyond the Ecole Paul Arène, are made out of the stones from the ramparts which were demolished just over a century ago. But those ramparts were made, in part, from the masonry of the old amphitheatre, which can be seen in early views of the town, but which now is the locus of the bus station.

One way to tell whether Roman masonry is incorporated in newer buildings is to look at the size of the blocks - far too big for the present structures. Another is to look for the characteristic method of pinning the blocks together with iron rods and lead as cement. Many blocks in the old town have the tell-tale holes where the rods used to be. The lead, being precious, was probably scraped out assiduously.

Sometimes lintels give the game away. One of the small postern gates into the oldest part of the old town has worn epigraphy on it, but now upside down. That particular inscription is well known, and on the guided tour itineraries.

More interestingly, the two 'tours sarrazines', early medieval watchtowers built to keep an eye on the horizon for bands of raiders, are also made of the same masonry blocks. The medieval builders were only worried by the suitability of the stones for the towers they were building. It was of no importance whatsoever if they carried inscriptions or sculpture.

So, if one looks intently at the courses of highly weathered Roman dressed stone forming what is now the cathedral's belfry, one can discern now and again, fragments of script or of decoration. One of these inscriptions appears to begin the toponym 'Antipolis' (though I am a bit doubtful about this common reading - I suspect an adjectival form), a second one seems to be the end of one word and the beginning of another, and the whitish stone two brown courses up from the bottom of the bell chamber (parallel with the bottom rim of the bell), one block in from the left hand corner, appears to be a caduceus, lying on its side. Another sculptural element, also looking like a caduceus, appears faintly in the very bottom left stone in the photograph, but this time oriented vertically.

This caduceus was a sign of the Mercury cult, whereas the cathedral itself was previously a temple to Diana. Clearly by the eleventh century, nobody seemed to think the distinction mattered.

Readying for Cannes

On our walk around the port and the Fort Carré yesterday, we noticed a lot more activity on the superyachts. The number of barefoot, sunglasses-wearing, blond, crew-cut Australians buffing any visible surface was incredible. There were chaps lying on their backs on rubber pontoons, burnishing the waterlines, there were lads in harnesses giving a last-minute polish to the lofty bollocks protecting the navigation (and defence?) systems, there were gardeners clipping the palm trees and other exotica which no superyacht can do without. Finally, at the bottom of the pile, there were the Philippinos in grimy overalls who live and work in the dark bilges of the yachts, momentarily blinking in the light as with large hoses they sucked nameless, perhaps toxic liquids in and out of the boats' innards.

A busy day, then, and one made all the more hectic by a team reattaching the rotor blades to a large helicopter on the quarterdeck of the monstrous Octopus. Once re-equipped with rotors, they tethered the machine and trrrrrrried out the motorrrrrr for ages, the din reverrrrrberating around the port and making conversation impossible, even half a mile away.

The BH's take on all this is that the yachts are going to serve as exclusive floating hotels for the Cannes film festival. In favour of this hypothesis, when we looked out over the harbour this morning, the Octopus was nowhere to be seen. Gone with the wind...

Âneries

In my impecunious days as a student in Italy, I sometimes found myself eating horse, and occasionally donkey (the latter usually in the form of sausages). Various friends, regaled with these stories, decades later, refused to believe that Eee Aw could be eaten, even by Italians, and especially by me.

Well, Antibes is close enough to Italy to have lots of Italian spoken in the street, and plenty of Italian, or Italianate food in the shops and market. Passing through the superette today, I came across proof that my story of donkey sausage was not just an example of Welsh fibbery. So, here, as an exclusive in Antiboiseries, after 'saucissonnage' comes 'âneries'.

When I pointed out this delicacy to the BH, she made me promise never to feed it to her unawares. She had good memories of donkey-minding when working as an olive picker in central Italy. The packaging is pretty cute, though, and makes the mouth water somewhat, if you have onophagic tendencies like myself.

Steamin'

The weather has been, and will be for quite a few days yet, pretty crap by Côte d'Azur standards. But yesterday we had to eat on the terrace, despite the cold, because the stairwell was being painted with stabilising solution, which made the inside of the house smell like aircraft refuelling time at an airport.

When the sun does peep through, though, for a minute or two, the power of the rays burns off the accumulated water in minutes, raising a strange dance of vapour, as if the buildings were all steaming pans full of spaghetti.

To bee or not to bee

On my way back from the wonderful Médiathèque d'Antibes, a haven of calm in the midst of the maelstrom of dust and noise that is our building at the moment, I saw that they had cordoned off part of the Place Général De Gaulle, and there were fuzz and firemen in attendance.

People were looking worried and pointing at a tree. After the wind of the last few days, I thought it might be a case of unsafe branches needing lopping, but no. Up there in the branches was a large dark thing, like a pinecone, about twice the size of a football. There was an audible hum in the air. A nest of bees, some said, whilst others thought it was a colony of wasps.

Whatever it was, they were taking no chances. The road was barricaded. By this time the traffic had backed up as far as the eye could see, but indications of the queue's even greater extent were furnished by a cacophony of impatient klaxons, played with virtuoso abandon by all and sundry. A Futurist art of noises, no less.

I asked one of the firewomen how they were going to get rid of it. Not them, she said, adding that the firemen were only there to provide a safe platform, whilst the apiary hecatomb would be performed by the municipal beekeeper. I heeded her advice not to be anywhere in the vicinity when that happened, and headed for the daily shop at the superette.

Mauvais fixe

Just spent yesterday and this morning bailing out the flowerpots and windowboxes. The heavy rain, which started two days ago, is set to continue into next week, at least.

Fragrance

Patrick Suesskind did a fine job in Parfum. He communicated how the most sought after scents are a subtle amalgam of the heavenly and the gutterly. Volatile essences of roses are craftily removed from petals using unseemly grease, and then combined with the glandular excretions of animals' rear ends to make sophisticated assemblages. Cannelle and canaille, you might say.

There was proof of it yesterday when we came back from a nice walk and an even nicer cool beer on a térrasse overlooking the Ponteil beach. Two Italian ladies, chicly power-dressed, and wearing shoes which would be smart even in Italy, were stripping the orange tree below our balcony of its wedding veil of orange blossom.

I know, the temptation is great, as orange blossom is totally inebriating and wonderful. But how did they reach up into the branches? Only by standing on the small square of earth at the foot of the tree. Little did they know, for their gaze and olfactory focus were directed upwards towards the generously scented feathery bloom, that this small corner of a foreign field would be forever Muttland. Oblivious to the rapid accretion of semi-hardened dog turd to their footwear, the good ladies pranced around seizing handfuls of orange blossom and passing it beneath their noses, with loud Italian cries of delight.

Finally, they made off, leaving parallel trails of small, high heel imprints of pooch-cack as proof of their passage. Behind them was a lingering note of a new, expensive fragrance, combining the celestial and the colo-rectal in perfect balance. What was the name of that new perfume? Why? C'Etron d'Antibes, of course. Obtainable from all reputable outlets...

Cap Ferrat

The other reason for going to St Jean Cap Ferrat was to do the circular walk around the peninsula.

The directions in the guidebook said to park down in the carpark at the port - easier said than done, given the number of tourists clogging the place. Finally, some distance beyond the port de plaisance, in amongst the cranes, rust and detritus of the shipyards, we found a place, needing a ticket even on the most bank holiday of bank holiday days in France, the first of May. From there we followed the vague instructions to an abandoned quarry, and the beginning of the coastal footpath.

The first part of the footpath was along a cement road, next to the water. Why such engineering works just for the odd pedestrian? We soon found out. All the peninsula is covered by luxury villas, and the cement walkway was the visible roof of an enormous ring drain collecting the assorted effluvia of the rich. To be honest, the smells wafting up from the vents resembled those from the drains of the less affluent.

Everywhere we walked, it was between a sullen gray sea and high walls and razor wire. The rich are clearly very, very frightened of the rest of us. Whilst on the one hand it felt bad to be excluded from natural beauty, on the other it felt good to think that the rich were like prisoners, of their own barbed wire and their own phobias.

Along the way we kept on crossing hiking clubs from Italy, audible from a great distance because of the constant chatter and gossip. Clearly these people were glad of each other's company and were having a good time. We got a chorus of "grazie" when the BH took their photo for them, after a warning as to whether they were "pronti".

Further round the cape, after the lighthouse, the path became narrow, with a mostly unprotected drop into the sea or onto the rocks far below. Despite the scenery, I was unable to concentrate on anything except getting through the exposed bits. It was fear of heights time with a vengeance.

The return was over the neck of the isthmus. When we got back to the car to dump our rucksacks, there was a raucous sound of unfamiliar birds. We looked up. The palm trees were full of small parrots, about the size of big budgies, with green bodies and red heads. They were feasting on the dates.

Villa Ephrussi

Yesterday we braved the corniche inférieure and headed for St Jean - Cap Ferrat. There were two reasons why: one was to do the coastal walk round the peninsula, the other was to take a look at the house and gardens of the Rothschilds' Villa Ephrussi at the top of the hill.

There was a surprisingly chill wind blowing off the sea, and a bit of a sea fog, reminiscent of the haar on the Forth. We paid for our entrance tickets, squeezed through the souvenir shop, turned the corner, then saw the facade of the villa in all its tacky glory. It could have come from some abandoned Disneyland project for a Venetian/Andalusian/Californian pizzeria. It was horrible, and, worse than that, it was full of bits robbed from other, probably better, demolished buildings. The interior was even more kitsch, with the Louis XV salon, complete with cringe-worthy wally dugs, leading off from the Louis XVI salon. In the dining room was quite the most heroically hideous ornamental clock - bright pink - we have ever seen.

We scuttled out of the villa as fast as our legs would carry us and headed into the renowned gardens. Mme Rothschild had employed 35 gardeners, wearing naval uniform, to tend to the terraces. She had shaved the top off the mountain to create the massive lawns and water feature (a camp musical fountain which played Tchaikovsky and other Classic FM favourites).

But all in vain: the garden, though well sited, and full of magnificent plants, was distinctly underwhelming: the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The only thing which really caught my attention was the spectacle of two tortoises clumsily copulating to the rhythms and squirts of the musical waterworks.

If there were to be a list of tourist sights which would be worth missing, then this one would get three stars.