OF THE WATERING-PLACES
French sea-coast watering-places fall easily into two groups--those of
the English Channel and those of the Mediterranean. The first may be
subdivided into the fashionable places between Deauville and the
Belgian frontier and the go-as-you-please resorts of Brittany. There
are long intervals between the different resorts, and few would dream
of wandering along the coast from one to another; but on the
Mediterranean the Riviera is almost one continuous chain of
watering-places from St. Raphael to Mentone.
In the early days, when English doctors were beginning to recommend
their more wealthy patients to winter on the French Riviera, there was
little beyond the sunshine, the equable climate, the colour and the
loveliness of the scenery to attract the visitor, and what more, one
asks, could any rational being who has gone away with congenial
companions require? A visit to the Riviera amply answers such a
frivolous question. In the early days, visitors and tired politicians,
perhaps of the type of Lord Brougham, or less strenuous people to whom
the fogs of the northern winter were a periodic menace, found no
hotels much above the average of the country inn, and villas were not.
Obviously these things had to be provided, and now from Cannes to
Garavan, which is within a shout of the Italian frontier, there is a
very nearly continuous chain of villas and hotels. And where villas
are too close together to permit the erection of a newly projected
_Hotel Splendide_, a terrace is constructed a little higher up the
face of the sea-front, and the new building offers to its guests finer
views and less noise than those who stay lower down. Villas are
pleasant enough, but they can become dull to those with a passion for
amusement, a desire to escape from themselves or whatever one cares to
call the disease, and a hotel to such offers very little more.
Besides, one is practically driven to bed at a quarter to ten, so a
casino is a sheer necessity. Then no one who wishes to be healthy can
be so for long without exercise, and a golf-course must be
provided. This is a difficulty on the French Riviera only overcome at
Cannes, where the alluvial Plaine de Laval near La Napoule offers
suitable ground. Everywhere else the mountainous nature of the coast
vetoes the game. Lawn-tennis, however, is quite possible even where
steep slopes reach down to the sea. The race-course, too, has been
found a necessity for existence, and it has been provided. The casino
offers gambling and music and theatrical performances. But this is not
enough, there must be a theatre too. A Battle of Flowers is a relief
to the monotony of the days, and at Nice such an extravagance is
indulged during the Carnival, the climax of the season's manufactured
gaiety. Besides all this there are regattas, motor weeks,
pigeon-shootings, exhibitions of hydroplaning.... The list of
distractions is now so enormous that the visitor almost needs a visit
to one of the quiet spots beyond Genoa to rest before returning to the
gaieties of the season in Paris or London.
[Illustration: ST. MALO FROM ST. SERVAN.]
The English were the discoverers of the French Riviera from the
health-resort standpoint. They wrote books describing fine air and the
attractions of this wonderful coast, and the social distinction of
some of the writers assured an attentive audience. Lady Blessington
penned an account of her journey along the Riviera in 1823, which
reveals a condition of things as far removed from the luxury of to-day
as are the shores of Patagonia. To journey from Nice to Florence was
then more or less an adventure. "The usual route by land," she writes,
"is over the Col di Tenda, and via Turin, but this being impracticable
owing to the snow, and as we had a strong objection to a voyage in a
_felucca_, we determined to proceed to Genoa by the route of the
Cornice, which admits of but two modes of conveyance, a _chaise a
porteurs_, or on horseback, or rather on muleback." The Lady
Blessingtons of to-day travel on an excellently engineered and, for
the most part, a dust-free road, in the luxurious ease provided by the
builders of the modern motor-car _de luxe_. The six-cylindered engine
purrs so softly that the sound of the waves on the rocks beneath the
road is not lost, and even the faint smell of petrol is overcome by
the exquisite productions of Roget et Cie.
Hyeres stands quite apart from the long chain of fashionable resorts.
It is a picturesque old town separated from the sea by two or three
miles of salt marshes, and only ranks as a watering-place on account
of the proximity of Costebelle, where modern hotels perched
picturesquely on the wooded hills known as the Montagnes des Oiseaux
look across the Iles d'Or to the beautiful Maure Mountains. The
villages perched on the face of the cliffs, and those standing on the
intervals of alluvial shore along the coast of Les Maures, are typical
of the whole Riviera before the leisured and wealthy classes of the
western nations began to make their annual incursions. East of the
valley at whose mouth stands Frejus, dozing in the midst of its
eye-filling evidences of importance in Roman times, is St. Raphael,
with its hotel quarter known as Valescure, high among the pines on the
first slopes of the densely wooded Esterel Mountains. Healthfulness is
still the main attraction here; but those who do not thirst for
distracting gaiety love the sweet-smelling solitudes and the bays
where the porphyry rocks, purple-red as the name implies, are overhung
by masses of dark pines, and bathed by waters that reflect sky, trees,
and rocks in a wonderful confusion of strong colour, reminiscent of
bays on the south Cornish coast. Hotels have appeared near the larger
villages on the littoral of the Esterels, but Nature is still free
down to the splashing waves, and it is only when Cannes is reached
that one is in the real Riviera atmosphere.
The first view of the sweeping coast-line between Cannes and the
confines of Italy that suddenly unfolds itself as one goes eastwards
on the coast road is one of surpassing loveliness, provided that the
weather lives up to its honestly-earned reputation. A great sweep of
sea of an exquisite, a tender, a most lovely blue fills half the
scene. It is perhaps shaded here and there by clouds, and their
shadows turn the blue to amethyst. There is a fringe of white along
the low sandy shores of the Gulf of La Napoule. Farther off the coast
becomes steep and clothed with a mantle of dark green foliage,
speckled along its lower margin with creamy-white villas, while
higher, the horizon is serrated with snow-capped peaks. As the coast
recedes it becomes more lofty, the mountains coming to bathe their
feet in the blue sea. There are islands and promontories faintly
visible in the soft opalescent haze. Such is the first impression one
obtains of a fairyland coast-line, which owing to various
circumstances had to be discovered to the French people by foreigners.
With their inherited instinct towards roving the British have not
even been able to keep to their own land when merely taking a little
seaside holiday.
[Illustration: MONTE CARLO AND MONACO FROM THE EAST.]
It might be said of the French that, apart from their dozen or more
seaports, they were until recently in a state of comparative ignorance
as to the nature of the wonderful coast-line of their country. It was
only recently that any considerable proportion of the great French
middle-class population acquired the habit of taking an annual holiday
by the sea. The expense of such a migration is a big item in a small
budget, and when undertaken it is the need for economy which makes the
housekeeper prefer to take a house wherein she can provide for her own
_menage_, and avoid giving a landlady a living at her expense.
At first the seaside visits were of a very adventurous character, and
little wooden chalets of a very temporary character were run up. They
were placed in a most haphazard fashion where land was available.
Gardens were not cultivated; and even when quite a number of these
meretricious little seaside homes had gathered together at one spot,
there was no attempt to produce the features regarded by the English
as essentials. Instead of the pier with its concert-room raised above
the waves on barnacle-swollen iron pillars, the French build a casino.
In it all forms of evening amusement are concentrated, and all the
holiday life is to be found there after sunset. The esplanade, that
most tiresome feature of all English seaside resorts, is only built
when the place has become so matured that it begins to yearn for
smartness. Possibly foreigners are the main cause of the promenade. On
the Riviera, where it has been the aim of the municipalities and the
hotel proprietors to study the habits of _les Anglais_, the esplanade
is to be found at every resort, and it is probably only the
overwhelming expense due to the precipitous nature of a very
considerable proportion of the coast that has saved the Riviera from
becoming one continuous promenade from Cannes to Mentone. Even if this
were ever accomplished the irregularities of the coast are so
pronounced that there would be few opportunities for those who
abominate the sea-front of the Brighton type to complain. At Cannes
the isolated mass of rock crowned by the picturesque "old town"
effectually cuts the frontage to the sea in two, and at Nice the
tabular rock in whose shadow ancient Nice grew, forms an abrupt
termination to the eastward end of the parade, the central portion of
which is called the Promenade des Anglais, and there is situated a
jetty to satisfy the tastes of the same patrons of "Paris by the Sea."
Villefranche does not give any opportunity for producing sterile
perspectives on account of the deep and narrow bay formed by the Cap
du Mont Boron and the St. Jean peninsula. Beaulieu is little more than
a fortuitous concourse of villas and hotels, and the only level ground
is that occupied by the Corniche road.
[Illustration: MONT ST. MICHEL AT HIGH TIDE.]
The promontory of Monaco is entirely precipitous, but gardens on its
outward side give shady walks and charming peeps of the distant coast.
One side of the bay of Monaco is formed by the curving northern face
of the tabular projection, and facing it are the creamy-white terraces
of Monte Carlo, rising up to the blocks of equally brilliant
red-roofed buildings terminating in the world-famed Casino, which
stands at the apex of a small projection of the rocky shelf. The
architecture of the Casino is of the commonplace "exhibition" type,
and the gardens surrounding it support the parallel. Only the
determination of man could have made the precipitous slopes of the
mountainous sea-front produce lawns and flowers and shady trees, for
the heat of summer would destroy all but the hardiest forms of
vegetation, unless artificial aids were employed. The colour of Monte
Carlo is intensely brilliant on account of the immense reflecting
surface of pinkish limestone rock that towers up some 1300 feet from
the sea, and makes the place quite unique among watering-places.
Strictly speaking one hardly has any right to include it in a
description of French watering-places, for Monaco is an independent
principality, and its area includes Monte Carlo and the intervening
township of Condamine, which is packed in between the gaming
metropolis and the _col_ that separates Monaco's peninsula from the
mainland.
Until 1856 the principality had no gambling halls, and it was not
until 1858 that the Prince of Monaco laid the foundation stone of the
existing Casino, the gaming-tables having been first set up within the
walls of the old town. In a few years the annual income from the
Casino ran up to L1,000,000, a sum of L50,000 being the Prince's
share. So by playing down to the widespread instinct for gambling, one
of the most unprofitable patches of coast has become in proportion to
its area the most revenue-producing in the whole world. It is a
melancholy reflection that one of the most perfect spots on the
Mediterranean for enjoying all the warmth of the winter sun should be
so fatally contaminated by a cosmopolitan crowd of ne'er-do-weels of
every grade of society. One sees all the world at Monte Carlo, for no
one who passes along the Riviera can quite resist the desire to have a
peep at a place of such notoriety. And so many come to Monte Carlo for
this selfsame purpose that the real habitues, the professionals and
the "last-hopers," are rather lost sight of in the crowd of quite
irreproachable people who half fill the concert-hall, and drift
through the gaming-rooms throwing a few five-franc pieces on to the
roulette tables "just to see what happens," or to experience the very
edge of the strange fascination which leads men and women to fling
away a competency in a fevered desire for wealth.
The two superimposed roads between Nice and Mentone known as the Upper
and the Lower Corniche, are both laboriously engineered highways,
possessing almost unrivalled charms. On the lower road there used to
be a most serious disadvantage to the enjoyment of the scenery in the
choking clouds of dust raised by every passing vehicle. Motor-cars
used to throw up such a smother of dust that it did not settle for
some minutes, and in the interval fresh clouds would be produced. Tar
has at last been brought to rescue the charms of the Lower Corniche
from being completely destroyed. Trams grind and scream as they follow
the constant curves of the road, and their presence robs it of any
sense of repose. It is therefore more possible to enjoy the changing
panorama of bay, cliff, and promontory, of brilliantly coloured waves
in shadow and in sunshine from a seat in a car than on foot. An
automobile, unless driven very slowly, is tiresome and tantalizing in
such scenery. One can only compare the sensation of being flung
through beautiful surroundings of this character at 30 miles an hour
to being obliged to go through the galleries of the Louvre at a trot.
On the Upper Corniche the traffic is light, there are no trams, and
dust is scarcely noticeable. The scenery is altogether on a greater
scale. At certain spots one commands nearly the whole of the French
Riviera at once. The sea is far below, and its nearer shores are
almost invariably hidden. Whoever passes one on this lofty highway is
fairly sure to have come there for pleasure, business taking few
along the high "cornice." Energetic folk from all the resorts within
reach are to be found climbing up the steep zig-zag pathways to this
splendid vantage-ground. Frenchmen in clothes suited for _le sport_ or
perhaps wearing the dark city type of jacket suit which so many adhere
to even when holiday-making, Germans thoughtfully carrying their red
Baedekers with them, and Englishmen of the retired military officer or
I.S.O. type are all to be found enjoying or "doing" the Upper Corniche
in the various manners of their widely differing temperaments. At La
Turbie, where the remains of the huge monument to Caesar Augustus, the
conquering emperor, still bulk prominently in the midst of the
village, there is a funicular railway connecting the upper and lower
roads, bringing the splendid air and scenery of the heights within
reach of the infirm or the merely slack types of visitors.
The long winding descent from La Turbie to Mentone brings the two
roads together opposite Cap Martin, a promontory densely grown with
old and gnarled olives and masses of dark pines that come down to the
water's edge. From beneath their shade one can look across the blue
waves breaking into white along the curving shore to Mentone's villas
and hotels overtopped by its old town on a spur of the mountain slopes
that rise sharply just behind. Although built at the mouth of two
torrents, Mentone is sheltered by an imposing amphitheatre of lofty
mountains, which very effectually screen it from the treacherous
mistral, and it is this fact which has made it the most popular place
for invalids on the whole of _la Cote d'Azur_. It is fortunate in
having been spared the inflictions of overpowering perspectives of the
Nice or Brighton order, and one can sit close to the shore under the
shade of great eucalyptus trees free from the glare and the traffic of
a big sea-front roadway of the stereotyped British pattern.
The eastern extension of Mentone, known as Garavan, is within a few
minutes' walk of the Italian frontier, where the sea-coast resorts
become more brightly coloured and have more architectural interest in
their old quarters, the Ligurian type of compactly built walled town
being scarcely recognisable in what remains of old Mentone.
Not only is the Riviera a land of winter sunshine, it is also one of
the most sweetly-scented coasts in the world. The delicious fragrance
of the lemon and the orange, when those trees are in blossom, is
often Nature's final lavish filling up of the cup of enjoyment to
overflowing. And in the spring, when the northern sea-coast resorts
are shivering before the icy winds that sweep down the Channel, this
favoured coast has nasturtiums and other flowers that England does not
see until late in summer, in their fullest blossom. France is indeed
fortunate in its Mediterranean shore, of which Plato must have been
thinking when he wrote:
There the whole earth is made up of colours brighter far and
clearer than ours; there is a purple of wonderful lustre, also
the radiance of gold, and the white which is in the earth is
whiter than any chalk or snow.
Among the watering-places on the Channel the twin towns of Deauville
and Trouville, separated only by the river Toques, are pre-eminent
among the wealthiest and most fashionable of Parisians. Trouville has
a longer season, but it is altogether outshone by its neighbour during
the fortnight of the races in August, and during the quieter weeks of
its season Deauville probably boasts more leaders of fashionable
French society than any other coast resort. It is popularly believed
that during the season one cannot smell the salt air off the sea at
either of these places on account of the scent used by its expensive
visitors. This is more or less true of Etretat also, and possibly of
Biarritz too, and no one who dreams of careless attire should come
near these places during the season.
Both places possess splendid stretches of sand, and therefore bathing
is safe, and one of the greatest attractions to visitors. The casinos
are well adapted to the demands made upon them, and the villas
include, among the various more temporary old-fashioned types, many
that are quite charming.
Westward from Deauville is pretty little Cabourg, just beyond the
mouth of the River Dive, where William the Norman assembled his army
for the invasion of England. Here also the beach is of excellent sand,
extending for four miles. The casino is, of course, a prominent
feature, and there is a broad terrace, not far short of a mile in
length, raised above the beach. Between Cabourg and the mouth of the
Orne one finds one of those embryo seaside places that are typical of
the haphazard fashion in which French watering-places grow. It bears
the curious name of Le Home-sur-Mer, and in its present stage of
development is little more than a railway-station and a collection of
widely scattered and hurriedly-built villas, dumped anywhere along a
sandy ridge.
After Deauville the seaside resort most patronised by the opulent is
Etretat. It has none of the advantages of a sandy shore, and bathing
from the steep shingly beach is often so dangerous that the
authorities insist on securing intrepid bathers by rope around the
waist. Good swimmers enjoy the depth of water to be found close to the
shore, and have no fear of a buffeting by big rollers; but to the weak
or timid the conditions are often forbidding, and on such days there
are more early arrivals than usual at the first tee on the
golf-course.
From the point of view of scenery Etretat holds a high position, its
bold chalk cliffs adding enormously to the picturesqueness of the
coast. Erosion produces very curious effects in the chalk, boring vast
cavities with wonderfully domed roofs, and leaving natural arches and
projecting ribs that sometimes suggest the colossal legs of a white
elephant. The arch springing from the central projection of the
cliffs, known as the Porte d'Aval, is approachable from the east at
low tide, and a nearer view can be obtained of an isolated pillar
called the Aiguille d'Etretat.
There are lofty cliffs at Fecamp and a curving bay, with a casino in
the centre and the mouth of the Fecamp River to the east; but it
cannot claim to be so much the resort of fashion as its western
neighbour. The town has a busy port and all the picturesqueness
contributed by the fishing-boats that go to the cod or herring
fisheries. There is, as well, the abbey church and the Benedictine
distillery with its interesting museum, but such features do not
attract many holiday-makers, who are looking for amusement of the
entirely social order.
St. Valery-en-Caux has a beach made up of both sand and shingle, the
upper portion of the bathing-ground being exceedingly stony. On the
lower level children bathe in safety, and the joy of shrimping is
indulged in by visitors of all ages.
A little to the east is Veules, where the cliffs are low and of rather
loose earth, and the beach is not ideal for bathing. It is popular
with the people of Rouen, being conveniently placed and inexpensive.
The shrimp here too offers a fund of excitement to the families who
are usually content with the most simple of amusements, provided
they can drop into the casino after dinner.
[Illustration: THE VEGETABLE MARKET, NICE.]
Dieppe, owing to its connection with England by the Newhaven steamers,
is popular among English visitors, who can run over for a day or two
with the minimum of trouble and expense. The broad sunny Plage, the
casino to which one is free all day on payment of three francs, and
the Etablissement des Bains keep the place very full of life and
gaiety throughout the season; but one does not expect to find there
the people who may be seen at Etretat or Deauville. Possessing a busy
and not unpicturesque port, an historic fifteenth-century _chateau_,
and a beautiful Gothic church, it is surprising to find the sea-front
so entirely suggestive of one of the newly developed resorts. To the
north-east is Treport, an interesting and picturesque little coast
town, with the usual requirements for bathing and summer visitors.
Along the top of the great bank of shingle are the dressing-sheds,
with wooden steps at intervals leading down to the beach. Those who
have any interest in history find the proximity of the famous old town
of Eu a great attraction, but golf acts with such magnetic force over
the average Anglo-Saxon that such considerations do not often weigh
in the choice of a holiday resort. The French have only lately begun
to know the joys and the profound dejections of golf; it is not yet a
necessary adjunct to a seaside resort. Where there are golf-courses it
is mainly British capital that brings them on to the sand-dunes. Le
Touquet is very cosmopolitan, but it could hardly exist a month
without its English patrons. It is one of those places which come into
existence with the wave of the capitalist's wand. He says, in effect,
"Let us make on this waste an ideal health resort, let us erect
hotels, casinos, theatres, and to these add golf-courses, croquet
lawns, lawn-tennis courts, and polo grounds; we will have rides
through the forest and bathing facilities on this shore, and we will
advertise until the whole world knows that we have made this place."
And, having spoken, everything desired straightway comes to pass, so
that one reads on a leaflet concerning this newly arrived resort such
items as these:--
10 hotels. 2 golf-courses.
2 casinos. 3 croquet lawns.
2 theatres. 17 lawn-tennis courts.
10 miles of forest rides. 3 miles of sandy beach.
A polo ground. Drag-hounds.
Paris Plage is the newly-built town, brought into existence through
the needs and attractions of Le Touquet, Etaples being a little too
far away to answer this purpose.
Farther north is Boulogne, with its own casino and promenade and its
village resorts, such as Hardelot, close at hand. So numerous, indeed,
are the bathing-places of this type that it would be tiresome to even
attempt a list of them all, but they all have their own
devotees--French, English, and American--and any little villa along
the coast of Normandy or Picardy may during the hot months be the
temporary home of men and women whose names are household words on
either side of the Channel.
Brittany is farther away from Paris and from England, and its charms
are only beginning to be appreciated. With the exception of Dinard,
there is no place that is expensive or smart in any sense. Some of the
villages on the long and deeply indented coast-line have at least one
good hotel, and if one is content with what the sea will provide in
the way of amusement, the happiest of holidays may be spent there.
Bathing, sailing, fishing, sketching, walking, exploring quaint
villages, and seeing the curious social customs that still live in
this very Celtic corner of France, fill up endless days, and only
those to whom none of these things appeal can be dull, provided the
weather is tolerably fine.
Biarritz, down at the southern extremity of the French Atlantic coast,
in the innermost corner of the Bay of Biscay, with its neighbour St.
Jean de Luz, are far away from the two great groups of coast resorts.
The first was popularised among both French and English on account of
the frequent visits paid to it by King Edward VII. It was understood
when _Le Roi Edouard_ came to Biarritz that no one was to take any
notice whatsoever of his presence. Cameras were promptly confiscated
if any one attempted to snapshot the King or any of his friends, and
it was in this way possible for the sovereign who loved to step down
into the crowd, to forget the tedious functions of his office. After
Sunday morning service he would stroll along the promenade with one or
two friends in the most informal fashion, so that a chance British
visitor who did not dream that he might at any moment rub shoulders
with his sovereign would almost gasp with astonishment when he
suddenly discovered that he had actually done so!
[Illustration: THE PYRENEES FROM NEAR PAMIERS.]
Only at intervals does the sea give up its onslaught upon the rocks
that form the coast at Biarritz, and one of the charms of the place is
to be found in the magnificent displays given by the Atlantic.
Thundering waves rear themselves in great walls of green,
marble-veined with foam, which fling themselves in a chaos of white
upon the smooth, sandy shore of the Plage or the deeply indented
promontory which contains the fishing port. The town is very modern,
but is well built and extremely clean and pleasant in every way, the
new streets being full of good houses in gardens that are something
more than a patch of unmown grass.
Besides bathing, for which there are three _etablissements_, there is
golf and lawn-tennis, while the proximity of the Pyrenees gives
opportunity for motor drives in the midst of deep valleys, whose vast
slopes clothed with pine or box fall precipitously to torrential
rivers. The whole country, too, is rich in memories of Wellington's
successful completion of the Peninsular War. St. Jean de Luz was for a
time his headquarters, the house he occupied being still in existence.
Nearly all who stay at Biarritz go on to Pau, the inland winter resort
close to, but not within the actual embrace of the Pyrenees. English
people visit both places mainly in the winter and spring. They make
the season at those times, while French and Spanish visitors flood
thither in the summer, putting up prices at that period of the year to
a height not reached during the zenith of the English season. Almost
every form of sport and open-air exercise can be enjoyed at Pau, and
foxhounds meet regularly throughout the winter. The town is
magnificently placed on the north side of the Gave de Pau, and the
view it commands of the snowy range of peaks, with the deep and
picturesque valleys leading up to them, is one of the finest
possessions of this character to be found in any town of France.
[Illustration: THE GALERIE DES GLACES AT VERSAILLES.]