On ne peut jamais revenir à Antibes
It’s a tired, cloudy day and I rest on the bus from Vallon-Pont-d’Arc to Avignon and then on the trains from Avignon to Marseille and Marseille to Antibes.
Marseille is not the ugly city I remembered passing through in 1988 on the way to the beach town of Cassis where I hiked the stunning, craggy Calanques of the coast with Marita and Sabine from Hanover, Deutschland. Stepping out of the train station, Marseille feels majestic. I suppose I hadn’t given it a chance. Chance dictates so much of what a place comes to mean to a person. Turn left and you end up in a city’s trash heaps. Turn right and you’re immersed in its magic and beauty. Or vice versa. It’s a coin toss.
It gets dark as the train speeds east.
It’s been 33 years since I stayed in Antibes for 3 weeks.
And 30 years since I learned that I could never come back again to Antibes. In just three years, I didn’t recognize anything except the thin, human, metal sculptures at the Picasso Museum.
On ne peut jamais revenir.
It’s night when the train arrives at Gare d’Antibes. It’s a ten minute walk to Hôtel La Place, a tiny little hotel in Old Antibes that must have a story, but I never discovered it. The cost is 84,50 Euros per night including a huge buffet breakfast with many kinds of jams, juices, olives, breads, and eggs. Hôtel La Place is clean, quiet, and simple.
Walking in the morning, everything is fresh. The fresh fish smell of the sea. The fresh fruit sprinkling the tops of pastries on display in pâtisserie after pâtisserie. They look so good it crosses my mind that they should be illegal. I select one and it is wrapped so carefully in a little box with a ribbon you’d think it was a jewel rather than a pâtisserie.
Right next to l’Hôtel de Ville, there’s the Marché Provençal: an old-world, covered street market with spices of every imaginable rich color piled up into little hills, fruits, vegetables, jams, oils, cheeses, and so much seafood. The broad, triangled roof reminds me of the metal coverings over train stations and the light is very beautiful underneath. In front, there is a bust statue of Championnet who led a Republican army during the French Revolution.
I climb some stairs near the market to reach the wall overlooking the sea. To my left up the coast is Nice a world away. For hundreds of years, when Antibes was on the border of France, Nice was literally another land.
In the 5th century BC, Antibes was a Greek trading post called “Antipolis” and the Greeks named Nice “Nikaia.” Both towns became part of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC. Years of civil unrest and invasion followed the fall of the Roman Empire and “Antipolis” renamed itself “Antiboul.” French rule did not begin until the 14th century AD.
Good King René, also known as René of Anjou, a fascinating figure, a man of many crowns but no kingdoms, such a renaissance man that some consider him to be the true father of the Renaissance (René-essence), an alleged Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, who rode with Jeanne d’Arc as a young man, administrated the region of Provence at the end of his life. At that time, Antibes was the outermost stronghold of France. Nice across the border was part of the Duché de Savoie, the kingdom that included the place my ancestors came from near Thonon-les-Bains. Nice did not become part of France until 1860.
I walk along the wall over the sea to the stony building that houses the Picasso Museum. I remember that I preferred the photographs of the mysterious, deep-eyed artist to the work that he created. In 1946, Picasso was given a studio within that stony building, then the 14th century Château Grimaldi, built on the ruins of a Roman fort by the Grimaldi family from Genoa, Italy who became the ruling family of Monaco. Within two months, Picasso created 23 paintings and 44 drawings in his Château Grimaldi studio.
Near it, right next to the bell tower Tour Grimaldi, is the church, la Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Platea d’Antibes, tucked into the wall, its door facing toward the town rather than the sea with the fancy face of the Italian-style façade. There are intriguing varied levels of courtyard as I wind my way around to go inside. Yes, there it is. Jesus on the cross right at the center over the altar. It seems different, yet I wonder if it is the same face that reminded me of the conman I’d met in Paris thirty years ago. Possible.
The church was built in the 5th or 6th century on the site of a pagan temple. There is a legend that St. Paul was arrested there on a journey to Spain in 63 AD.
I walk along the coast in hope of finding the beaches we used to go to every day after morning French classes back in 1985. Was it Plage du Ponteil? There is no one sunbathing on this cool November day. Just a stray swimmer here and there. And the beach itself is unclean and filled with twigs and seaweed and debris.
At Plage du Ponteil, there is a little placard with an image of a painting Claude Monet made in 1888 called Antibes effet d’après midi (Antibes in the afternoon). The placard is shown from the same vantage point Monet painted on a day when there was snow on the mountains. The actual painting can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Monet’s idea of traveling was setting up his easel outdoors somewhere and creating the same scene at different times of day and year with different light.
Further along the coast to the south, Plage de la Salis might be where we’d go to the beach. There are even more beaches further down the peninsula called Cap d’Antibes with Juan-les-Pins across on the western shore.
F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed in what is now the hotel Belle-Rives in Juan-les-Pins at various times between 1925 and 1927 with his wife and daughter. Sequestered in this beautiful place, Fitzgerald wrote the first draft for Tender is the Night.
I remember that we visited Juan-les-Pins in 1985, but I don’t remember anything about it. Looking at my phone map, there is a long strip of sand further north of Antibes called Plage de la Fontonne. Perhaps this is more likely, but there are too many years and there is no way to know. The only thing I remember is the long walk from where we stayed, which could be anywhere, to where we had classes, and another long walk to the beach, a very, very broad stretch of sand that seemed to go forever.
I wonder where my French parents are now. Bernelin was their last name, or something close to that. We called them Mama and Papa because they liked the idea of being our French parents. We, a fellow high school French language student and I, stayed in their apartment in Antibes along with a girl from Austria for three and a half weeks in the summer of 1985. I returned in 1988 to learn that it wasn’t possible to return the way that I imagined. Places, buildings, other people, our own selves are in a constant state of change. Even our memories are distorted by time. There is an emptiness for me here. Antibes is a place where it feels like nothing remains.
For lunch, I find a restaurant called Chez Mô, a fish restaurant, Poissonnerie, so I order a traditional bouillabaisse. The little globes of the world on the tables are delightful.
After lunch, I put my feet in the water of the beach near the Fort Carré, or square fort, which is actually more of a star shape, built in the 16th century. Napoleon Bonaparte was once imprisoned there. I’m sure it must have been important in 1746 when Antibes endured the worst siege in its history for 57 days of bombs and firepots during the War of Austrian Succession.
On the slow walk back to the hotel, I find Antibea Theatre tucked into an ancient building with a poster out front indicating that they stay busy with theatrical shows of all kinds. Next time.
After a rest in the hotel, I have dinner at a little place I can see from my room window: Côté Terroir. The food is artistic and healthy.
Tomorrow, the adventure takes a new direction. I have a reservation to stay in a rooftop apartment for two weeks in Villefranche-sur-Mer. It will give me an opportunity to write every day, to work, to do laundry, to go to markets and explore streets, to have a tiny taste of living in a little French town. Perhaps sequestered in a beautiful place with different light I will be able to create something of merit.
Next Two Months in France: Arrivant sur le toit à Villefranche-sur-mer
This is #19 in a series of stories: Two Months in France. Follow the links below to read the other parts of the series starting with the first:
1. Santa Fe Depot Departure
2. Return to the Great Lady
3. Shakespeare and Company Bookstore
4. Paris Stroll
5. Paris – des heures exquises
6. Train to Thonon-les-Bains
7. Château de Ripaille
8. Getting up with the Birds: Lac Léman to Lyon to Lille
9. Navigating to Avignon
10. In the Walled City of Avignon
11. Inside the Rich Ochre of Roussillon
12. Up the Steep Calades to Gordes
13. Retraversant à Fontaine-de-Vaucluse
14. Diving Deep in the Closed Valley
15. Défense de marcher sur l’eau
16. Tout Seul in Carcassonne
17. Théâtre de Poche in Sète
18. Climbing into Vallon-Pont-d’Arc