Villefranche-sur-mer 2019 - 10 La Turbie

Dear Friends,

Last Thursday, we had another great adventure.  We visited La Turbie, a town built 2,000 years ago by the Romans honoring Emperor Augustus.  The adventure actually started several days earlier when we decided to make the trip and to rent an electric car to do so.

In prior years we had used Auto Bleue to rent an electric car in Villefranche.  It was a car sharing service.  The cars are parked in Villefranche at charging stations.  You go online to book them and then you return them to the same parking place.  When I went online to book a car through Auto Bleue, I discovered that Auto Bleue had morphed into Renault Mobility.  I had to sign up all over again.  Fortunately this time I did not need to go to Nice, I could do it all online.

The instructions were very detailed but all in French.  With the help of my dictionary I was able to follow them.  Fill out the form with basic personal info.  Take a picture of your drivers' license both sides and your passport and take a selfie showing your face and your identification (in my case my passport) and then upload these photos.  While the selfie sounded rather bizarre, I followed the directions successfully.  Then of course, they wanted my credit card information which I was also able to provide them.

Unfortunately they then wanted my cell phone number.  I was doing all of this on my computer and for reasons that to this day escape me there was no format in which it would accept my cell phone number.  I decided to try to do all of this on my cell phone through their app.  I filled out the form, uploaded all the photos, gave them my credit card information and by a miracle it took my cell phone number without any complaint.  I submitted all of this and was told Renault Mobility would respond soon.

When they responded, they rejected my application.  They claimed that there was less than one year remaining on my drivers' license.  They were wrong, but of course there was no way to tell them that and it probably would not have done any good anyway.  So I changed the date of issuance (in Minnesota the issuance date is just the month and year but the form wanted the day also so I put in a new day).  Then a miracle occurred, they accepted my application.

I could then book a car online which I did for Thursday.  We asked a couple of friends to go with us.  The acknowledged reason for going to La Turbie was to take a walk called Le Circuit de la Forna.  The books describe it as an easy 6.8 km walk with only a 220 m change in elevation.  La Turbie is already on the top of a hill overlooking Monaco so the walk promises fabulous views.  Of course once we were going to La Turbie I made a reservation for us to have lunch at Le Café de la Fontaine, a wonderful restaurant in La Turbie.

Thursday morning arrived and the four of us meet at the car.  I opened the Renault Mobility app on my phone and followed the instructions.  I was quickly able to unlock the car by sending a signal to Renault.  The next problem was to unplug the car from the charger.  This step proved more difficult as there were two cards with chips and buttons to push.  Eventually I found the right one to unlock the electric cord.  I was faster at getting the car started.  I was also pretty quick at getting the GPS set to direct us to La Turbie.

The final step was to raise the triangle thing that saved the parking spot for our return.  I told Jane to get out of the car to raise the triangle after I had moved forward.  Just as I moved forward the triangle two spots ahead went up automatically.  It was only then that I noticed that we were in spot 1 but the app said that the car was in spot 3.  It was the right car because it was the right license plate number and it opened as directed.  What could possibly go wrong with a system that automatically raises a triangle to save a spot because the car started to move.  As my french tutor commented, "C'est un système infallible, comme le Titanic."  It is an infallible system like the Titanic.  Anyway we were off.

We arrived in La Turbie easily and without incident.  We found a parking place.  A very nice policeman gave us directions to the start of the trail, and we were off. We found the trailhead just where the policeman told us it would be.

We began the ascent which was not to be more than 220 m.  Several times we felt like we had already increased our elevation by more than 220 m, but we kept on going up.  We did, however, begin to see the amazing views.  Here are the three lovely women with whom I had the pleasure of walking.  You can see the snowcapped mountains in the background.

They insisted that I should be in a picture too so here I am with Jane.

From this point the trail continued its steep climb but also changed to slippery loose rocks so we went very carefully.  We were well rewarded as we approached the summit.  Here is a view of La Turbie.  The tall structure is what is left of the huge Trophee d'Auguste which was originally 49 m high but the statue of Emperor Augustus is no longer there so it is just 35 m high.

At the summit there is nice grassy area with a bench and a 360 degree view that is spectacular.  This pano does not do it justice.

Even though we had not completed the entire circuit, we decided to descend the way that we had come up.  It was great that we did.  The rocks had dried a little and some of the early crocuses had opened up as the day warmed up.

Since we hadn't walked the whole circuit, we were early for our lunch reservation but that was not a problem as it was market day in La Turbie.  We didn't buy anything special but we did get some fresh green beans which have been in short supply this winter.  We then enjoyed a great lunch for a couple of hours at Le Café de la Fontaine.  If you are ever in La Turbie, I highly recommend it.  Here is the sole.

And here is the Paris-Brest.  For those who do not know Paris-Brest, it is named after the famous bicycle race Paris-Brest-Paris.  Traditionally it is made from choux paste and a praline flavored cream.  In honor of the bicycle race, the pasty is supposed to have a hole in the middle so that it looks like a bicycle wheel.  In this case, they eliminated the hole, but the taste was delicious.

We then walked around the old town which is very clean and quaint.

As we were walking back to our car, we got a great view of Monaco.

We drove back to Villefranche, were able to lower the triangle by pushing one of the buttons on the key and park the car.  We figured out how to plug the car back in.  But the app would not let me end the rental because we had not put the right chips in the right slots.  There were two slots and two chips so we had quite a few combinations of front, back, side, side, slot, slot.  After I failed several times, Jane got it right on her first try.  The app agreed that the rental was completed.  There was just one more surprise.  When I reserved the car, the app said that the rental was going to be about 46 euros.  Either as a result of their desire to keep the true cost from me or my bad french, the actual cost was 90 euros.  We will not be using this car sharing service as often as I had thought.

We had a great day - learning how to do the car, seeing incredible views on our walk, eating a delicious meal, but most of all enjoying a beautiful day with great friends.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Villefranche-sur-mer 2019 - 9 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Pétanque, Saint-Jeannet

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, the women in the group of people we know here in Villefranche organized a lunch for themselves.  They ate lunch for three hours at La Corderie, a great restaurant at the Darse of Villefranche.  The Darse is the working marina in Villefranche.

Not to be out done, the men organized a pétanque game in Saint-Paul-de-Vence followed by lunch and sightseeing in Saint-Jeannet.

Saint-Paul-de-Vence is a wonderful medieval city perched on a hilltop as they all seem to be.  It is well known for all the artists that hung out there.  Just before you reach the gates to the old city, you pass a hotel/restaurant called La Colombe d'Or.  It is quite famous.  The same family has owned it for years.  In the era of Matisse, many artists ate and drank there and since many could not pay their bills, they would give the owners paintings.  As a result, the restaurant has an incredible collection of art which is nearly matched by the amazing view.  While many people say that the food is not worth the price, there are many who say that the entire experience is.  I have never been to La Columbe d'Or. But La Colombe d'Or has nothing to do with this post.

Across the small street from La Colombe d'Or is the Café de la Place and surrounding the café is an area where one can play pétanque.  In fact many famous people and many great pétanque players have played there.  In our group none of us is famous nor a particularly good pétanque player.  Nevertheless we persisted.

Many of the tourists thinking we must be special to play there took our pictures.  Of course we also had the usual discussions about whose boule was closer to the cochonnet.

After a heated game of pétanque, we drove to Saint-Jeannet where we had lunch at a local café.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day, and as you can see from the next picture the view was also spectacular.  This was our view from our table.

We then went up the hill to the old town which was very quaint.

One of our group has a home in the old town which was very nice, but the most amazing thing about it was the rooftop porch.  Here is one of the views.

After relaxing with some champagne on the rooftop porch, we drove back to Villefranche.  What a wonderful day we had.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal