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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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