The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable RuinsAllen, Grant
History
The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins
Allen, Grant
Europe, Southern -- Description and travel; Mediterranean Region -- Description and travel
The Rue d'Antibes is the principal shopping street of the newer and richer
Cannes. If we follow it out into the country by its straight French
boulevard it leads us at last to the funny old border city from which it
still takes its unpretending name. Antibes itself belongs to that very
first crop of civilized Provençal towns which owe their origin to the
sturdy old Phocæan colonists. It is a Greek city by descent, the Antipolis
which faced and defended the harbor of Nicæa; and for picturesqueness and
beauty it has not its equal on the whole picturesque and beautiful
Riviera. Everybody who has travelled by the "Paris, Lyon, Méditerranée"
knows well the exquisite view of the mole and harbor as seen in passing
from the railway. But that charming glimpse, quaint and varied as it is,
gives by no means a full idea of the ancient Phocæan city. The town stands
still surrounded by its bristling fortification, the work of Vauban,
pierced by narrow gates in their thickness, and topped with noble
ramparts. The Fort Carré that crowns the seaward promontory, the rocky
islets, and the two stone breakwaters of the port (a small-scale Genoa),
all add to the striking effect of the situation and prospect. Within, the
place is as quaint and curious as without: a labyrinth of narrow streets,
poor in memorials of Antipolis, but rich in Roman remains, including that
famous and pathetic inscription to the boy Septentrio, QVI ANTIPOLI IN
THEATRO BIDVO SALTAVIT ET PLACVIT. The last three words borrowed from this
provincial tombstone, have become proverbial of the short-lived glory of
the actor's art.
The general aspect of Antibes town, however, is at present mediæval, or
even seventeenth century. A flavor as of Louis Quatorz pervades the whole
city, with its obtrusive military air of a border fortress; for, of
course, while the Var still formed the frontier between France and Italy,
Antibes ranked necessarily as a strategic post of immense importance; and
at the present day, in our new recrudescence of military barbarism, great
barracks surround the fortifications with fresh white-washed walls, and
the "Hun! Deusse!" of the noisy French drill-sergeant resounds all day
long from the exercise-ground by the railway station. Antibes itself is
therefore by no means a place to stop at; it is the Cap d'Antibes close
by that attracts now every year an increasing influx of peaceful and
cultivated visitors. The walks and drives are charming; the pine-woods,
carpeted with wild anemones, are a dream of delight; and the view from the
Lighthouse Hill behind the town is one of the loveliest and most varied on
the whole round Mediterranean.
But I must not linger here over the beauties of the Cap d'Antibes, but
must be pushing onwards towards Monaco and Monte Carlo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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