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
lose. And as the world is wider now than ever, the new Marseilles is
perforce a greater and a wealthier town than even the old one in its
proudest days. Where tribute came once from the North African, Levantine,
and Italian coasts alone, it comes now from every shore of Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America, with Australia and the Pacific Isles thrown in as an
afterthought. Regions Cæsar never knew enrich the good Greeks of the Quai
de la Fraternité: brown, black, and yellow men whom his legions never saw
send tea and silk, cotton, corn, and tobacco to the crowded warehouses of
the Cannebière and the Rue de la République.
VI
NICE
The Queen of the Riviera--The Port of Limpia--Castle Hill--Promenade
des Anglais--The Carnival and Battle of Flowers--Place Masséna, the
center of business--Beauty of the suburbs--The road to Monte
Carlo--The quaintly picturesque town of Villefranche--Aspects of Nice
and its environs.
Who loves not Nice, knows it not. Who knows it, loves it. I admit it is
windy, dusty, gusty. I allow it is meretricious, fashionable, vulgar. I
grant its Carnival is a noisy orgy, its Promenade a meeting place for all
the wealthiest idlers of Europe or America, and its clubs more desperate
than Monte Carlo itself in their excessive devotion to games of hazard.
And yet, with all its faults, I love it still. Yes, deliberately love it;
for nothing that man has done or may ever do to mar its native beauty can
possibly deface that beauty itself as God made it. Nay, more, just because
it is Nice, we can readily pardon it these obvious faults and minor
blemishes. The Queen of the Riviera, with all her coquettish little airs
and graces, pleases none the less, like some proud and haughty girl in
court costume, partly by reason of that very finery of silks and feathers
which we half-heartedly deprecate. If she were not herself, she would be
other than she is. Nice is Nice, and that is enough for us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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