AMB Cote d'Azur

It’s not all ‘Beer & Skittles’ – or rather, ‘Vin et Pétanque’, living in the south of France.  It's Summertime with a capital S and frankly, the living is not so easy.  There are long queues at the supermarkets, even longer on the roads and worse still at the tiny village boulangerie.  You can’t park, you can’t find a square centimetre on the beach, you despair of ever, ever being served, the post-mistress goes on strike, you start to sweat and you long for a cool, breezy spring day.  You drink gallons and you still want more, you forget you now have to make a reservation at your local restaurant and you gaze with astonishment, bordering on dismay, at the hordes, nay busloads of tourists descending on your village, on your marketplace, on your beach.

But for all that, this region still holds its immense appeal and attraction no matter how frenetic the traffic, how noisy the restaurants and how hot it gets.  The south of France has it all – whatever the season.  The reasons?  It’s beautiful.  It’s stylish.  It’s both chic and charming.  The weather is fantastic, the scenery breathtaking.  People smile – even policemen, rushed waiters and frustrated lorry drivers.  There are pavement cafes and street artists, jazz festivals and medieval hill villages, beaches and islands, hills and forests, snazzy shops and smart restaurants.  There are hidden coves and picturesque harbours, forts and ports, chateaux and vineyards.  There is sailing and kite-surfing, hiking and cycling, swimming and roller-blading.  And sunbathing.  And drinking wine.

So what, if summer-time radios and televisions compete from behind upstairs shutters that are silent the rest of the year?  So what, if footballs thud against old stone walls and strange voices in strange languages are to be heard at two in the morning?  It all adds to the ‘atmosphere’ – the very essence of summertime in the south of France.  The sounds of weary travellers wheeling their suitcases across the cobbles, the practice forest-fire alarms, the return of late-night lovers from the beach, street-cleaners, motor-bikes, delivery vans, cicadas, the evening cacophony of hair-dryers and music, the clattering of pans and the popping of corks.  It’s wonderful, it really is.

Friends from back home with school-age children want to visit you and, way back in February, over a glass of wine too many, you said ‘Yes, of course – what, only a week? Why not make it two – or even three??!!’  So your friends booked their cheap flights, you put it in the diary and, suddenly, summer’s already here and you’ve become a tour-guide all over again.  And that’s wonderful too – your chance to share and to show, to translate and to explain and to enjoy familiar company during golden, mellow evenings.

So what, if it’s hot and your body swells. Forget the make-up, forget the hair.  Who else cares (but you) that you are not a stylish and sophisticated Frenchwoman, be it on the beach, in town or just ‘chez-vous’.  Those little flabby white bits are just fine, so relax and enjoy the fact that you are able to expose them in the first place.  It’s the south of France – you can go topless and/ or bottomless.  You can drive in your underwear so long as you don’t need to fill up with petrol.  It’s all part of the fun – people-watching.  And golly, there are plenty of them.  There are British and Austrians, Germans and Swiss, Americans and Australians.  There are French from the Dordogne, the Ardeche and the Savoie. You get savvy with out-of-town number-plates and nod knowingly when your neighbour refers despairingly to the ‘soixantes-quinzes’ – the Parisians ‘en vacances’ with their 75 plates.  Streams of earnest holiday-makers, maps clutched fiercely to bosoms on this or that historic walking tour, peer through private windows and exclaim with surprise that – ooh, look - someone lives there!  You get used to being photographed as you make supper and you even smile back and pose a little.

You try to escape to the hills and forests for the day to cool down and to avoid the crowded coastline but the Pompiers politely turn you round – your route is ‘barrée et interdit aujourd’hui’ with too great a risk of forest-fires.  It’s a battle of wits against the SatNav system (even if it is ‘Sexy Jacques’) as you try this or that alternative D-road to return home.  Tempers, temperatures and car-engines get a little heated and you swear that, never again, will you venture out in July or August.  And then, come evening and you are sitting on a shady terrace, surrounded by vines and figs, by flowers and pots of herbs and sipping a cool, cool glass of rose wine – you have fallen in love with the south of France all over again.

Summer in the south of France extends your life. You wake early and you go to bed late. You have an early morning swim and eat breakfast outdoors with warm, fresh bread, good coffee and ripe local fruits.  Morning chores are almost a pleasure as you feel the warmth of the day and bathe in the golden light.  Washing dries in minutes in the baking heat of the courtyard and you reflect that women have been doing similar for centuries. Each and every day is twice as long, thanks to the ingenious invention of the lengthy lunch and the afternoon ‘rest’.  Let there be no mistake about it – lunch in France is sacrosanct.  You will see road-workers down tools at 12.30, put up their sunshade, spread a table-cloth over an old plastic table, tuck in their napkins and begin to dine – for two hours and in the central reservation of a dual-carriageway.  But they’re right – lunch is necessary, social, relaxing, enjoyable, bonding and very, very French.  Frustrating it may be if you’re used to lunchtime shopping or just want to have a quick sandwich at the computer – this is France and they are very, very good at having lunch.  And anyway, what more heavenly thing to do then pack a proper picnic lunch, complete with hampers and rugs on which you lie under gnarled olive trees and gaze at the sky on a hot summer’s day?

Summer here even smells different with crepes and cigars, sun-cream and barbecues, coffee, croissants, fish, beer, the sea, pine-trees - the air heady with perfumes from flowers and overdressed women.  The sun is a ‘fixture and fitting’, the air hot and still, the sea limp and milky.  Cats sleep in the shade and don’t appear again until dark.  Your eyes hurt with the depth of colour - violet sky, azur sea and the vivid purples and reds of hibiscus, oleander, plumbago and bourganvillea.  You need sunglasses, you really do.    

As night falls to perfect temperatures, people stroll and choose their restaurant.  Pretty, atmospheric little eating spots with tables outside and mouth-watering smells coming from within.  Tiny white lights are lit in the trees; there is music and the sound of cicadas everywhere.  The shops come alive again and there may be an open-air craft market or concert in the square.  There are late-night outdoor films in the park – sad, black and white weepies where you sniffle into your handkerchief and hope nobody’s watching.  There are fireworks, impromptu dances and comedy-shows.  Then, as you lie awake in the wee small hours counting the church-bells, you hear the sound of night-owls calling to each other in the hot, still darkness and you think how wonderful it is to be in the south of France in the summertime.