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Published: April 17th 2017
Yeah, I know you've seen it already!
Front balcony, just for completenessEaster Monday, and this town has shut down! And we thought Easter Sunday would be quiet. Ha!
And, since everyone else in town seems to be enjoying the comforts of home, I thought I would take this opportunity to show you our little corner of the Bay of Angels.
The Promenade des Anglais, directly in front of us, has such moderate traffic that there is room for cares to get out of the way of emergency vehicles with their sirens on! Usually, this is a two or three minute procedure with much honking and waving and running of red light to find a spot to pull over. Not today.
The beach and the walkway behind it are thronged with pedestrians but this is clearly an undeclared holiday. Everything I read on the web, official and unofficial, said that while Easter Sunday may be observed (with the implication that only a few religious fanatics would do such a thing), Good Friday was not a holiday. Easter Monday was not even mentioned.
But there is an intersection of two longstanding traditions which has pretty much shut the place down. "One" is that, outside Paris, Mondays were traditionally the "other"
Looking down from front balcony
Bird of paradise bush in bloom in the garden adjacent. Those flowers would cost you a fortune at home! day off for businesses. (Even in Paris, museums remain open on the weekends but close on either Monday or, less often, on Tuesday. ) "Two" is the French custom of making any weekend into an extra long weekend whenever possible. The French phrase for it is "de faire la pont," or to "make a bridge" between said holiday and the nearby weekend. Usually this happens when one of the few officially recognised holidays, Bastille day for example, falls on a Thursday. Sort of by mutual consent, Friday gets tossed into the mix et voila! More days off.
So most of the restaurants, except those along the beach, were closed, as were many retail businesses. Five blocks inland the streets were deserted. We were looking for a pharmacy to buy some ibuprofen - you can only get it in a pharmacy although it is sold over the counter. Pharmacies in France advertise themselves with bright green flashing crosses, visible for blocks. And it sometimes seems like there is one on every block. But today, nothing doing. We even ventured towards one which had one of those scrolling digital signboards above the window, announcing in print two feet high that this
pharmacy was always open on Monday from 8 a.m.until midnight.
Just not this Monday. Metal shutters pulled down, other lights turned off, nobody home. But still the sign proudly announcing their availability. Ah, quaint local customs.
Reminds of the time we spent around Lille in northwest France. We were driving back and forth across the Belgian border to see World War One battle sites when I noticed we were low on gas. I also saw that the French rural gas stations we passed were all closed. I figured we had better head for the nearest larger town which happened to be in Belgium. Two minutes across the Belgian border we found an open service station in a tiny little village.
Turns out France closes on Monday, Belgium on Tuesday. Good to know if you're in part of that world!
We took Kelly off to the airport this morning and said goodbye to her after a wonderful visit. Okay, so what to do now?
It's another perfect day, the sun is streaming in, the ocean is five different shades of blue, and Susan has another Nero Wolfe book she wants to reread. Also we have laundry
to do. Right. How about a little lunch, a little wine and a little reading on the balcony while the washing maching does its thing?
Perfect for us. A little dull for those of you who like pictures, however. In some small measure of compensation, I offer a visual tour of the apartment.
It has been the perfect place for this vacation.
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