Biot but not Antibes

Thursday, September 18

I mentioned to Jim that I wanted to take it really easy on Friday, staying at the resort and getting in a last swim (I really miss our Bristol swimming pool!) so we decided to go to Biot and Antibes on Thursday, for our last excursion day. We had seen the signs about the tunnel to and from the A8 being possibly closed on Saturday, so we decided to go to Nice by way of the 6007 road – the Moyen Corniche again. It was definitely more scenic than the A8 – that Mediterranean on our left as we drove West. We also saw signs for the village of Eze, with some signs for perfumeries. I had been on the lookout for Casmir perfume for my friend Catherine and was excited to think that maybe I’d find some for her in Eze. Jim and I decided we’d go to Eze on Friday, along with the swimming plans.

By the way, every time we drove by the sign that warned us that the tunnel would be closed overnight except for the weekend, we couldn’t quite decide whether it meant that included 5am-ish on Saturday morning – when we figured we’d need to be on the road for our return to the airport. I’ll keep you in suspense about what we ended up doing …

The drive west was just gorgeous. Our weather had been especially spectacular the second week – less humid than when we first arrived, sunny for the most part, and the coolness of fall in the air. The sea shimmered – a deep beautiful blue even on cloudy days – as we drove to Nice. We continued on past Nice, and saw the signs for Biot several miles later. Our interest in Biot was inspired by a reference to a Bonsai tree arboretum, which Jim and I both saw as intriguing. When we arrived in Biot (darned if it wasn’t about Noon again!), we saw that it was quite the medieval village. The streets were steep and the public parking area was quite complicated to navigate – narrow, steep, and multi-leveled. We parked and noticed that there were many references on the signs to geckos. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll say it now – the gecko is the official mascot of the Gleckler family (our branch, at any rate). Jim loves to doodle and has created a series of drawings of “geckodons” – the don’t really look like the lizard, but the name falls trippingly from the tongue – more so than, say, “gleckodons”.

As can be expected, all the signs featuring the geckos were in French, so it was difficult to figure out why the gecko was so prominent. We made our way to the main street and found (big surprise) that the tourist office was closed until 2pm. So we decided to poke around and see what there was to see in the town. One of the souvenir shops had apparently just been the target of shoplifters, and the proprietor was talking to a couple of policemen. It was, however, exactly the type of shop I wanted to go into, so I did, and it wasn’t a problem. The police interview stuff was happening in French, of course, so I could only imagine that the proprietor was describing what had happened, how she figured out what had been going on, providing descriptions of the shoplifters, etc. I was looking for souvenir geckos and was very surprised not to find any. I looked the shop over and while there was all sorts of stuff related to Biot history, no geckos – until I was about to leave the shop and saw several on the wall above a doorway. They were interesting and attractive and one of them would go well with the gecko figures we have on the wall in our entryway, I decided to forego a purchase. But I have the memory J

We decided not to wait for the tourist office to open, so we asked at a mini mart kind of place how to get to the Bonsai arboretum. We headed out of the town center and made our way down the right street, but had trouble figuring out where to turn. We stopped in at a little luncheonette in a small industrial section and I went inside to see if I could find someone who spoke English. One of the waitresses was very helpful and drew a map of how to get to the Bonsai place. I still have the map, of course! She drew it on her order pad.

The Bonsai place was like a nursery, with an entrance fee (very nominal, as I recall). There were four sections – outdoor trees for purchase, outdoor trees not for purchase, indoor trees for purchase, indoor trees not for purchase. We spent about an hour wandering around, snapping tons of photos. Bonsais are amazing. Basically, the word means tree in a pot, but that of course doesn’t do it justice. I think just about any tree can be made into a Bonsai. I’ll include some photos here. I was very taken with the faces peering through the tree roots.

When we decided to head out of Biot, it was pretty late in the day. We were tired. We ended up never making it to Antibes. So we made our way back along the same route – we found a McDonalds and decided to stop in for a snack. The woman behind the counter was so taken with my attempts at French that she gave us a complimentary something or other and we did a lot of smiling at each other. Jim noted that while you couldn’t get a cup of coffee at the Mickey D’s, you could buy a beer (though not at the drive through).

After we got back to the resort, we decided to try the pizza place in Cap d’Ail again – but again, no place to park. We ended up going back to the same Italian restaurant we had visited with Pat and Tony. Jim had clam and pasta and I ordered a bowl of gnocchi – my God, it was enormous! I ate about a quarter of it and have decided gnocchi is not for me. Potato and pasta? I don’t think so.