Rome to Monaco on Incrementally Unimpressive Trains:
Rome to Nice: 22 April 2024
Imagine an entertainingly long travel day of gradual decline in service quality… and increasingly diverting human behaviours…
The high-speed Frecciarossa Pendolino tilting train from Roma to Genova spent 10 minutes, slowly wandering over the Tiber River and circling past Vatican City, in search of a north west escape route… then zipped into its first high speed turn. Every water bottle on every left-hand table leapt into the aisle triggering an hilarious scramble to secure one’s own water for the next five hours of leaning into and out of the bends, particularly as the Mediterranean coast became more rugged. Speeding through many tunnels and viaducts served up deep views of riverside villages, passing pastel mansions and boxy apartment blocks clustered along the steep coast. To the east, the Tuscan countryside of mountain-top red-roofed villages and ochre-green farmlands overlooking rounded valleys flew past.
There were no on-train announcements of station stops so, approaching Genova on time, we alighted, as did many others, discovered we were in the “wrong Genova” station, as did many others, so clambered back on for another 10 minutes in this lovely train to arrive, late, into “Genova-Piazza Principe”.
Following a passable coffee-soya and crispy Serrano ham sandwich lunch from the non-MacDonalds end of the buffet (Sir R was lurking at the other end…), a return to the ornately freezing and windswept platform provided little protection under the dull green cast iron Art Nouveau awnings.
The approaching “Intercities” train to the border at Ventemiglia was a distinct “come-down” after the zippy Pendolino. Tarted-up express carriages from the 1980’s had newish grey seats but were a bit rough-around-the-edges (and WCs) and in need of a good deep-clean to remove heavy dust from available crevasses. We reversed, then trundled for 20 minutes through industrial port-of-Genova and stark freeways worthy of Geoffrey Smart landscapes (or container-heist episodes from “Gomorrah”). Seat reservation was hilarious: just grab one (or two, or three) better than allocated!
Five rows down the carriage and across the aisle, a skinny teenage kid in a fawn hoodie was staring intently back at me with dark beady eyes. I took a renewed interest in Mediterranean cliffs sweeping down to coastal villas on rocky shorelines: increasingly rugged as we approached the French border, passing occasional two-storeyed mansions on their own islands: their only access was by boat over the gail-force whitecaps…
A loud argument broke out between beady-eyes, his similarly hooded friend and a portly conductor-with-elegant-assistant. Beady’s friend was skinnier and decidedly more twitchy but both were grinning and looking to the rest of us for some kind of response as they yelled in faux anger. (Audience responses: sadly not forthcoming as all were intent on minding-own-business-hoping-it would-go-away).
Anyone who has been to one of THOSE school meetings between loud and dodgily self-righteous adolescent logic supported by angry parents, with resigned authority trying to resolve the unresolvable, would recognise the body language and intensity of this exchange.
Stand-off.
Portly conductor stomped off with his phone to seek advice leaving younger female colleague to “mind the shop”. He returned, spoke a few quietly well-chosen words to the now sheepish hoodies, strongly suggesting they follow him onto the wayside platform where our train had paused. They did (last seen giggling and high-fiving vigorously in the windy drizzle of the station as the train pulled out).
“They said there was a bomb, a BOMB on the train,” shouts the conductor to his assistant, in some disbelief. Apparently the hoodies couldn’t remember where the BOMB actually was, so bundling Beady and his mate off the train had been the Security advice. We sped on to Ventemiglia, making up time through tunnels and cuttings and viaducts, occasionally revealing windswept seascapes to the left and sweeping freeway bridges dwarfing towns and scrappy farmland to the right; distant northern snow-clad mountains emerged from murky windswept clouds.
Drizzly Ventemiglia is a place of Belle Epoch historical associations. The grand overnight expresses from Paris once whisked the rich and self-important and their paid companions in royal blue Wagons Lits coupes to the delights of the French and Italian Rivieras. Most trains arrived empty into Ventemiglia by lunchtime to be serviced for a return overnight journey for their favoured clients.
Today the arrival of the depleted Italian “Intercities” service is met by a banal French electric commuter train with seasidy upholstery in otherwise grey plastic interiors: stopping all-stations to Monte Carlo, Nice and Grasse.
Clamber out of one train, straight into another and after a mere 10 minute crossing of a grey river surrounded by down-at-heel apartments, and a slow rumble through a tunnel, the train crawls into Menton Garavan: the first stop in La Belle France.
On the low platform in the now-heavy rain were about a dozen nuggety, French border police. We naively had our passports ready for a check but were ignored. The Uniforms quickly formed two groups to conduct a pincer movement from both ends of the train, removing every man of swarthy Middle eastern or North African appearance for a short, public check of papers and platform interrogation. Most were directed, after questioning, down a tall-fenced ramp to the back of the station platform. Few rejoined the train. Two English cyclists, standing in the open area of our carriage, became quite irritated by the delay, so rode their bikes directly from the train over the platform and back to the street, figuring they could ride home more quickly than by remaining on a police-held train.
We’d anticipated a slow but scenic wander along the Riviera coastline into France, with beachy waterfronts and little ports and isolated chateaux. And so it was, for a bit, until the glossy mountainside high-rises of Monaco could be seen from approaching coastal viaducts. Arriving into the long tunnel under Monaco (so nothing as mundane a French commuter train can be glimpsed from the shiny tax-avoiding designer-label streets above) we eased into the starry, starry-lit underground station of Monte-Carlo.
The platform was crammed with going-home evening commuters (as we too were soon crammed, packed with exhausted standees on all decks of the train). The “help” may work in Monte-Carlo, but they certainly can’t afford to live there, so they travel in from a coastal sprawl of condos and apartments of dormitory towns into and beyond Nice. We glimpsed these station stops through the strap-hanging body-crush and heavy, windswept rain.
After squeezing from the train with the crowds from Nice Ville station, past cheap Asian eateries and more expensive pub smorgasbords (all else edible apart from the fast-food chains was closed on Monday nights), we staggered into an exceedingly welcoming hotel.
So: The FRENCH RIVIERA… Our first walk along the Promenade Anglaise was in wind-whipped rain under cracking thunder. Scenery was a grey, sodden beachfront of abandoned cafes, closed and leaning umbrellas and wet wooden lounges in the sweeping rains and rolling thunder.
The beachfront bar sign promised “LE TEMPS D’UN ETE”.
But not today….
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2. Nice: Different; Monte Carlo!
24 April 2024
Ahhhh… Monte-Carlo: playground of the rich and the film set for so many James Bond epics (or similar), where the garishly opulent casino (looking from a distance like a vaguely Romanesque cathedral clinging to the hillside of massed apartments and high-rise hotels) is surrounded by a small garden then a square of small shopping streets. One street alone is lined with multinational banks (presumably with a money pipeline under the gardens and directly into the opulent gambling dens); the others are crammed with chain-stores for the rich: Prada? Gucci? Zegna? Dior? Montblanc… The roads are paved with security grid wire, steel framework and RSJ posts with vast temporary grandstands shoved into parklands and massive advertising hoardings for the weekend Grand Prix to come.
The other “Grands Prix” were already present in the guise of snooty waiters and uniformed “security” and some pushy Polish day-trippers we had the misfortune to meet. One such visitor swooped and stole my chair while I was queuing (amongst his disorganised walking mob) for a gold-plate priced coffee. Once I borrowed my chair back, the lively swooper whinged: “but I am an invalid!,” having just already out-strided us up the stairs to the royal palace.
If you do need directions, there are so many friendly Filipino workers happy to stop and provide cheerfully direct advice. Some of them worked in the glitzy apartments west of the palace ridge, where one leaves one’s “yacht” moored at the front door.
We returned to the relative sanity of Nice, with the commuting “help”, wandering through what is left of the old town then through pristine mirrored/marbled subways to the spot lit cave that is Monte-Carlo station.
So much of the inner city of Nice is the product of well-heeled Belle-Epoch Brits travelling by Channel ferry from Dover then opulent Blue Train Wagons Lits sleepers from Calais or Ostende for a civilised mid-morning arrival to the sunny beaches and Edwardian hotels catering for educated British tastes and desires. The old town and station areas feature stolid architecture with very English hotel names: “Excelsior”, “Carlton”, “Villa Victoria”, “Bristol”, Le Windsor”… with very continental trimmings of French doors and shabbyish window shutters onto tiny balconies.
If you are looking for the corner brasseries of Paris, sadly the best bet, away from the seafront Promenade Des Anglais, is faux-French MacDonalds…… In the remnant old town near the port can be found tiny laneways and cafes of another time, and a large statue and square dedicated to Garibaldi, revolutionary, republican army general and one of the unifiers of the modern Italian state.
Hotel Khla in Nice is one of a collection of those old, 2 to 3 star hotels that once clustered around grand Continental railway stations. Post-war station forecourt tourist offices would phone around to find and book a room for backpacking arrivals in the 1970’s. If this was you, there will be “fond” memories of worn lace curtains, iron bedsteads, rust marks around cisterns, massive iron room-keys and the vaguely distant hint of old urine in the spiral stairways. No more: Hotel Khla has had a cougar-fantasy makeover of dark wood trim with leopard skin wallpaper, leopard skin curtains and linen, and leopard skin seat fabric under the welcoming clerk who offers a miniscule hot tea and tiny fresh cakes baked on site as you check in for a very moderate price.
The view from our garret bathroom-with-hand-held-shower-but-without-towel-rails (ignoring the allure of the only available English language TV: “Tele Sur” from Bolivia…) was over colourfully ageing red tiles and chimney pots and of small apartments with curly cast iron balconies crying out for straggly potted geraniums, and of wide-open windows regardless of activities going on within. Very French. The subsequent view of the (what we expected to be a basic rolls-and-hot chocolate) breakfast buffet was a spectacular variety of fresh bakery items appearing, in regular tray laden arrival from the distant basement, with a range of fruit and salad and cereal items better than seen in a lot of 4 star pubs. We had a lovely time.
Except perhaps for dinner at the only locally open restaurant on a wet Monday night. It was run by a Vietnamese family and we’d been told “Open after 7” so arrived through persistent drizzle at 7.30 to find it very full indeed (and the aromas of the fast-delivered Pho bowls suggested why).
We were greeted with a resigned sigh by the swifter and slimmer of the two serving brothers. Planted at a spare table for 8, we were pretty much ignored for 15 minutes until the (older, slower) brother… who seemed to be kept in the kitchen as much as possible... ambled up to take our order: 3 dishes plus tea. He ambled amiably back. And we waited… as a group of young female students were seated with us (immediate attention from the slim bro for them!!), and we waited… As the students’ dishes arrived, Slim Bro continued to ignore us for some time until one student determinedly pointed him our way. Two dishes then arrived (sort of resembling the correct order) with tea, and an apology – in perfect English - about the the Slo Bro’s order taking. We ate the two Phos: both excellent. Then called Speedy for the bill. A quick comparison of the bill and the table secured an apology, agreement to pay for two dishes only, and free tea.
Nice!!
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