Que de parasols sur les plages - Juan-les-Pins

Tourism statistics for the Côte d’Azur suggest that between 60,000 (low season) and 600,000 (high season) visit the area. No statistics seem to exist on the number of beach umbrellas that open and spread with the summer months.

Locals grumble about the inconvenience of the waves of visitors and pets or the increase in traffic and nightlife, but the place scintillates!

The day begins early at the beaches of Juan-les-Pins. City workers clean beaches and wash down boardwalks.

By 9 a.m., beach goers begin to arrive at this public beach near the west end of the boardwalk. By noon, the place is jammed packed with tourists.

The private beaches (owned by the city but rented out) have restaurants, dressing rooms and comfortable lounge chairs. Not to mention brightly colored umbrellas. Here, for 15 euros a day, you can bask in the luxury of having space, access to food, drink and bathrooms and avoid the crowds. This is vacation after all.

The beach restaurants (which also have the lounge chairs), with parasols, enable diners to eat lunch and dinner with feet in the sand.

The umbrellas contribute to the festive atmosphere (as does the sun). In a way, everyone hates to see it come to a close in late August.


My Note:

Probably one of the more spectacular views is from the Plage de la Salis, a public beach that overlooks the old city of Antibes. But best to arrive early. It's difficult to find a space to put your towel.

I'm not sleepy, it's just that. . . . my cat

It’s only 9 p.m. and tonight a bunch of us have meet at a restaurant, which has a dance floor in the back. I yawn. I hope no one saw me. Oops, someone did! No, I am not bored. I’m not particularly sleepy. Well, take that back.

You see, I have two cats. Cat #1 insists that 5 a.m. is a good time for me to wake up. Cat #2 loves to sleep. Cat #1 begins with the purr, the nudge with whiskers. When those maneuvers fail, she moves to the back-and-forth jump over. A cat who weighs 9 pounds and who wants you out of bed gives the impression of something much larger. When that fails, Cat #1 goes for my glasses or begins to move fragile objects on the bookshelf and watches them fall to the floor.

O.k. I’m awake. What’s the rush? Cat #1 waits for me to open the back door. She goes to the screened porch where she promptly settles in a lawn chair to catch up on sleep. Cat #2 continues to snooze. Tonight I’ll be yawning again, but maybe tomorrow morning Cat #1 will let me sleep in.

The Reluctant Lawnmower. . . . .La tondeuse capricieuse

It’s not that I mind mowing the lawn. It’s the time it takes to start gas-powered equipment. I have years of experience trying to start generators, large bushwackers (with both 2- and 4-cycle engines) and mowers. Right now my daughter is having a similar experience. We often commiserate. She’s really the only person who understands—all my friends have lawn services.

Today, the lawnmower refused to start. I checked the oil and gas. I primed and tugged on the pull cord. Nothing. I checked the spark plug. I tugged. I went to the online trouble-shooting videos, some of which have more than 300,000 views, which means a lot of us out there have problems with our gas-powered tools. I could follow the video until the narrator mentioned the carburetor. That was outside the range of amateurs! Given that my mower does not fit in my car trunk (which precludes servicing), I checked with a friend in another town about the model of his electric mower. . . just in case I could buy one later.

By now, I have spent more than 90 minutes trying to start the mower and wondering why Briggs and Stratton does not make a Lego-type machine, where you remove the defective part and snap on the new. I took a shower and changed clothes. Just before I left the house, I gave the mower one last tug. Voilà, it started!

I planned to email my daughter, the only person who would understand my mower experience. But she was taking the day off. Something about an invitation on a yacht. She did attach a photo with the subject heading, “Life is hard.”

The French Bac. . . . Results are in

There’s something to be said for the French educational system.  The graduates of the lycée seem knowledgeable of culture, sciences and politics and well adapted to life.

But the educational system itself seems pretty grueling.  This past week, on July 5, the results of the French baccalauréat (or bac) became available to the public.  Approximately 84 percent of the 665,000 students were expected to pass the five-day exam, which ran from June 17 through June 21. 

Given that the questions are the same throughout the nation for every exam (e.g., sciences, literature), all students take a specific portion of the exam at the same time.  Usually, each segment lasts four hours.  Students write out the responses  in ink.  They come equipped with bottles of whiteout.   

The bac itself is grueling—I’m not sure I would have survived!   Then, if the exam isn’t bad enough, the results are publicized in newspapers and on the internet by candidate’s name, date of birth and exam score.