I'm no stranger to mountain life (having spent two winter seasons in Chamonix), but I am unacquainted with the mountainous regions of Southern France, without that familiar dusting of snow.
Last Saturday, my boyfriend and I set off for Nice on a Sleazy Jet flight - destination: an apartment in La Brigue, a charmingly rustic village, close to the Italian boarder, north of the city.
As I've experienced many times in the past: reaching the mountains is no mean feat - that's why they're never densely populated. Life is hard beyond 1,000 ft.
Nothing gets the heart pumping more fervently when you're just clicking into holiday-mode and a seemingly minor faux pas quite significantly threatens your plans. In retrospect taking the laissez faire attitude on day one was a mistake: especially when you've only got one train service option that day, and the ticket office has a queue that would rival one at any UK Post Office during the week leading up to Xmas!
Jolted out of holiday-haziness by this distressing sight, I jumped on a much smaller queue for a ticket machine close by and nervously navigated the menus knowing that one wrong move could make the difference between shelling out for a hotel room in the city or claiming our pre-paid apartment in the mountains.
With a minute to spare we raced to the furthest away platform and claimed some seats literally as the departure whistle screeched out.
With two hours to regain our composure, we sank into comfortable train upholstery and bathed in the glorious scenery beyond the glass: interlocking mountain ranges, ravines and topsy-turvy dwellings clinging to rocks like sandy-coloured barnacles.
La Brigue proved to be a well-positioned base that presented us with the opportunity for many adventures, and a trainline that offered access to the varying terrains of an Italian ski resort (Lemone), the cote d'azure coast line and a menagerie of ancient French towns/cities. I say well-connected - but actually when the train is your only route out of the village (north and south) - you have to be astute to it's sensitive disposition and live by the timetable like a geeky university fresher.
Our apartment had two balconies - one of which opened onto the village square: the hub of the place, where dogs and drinkers and market stalls popped up at peak times during the week. There were four restaurant options (only one of which we were successful in sampling as the others either gave us 'no room at the inn' gestures or appeared to be open only on very special occasions), which was initially frustrating (for city dwellers far too used to having everything on tap within a half-mile radius), but encouraged us to become dependable on the local produce and cook our own takes on authentic cuisine. (Dauphinoise Potatoes, garlic chicken and lashings of cheese smeared veg).
A wood burner provided us with evening entertainment... to fall asleep watching the flames licking at the glass was a delightful alternative to a flatscreen TV. La Brigue was as quiet as quiet can be - though the day the fountain outside our apartment wasn't flowing really indicated a new level of noise-redundancy. It was a welcome retreat, but again, took a bit of time to adjust to after spells of manic work life in Bristol and London over the last six months.
We quickly got to grips with our surroundings - trekking around the hinterland, collecting wild-growing herbs, chestnuts and kindling on our rambles. On one of our walks up the valley, a group of old farmers were gathering apples from an orchard and one garçon kindly gave us a couple of handfuls - saying they were strictly only for cooking with. I baked them later that night, their waxy texture complimenting a locally-sourced honey, oozy, melty creme fraiche and a dusting of nutmeg. A simple delight tasting all the more sweet for the good-natured gesture behind their appearance on our table.
On another ramble back from Tende (ten minutes on the train, two hours or so by foot!), during the descent to La Brigue lingering tentatively around 1,500 ft, we very surprisingly met two people on ponies - the sound of their hooves scraping the rocky terrain reached us long before their physical form appeared. A salt-of-the-earth man (sans helmet), led confidently - (though the ponies' laboured breathing and foaming flanks signaled a turbulent mood), followed by a slightly nervous-looking young lady - also sans protection.
We joked somewhat tentatively about them being very brave for attempting this climb when we were tentatively planning our every step and we only had two feet to coordinate. Several minutes later we heard the clatter of hooves again, which I thought signaled more ponies coming up. I was quite wrong. What we saw was a rider-less pony wildly jolting and jerking down the mountain - nostrils flared and drenched in sweat. On approaching us, it whinnied loudly and tried to pass.
Flummoxed and worried, I tried to grab the mangled reins, but the pony kept prancing around. There was a ruin of a shack close to us, with the walls still intact, so I thought that maybe we should coax the pony in there until we could reunite it with the owner. Several tentative moments passed during which my boyfriend successfully grabbed the reins, and got flung around as the pony began to settle and we tried to calm it.
I waited around the corner to see if I could see the owner or hear any sign of distress. Shortly after, the man who'd been leading earlier came charging down on his pony, shouting in indistinguishable French. I admit that my basic knowledge of the French language has waned, and faltered even more in this stressful situation. He leveled with us, shouted more, gestured for us to give him the reins, jumped off the pony, grabbed both ponies and continued to run down the mountain with the ponies tumbling clumsily close to him.
We were rather shocked and felt perplexed as to how we could help the situation. I presumed that the man was going down to raise an alarm for the poor girl who presumably had fallen off the pony, and to tether the loose ponies somewhere in the village. We carried on our descent, and were surprised to see the man talking to someone on the road - the loose horse still roaming the grassy area close to the footpath. He was gesticulating - I guess to raise the alarm, then disappeared up the mountainside again on his pony.
It was a strange situation - we don't know what happened to the girl or the loose pony. I suppose the ponies are used to the mountain terrain, but they're also wild creatures, and why wouldn't you wear protection when embarking on such a precarious activity?
After a few days of challenging hiking and mountain biking - we treated ourselves to some city/beach leisure time - closer to civilization and simple luxuries such as supermarkets and bars that give you complimentary bread sticks and chips with your order. Villefranche-sur-Mer was my firm favourite beach town, reminding me of a scaled-down Barcelona with a much more idyllic and clean beachfront. The mid-october sunshine was warm enough to tempt us into the sea several times - definitely warranting an ice cream of the nutty variety as a reward.
Another sparky idea was hiring the marvelous 'Velo-bleu' bikes dotted around Nice, a scheme very similar to Boris's Bikes in London. The purchasing of a membership card was comically over-complicated, but once the account was set up in the transport centre, we couldn't help but maximize the service to whizz around the city - including the beach promenade (dodging bladers, runners and doddery tourists) all the way along to the airport and the seaport busting with bling yachts at the opposite end. We probably got a bit too carried away, as the bikes' rather ruddy three-gears certainly couldn't cope with the hills beyond the port, but we covered a lot of ground regardless and were pleased with the accessible and plentiful drop-off points for our weary steeds.
My other stand-out destination was a sleepy village called Saorge, perched, nay clutching onto the side of a south-facing mountainside that glistened gold when viewed in the early morning light the first time we were alerted to the existence of the village by an excited local on one of our numerous train journeys down the valley. I only wished we'd discovered Saorge a day earlier. Wednesdays seem to be a ghost-town day. Reading the tourist board on entry to the village we got excited by the prospect of a honey producer, butcher, plentiful dining options, a few bars and a cafe. Bingo!
However, after a diligent search through the narrow streets - the only establishments actually open were a small cafe and its adjoining gift shop. Having not eaten anything since breakfast (it was now 3.30pm, and we'd also failed at finding food in the village across the other side of the railway line), the cafe looked like mecca and there was a menu board outside that suggested that they sold sandwiches. Actual sandwiches, with about four fillings to choose from!
We confidently ordered a pan bagnet and a fromage et gambon in French, along with coffee and tea. The ethereally elegant lady who took our order said it simply was not possible to order sandwiches - why hadn't we phoned to make an order? There was nothing on the menu to signal the transaction she so fervently insisted was 'de rigueur'. We were flummoxed. Maybe the tea would come with a complimentary biscuit that would keep our appetites under control till dinner?
We waited with baited breath. The lady popped her head round the door frame and said something like, 'I've managed to order your sandwiches... they will arrive soon... though you should have phoned first.' Where were the sandwiches being made? Would they arrive before we needed to get the last train back up the valley?
In the meantime out beverages arrived. What a delicious sight: gorgeous china wear from a bygone era, tea in a massive pot complete with one of those contraptions that stops the leaves escaping into the water. Our cups were large, and perched on the side of my coffee cup was a petite homemade biscuit, and next to my boyfriend's teacup nestled a rather generous slice of honey cake (probably sourced from the honey shop just opposite - where we purchased a jar of chestnut-infused nectar and some hazelnut praline about half an hour previously).
The spread on our table looked so magnificent I had to take some photos. Saorge felt magical: verging on the edge of humanity - and this otherness was also reflected in the sublime-tasting produce. Our sandwiches were soon delivered by a local man, who then stopped in for some tea. Definitely the best sandwich I'd tasted all holiday: a fishy, crusty ensemble oozing with oil, herbs and juicy tomatoes. Such a shame we had to make a dash for the train and that the bar next door was closed - we both agreed that had it been open, we'd stay for some drinks and sample the enticing array of tarts listed on their specials board.
On our last day we woke late to a rather cloudy skyline - the first during our holiday. Determined to make the most of it, we got on the train to Limone - a ski resort just two stops (through a very long tunnel) from La Brigue. A picturesque town only tainted by the fact that it was also a ghost town (inter season), and that the ski lifts were closed, but as the cloud wasn't lifting - we weren't too miffed.
We soon found a trendy cafe bar in the centre and I sank a few espressos laced with Amaretto to give me the energy to hike. The rather forlorn man in the tourist info centre (I suppose he had every right to be forlorn - being posted there to give info to people during the quietest time of the year) gave us a map and suggested a fairly short walk we could do that gives a good view of the resort at higher altitude. We set off and snaked through a wooded pathway that sadly illustrated a disturbing imbalance between abandoned chalet construction and natural beauty.
We reached the top following a rather quaint sequence of wooden signs with lemons depicting our chosen route, and settled with a bottle of cider - making sandwiches from our various scraps of cheeses, hams and pate. We hadn't passed a single soul. After our picnic we took the same route down and tried to find the ski lift station, to see if it might be worth making a return trip once the winter snow had made an appearance.
There were some good accommodation and ski pass combo offers in a brochure we picked up, but it's so hard to tell if the resort would be worth coming to if the place doesn't have that seasonal buzz about it when you're actually there.
Slaves to the train timetable, we waited for our final locomotive to arrive at La Brigue, 6:30am the following day. Uh oh, it's late. Not late enough to warrant panic, but enough to know we had to be on-guard during our change at Ventimiglia. That was fine, and we had enough time to grab a quick takeaway Italian style coffee, to go with our honey-covered croissants.
On arrival at Nice train station, I was desperate to find a toilet, so as my boyfriend went to join the queue for the airport transfer, I ran onto the platform to find the facilities. As I ran along, I saw some familiar faces. Not familiar faces from real life - but faces from the movies. And they were making a movie right at that exact moment. It was Jude Law and Richard E Grant, and the scene was one of the first for a movie coming out next year called Dom Hemingway. I didn't know that at the time - I only really realised it was a movie set as I clocked the director and started noticing people beyond with ear-pieces as well as a white Rolls Royce parked round the side, which I'm presuming was for the characters' getaway.
It was such a surreal encounter - I really hope I didn't interrupt the scene with my scruffy, end-of-holiday attire and manically contorting 'busting-for-the-loo' face. There was nothing holding the general public back, so I guess they didn't want to call attention to the production by cordoning off the platform.
I was so tempted to stick around, talk to one of the loitering techies/runners and find out more about the production - but we had a plane to catch. Emerging from the toilets I tried to walk past again - as nonchalantly as possible this time. I came out of the station grinning like a lunatic, bursting to tell my boyfriend about my first proper 'movie set' experience.
I know there's loads of waiting around and epic ego-clashing intrinsically linked with drama production, but that fateful day I walked into two A list actors' bubble for a fleeting moment, and I liked it very much.
