SECRET FRENCH RIVIERA

A game of pétanque played with square boules, anastonishing aerial well, stained-plastic windows, amarble bench built in memory of the Queen ofEngland’s haemophiliac son, the instruments oft hePassion of Christ, a cannon that fires cherry stones,a good-luck pig, a mysterious pyramid, a monumentto secret agents, an entire village that ‘movedhouse’, a gas mask for horses, a statue sculpted bySaint Luke, a chapel showing the dead rising fromtheir tombs, a trapdoor in the nave of a church thatopens onto a rushing torrent, a restaurant in anOrient Express railway car, Babar’s beach, Tintin’sBlack Island, and Sleeping Beauty’s chateau, achance to admire the Riviera’s first pair of nakedbreasts, or spend the night sleeping in a tree … The French Riviera is not limited to the clichés of itsbeaches, private yachts and luxury hotels.