You never know where a MAGA cap will turn up but I was surprised to see a Latino man sporting the bright red cap in front of me on a red tourist bus in Nice, France. It was an insufferably hot day and he decided to open an umbrella to give him and his wife a little more protection but a woman behind him demanded he take it down. He complied, which seemed very unMAGA of him, but I guess he didn't want to create a fuss. He was part of a group scattered about the open deck of the bus as they all got off together at Fort du Mont Alban.
I wasn't exactly sure what we were doing on the bus ourselves, as it didn't make much sense going around the city at the hottest time of the day, but Daina and I let ourselves be roped into it by Marija who felt Irena needed a break. We were all trying to cover ourselves up as best we could from the unforgiving sun. An older woman in our group was suffering the most as she had a sun allergy but no matter. Daina and I finally said enough was enough and got off near the yacht basin to have a late lunch. The others chose to finish the tour.
I had hoped we would stay in Cap Martin and go to the pebble beach there after taking a tour of the Eileen Gray House, Le Corbusier's cabanon and the Starfish restaurant that had drawn these famous modern architects to the remote outcrop. We had all brought our swimsuits. The beach was relatively secluded and easy to access but the others wanted to head back to Nice.
Nice is nice but far too touristy for my taste. Daina noted all the Russian being spoken. I noted all the English, both American and British. A group of five young lads sat next to us at Le Barque Blue loudly recapping their holiday in what I took to be a boarding school English. Fortunately they were at the end of their meal so we were able to enjoy our sea bream and seafood linguini in relative peace as we gazed out at the yachts in the small harbor. There was a giant black yacht that we figured some Russian owned as it was three times bigger than any other yacht in the basin. The meal was good and not terribly overpriced like everything else in Nice.
It doesn't seem that there are very many of these tourist buses as we waited half an hour for one to pitch up at the Place de L'ile de Beaute. Fortunately, there was a long arcade to stand under. Another couple appeared and we chatted with them before they decided to get some ice cream while they waited. We chose to sit in the lower shaded half for the ride back to the train station.
After one day Daina and I felt like we had enough but our plane wasn't flying out until late evening the following day, so we tried to make the best of it in this forlorn resort city that had clearly seen its better times. It reminded me of Miami Beach in the 1980s. Once glorious buildings of the Art Deco era in need of facelifts line the Prom. One of the buildings had literally been gutted at some point to boast an open air courtyard over the casino but it appeared badly dated. We had tried to take a taxi from there the previous evening but all the drivers rejected us on the Bolt app so we ended up walking back to our hotel on Gounod St.
We were staying at a little inn tucked back in a courtyard that called itself L'Oasis. It boasted of Chekhov once staying there with a large plaque on the wall and a metal sculpture of the famous playwright on the terrace. Nothing special. Our bed was shoehorned into the tiny room but we did have a bathroom to ourselves. Don't know how the others slept.
The following morning we got up early to take a swim before it got too hot. The pebble beach was mostly empty. Even the lifeguards weren't up yet. A young Russian family sat next to us. The father played with his small son in the shallow water close to shore while the mother took a leisurely swim. There were a couple of "snorlers," as Daina called them, swimming parallel to the shore. No surf yet, just gently rolling swells. Daina and I similarly swam about. We were surprised how quickly the shore dropped off into the deep blue water of the Mediterranean.
We came back to the "Chekhov Inn," as I called it, for breakfast. Giedrė and Indrė had also taken an early morning dip and sat down next to us. Surprised our paths didn't cross. The others were sleeping in. It had been a long trip in which we had taken in several Le Courbusier sites. Long in the sense that we were all pretty much worn out of each other by this point, especially of Marija. But, we did our best to keep friendly as we would soon be heading home.
La Tourette had been the highlight of the trip, a monastery not far from Lyon where we had spent three nights in individual cells. The monks are few so they let out the rooms to guests at 60 euros per night. It includes a spartan breakfast with homemade baguettes. A friendly matron presides over the kitchen, cutting the baguettes with an ancient cleaver and serving the slices up with cheese and jam.
Daina noted the monastery was like a model of a city with its elemental forms defining the various functions. One of the monks had pointed out to us the crucifix pattern in the courtyard connecting the chapel to the refectory and to the stairs leading up the cells. He had taken us up onto the roof where you can get a better sense of the complex. Le Corbusier had covered the rooftops in grass to give it a pastoral feeling. The monk said that when a fog rolls in over the foothills it feels like you are floating, as the high parapet cuts off any connection to the ground below.
What struck me was the delicate nature of the concrete work. It wasn't brutal at all, like so much of the "beton brut" of the era. Le Corbusier had designed and built the monastery in the 1950s, representing a significant shift in his thinking as his buildings had become more site specific. There is no better example of this than Ronchamp, which we visited one day.
This chapel sits on a hill top in the Bourgogne-Franch-Comte region about 300 kilometers north of Lyon. We had rented a van and took the A6 and A36 highways to the pilgrimage site. The previous chapel had been partially destroyed in WWII but rather than reconstruct it the convent wanted something modern befitting the era. The sisters invited Le Corbusier to build a new chapel. He appeared to draw on primitive forms, turning the concrete in on itself so that it resembles more a pagan worship site than it does a Catholic chapel. The sisters loved it and the site has since become a historic landmark on the UNESCO World Heritage List. You get breathtaking views from the hilltop. The convent is buried into the base of the chapel so as not to draw away from Le Corbusier's masterpiece. You still have the hostel that le Corbusier had built for the pilgrims, replete with the old bunk beds. There is a "pyramid of peace" that honored those who gave their lives during the war. It struck me as oddly Mayan in form.
The most inspiring aspect of these monuments is that Le Corbusier was well past 60 when he designed them. He was spending his summers at Cap Martin with his wife in a little cabanon he had built adjoining Thomas Rebutato's seaside restaurant so that he wouldn't need a kitchen. Corbu had been coming down to the coast for several years and stayed in a house designed by Eileen Gray. He decided to make a more permanent abode for himself in the early 1950s. Not sure what changed in his thinking but it was clear he viewed architecture in an entirely different light by this point. His wife wasn't in the best of health and died in 1957. Nevertheless, he kept returning to his cabanon each summer with a separate little shack for his drafting table with a direct view to the sea.
It seemed to me that he was once again exploring his painterly approach to architecture. He gleefully painted murals on the walls of the Starfish restaurant and E-1027, as the house was called. He usually did so in the nude, looking a bit like Henry Miller in the photographs. Curious if he read his work. Corbu seemed very happy on the cape. He formed a close relationship with the Rebutato family. The youngest son Robert would become an architect himself and carefully preserved the cabanon and the artwork in the restaurant in memory of Le Corbusier after he drowned in 1965. Corbu is buried along side his wife at the top of the mountain above Cap Martin with their grave overlooking the sea for time immemorial.
Robert was also instrumental in saving Eileen Gray's house from demolition in the early 2000s. He offered the restaurant, cabanon and holiday cabins to the state on the condition the ministry of culture purchase E-1027, which had been thoroughly vandalized. The state did so and a massive restoration project began that was finally completely in 2015, bringing back the house to its 1929 appearance. Even the furniture and carpets were all recreated and all but one of Le Corbusier's murals restored. The site has since been renamed Cap Moderne.
The murals were a bit contentious but not in the way I thought. The guide noted one mural that had been covered over. I said I had read that Eileen Gray was very upset with the murals but the guide said no. The dispute came later when Jean Bodovici, the owner of the house, refused to pay for a professional photographer to take pictures of the murals for a journal that Le Corbusier wanted to publish them in. Le Corbusier took this as a personal affront and moved out of the guest room below and into the cabanon. The guide said the two later patched up their differences. Gray built her own seaside house further up the mountain near Menton, which Eileen sold shortly before her death in 1976. The foundation hopes to acquire this house at some point in time.
Having become so steeped in the work of Le Corbusier, Nice made little impression on me. The buildings seemed so gaudy and uninspiring. The restaurants little more than tourist traps. There are of course many things to see like the Chagall museum. There are also exhibitions dedicated to Leger and Picasso further down the coast, but I just couldn't get into it. Daina and I took a walk around the Old Town the last day, sipping on mojitos at a cafe on Place Magenta and watching the people walk by, eventually making our way back to the "Chekhov Inn" via the boardwalk where we took a picture of ourselves in front of a miniature of the Statue of Liberty.
The others had gathered on the terrace. We decided to have proseccos before catching the tram to the airport. We were all colleagues back in Vilnius and wanted to end the trip on a good note. We bid adieu to Anton on our way out of the courtyard, following the musically inspired streets of Rossini and Berlioz to the nearest tram stop at Jardin Alsace Lorraine.
It was a bumpy ride over the Alps. I nearly spilled my gin and tonic with all the turbulence. The pilot flashed on the warning lights as he took the plane higher to get out of the stormy weather. We were running late and were all a little worried we would miss our connection from Riga to Vilnius but we heard a lot of Lithuanian being spoken on the plane and figured the other plane would wait for us. It did and we all got safely home in the wee hours of the morning.
Akvilė had waited up for us, a bit worried we had taken so long. Nice to see her concern and so glad she was home during this time to look after the dog and cat. We were able to have a few days with her before she flew back to London.
It will take a little while to absorb it all. I want to build a chipboard model of La Tourette so that I can more fully appreciate what I saw. Chipboard is the same color as concrete so it will be the perfect material. Nearing 62 I feel I still have plenty of life in me after seeing these buildings by Le Corbusier. You are never to old to learn, especially from a master like him.
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