Necessary Flight

Saturday evening, September 20, 2014

     I left San Remo at noon today and said goodbye to Italy.

     When I came home last night, walking through the warren of streets that is La Pigna, I saw several groups of young men hunched on streets talking and smoking.  They noticed me, but when I said "Buona sera", no one replied.  I felt uneasy and started looking at alternative places to spend my week away once I got in the door of my airbnb studio.

     When he was eighteen, Bill had spent an idyllic summer in Sainte Maxime, in the Var department, a guest of a well-placed French family.  We had never visited, although Bill always spoke of how lovely the village was.  I went to "Trip Advisor" and compared hotels.  There was one room left at the best hotel, the Hotel Royal Bon Repos, so I grabbed it, a room on the second floor overlooking the bay from the terrace.  That "Hotel Royal Bon Repos" translates as "Hotel Royal Good Rest" in French, made me think perhaps I would get what I was looking for there.

     The booking made last night, I also informed Anna, my airbnb hostess, that I would be leaving in the morning and that I would like to turn in the keys at noon.  She and her partner, "Robbie", helped me get my luggage into the car.  It was market day, and  San Remo was even more chaotic than on Thursday and Friday.

     I was glad to get away.  "Yes", I have spent more than I planned on this holiday, but I made the right choice to get away.  This morning, Michael and Wendy, the Australians staying in the apartment next to mine, went to get their car and found it gone.  It had not been stolen, but removed by the San Remo police: Anna had forgot to tell Michael and Wendy not to park in the parking area by the market because cars there when the market opens are towed away.

     Anna sensed my unease: at one point she mentioned the young men hanging around, referring to them as "alternativi".  At first I thought she was trying to say they were gay, then she specified they were Moroccans.  "But they won't do you any harm, they're nice."  It turns out that Anna is from Naples, which influences her perspective: Naples is much more crime-ridden and dangerous than San Remo.

     --That doesn't, however, mean San Remo is where I want to spend a vacation I wanted to devote to gentle relaxation.

     In the morning, I took one more walk around San Remo, passing Christ the Savior Church and again moving upwards towards the luxury area of San Remo.  I saw signs for the hotel that dominates the height, the Royal Hotel San Remo.  I walked in and no one stopped me from proceeding to the garden terrace, where I read an International Herald Tribune.  It was a lovely experience that cost nothing, but it did not make me want to stay in San Remo.

     The drive out of San Remo to Sainte Maxime was one of the most enjoyable I have ever had.  I took the toll road, but it is set so high in the mountains that all around the road are peaks.  The roads were smooth and fast, and I arrived in Sainte Maxime in about two hours.

      Sainte Maxime is located on the Golfe de Sainte Tropez across the bay from the village Brigitte Bardot made famous, but it has neither the night clubs nor the cruise ship traffic, which makes it quiet.

     Virginie Liotier, who has owns and manages the Bon Repos, is a soothing presence. And my room has a lovely terrace balcony from which I can see the bay.  There is a grocery store down the street to buy things to eat, if I don't want to eat in restaurants all the time.  The beach is a short ride away.

     In contrast to San Remo, everything is very clean and small in scale.  My room is very luminous, unlike my cavern in San Remo.

     And I feel very safe and cosseted here, in contrast to the anxious two days in San Remo.  You can't put a price on that, because I need a royally good rest after San Remo.