It was early evening by the time the train came in to St Laurent du Vare, it had stopped several times en route but this was it, he was here. Steve got his bag and climbed down off the train. He did it slowly, as if he had just landed on a planet and he was emerging for the first time trying the new surface. He looked up and down the platform, there were a few people here and there, but it was much quieter than he had expected. The funny little man was long gone and he headed for the exit gate and out into the street. The main bus station was just a five minute walk and Steve was on his way. The architecture was quite different here and the people were less talkative to each other, everybody seemed to be busy going somewhere. Still, it was warm and sunny and he was nearly there now. As he turned into the Promenade Jacques -Yves Cousteau he could see the bus station from some distance as there was what appeared to be a crowd gathering there. When he got close, he could see it was passengers waiting for a bus, he hoped it was not his bus as there were so many of them. Just then, there was a commotion, shouting and the people all seemed to move off quickly, there was a bus arriving and it was clearly theirs. It stopped and they all clambered on, pushing each other as they did so. At this point Steve was thankful it was not his bus, or so he thought. When he saw the sign on the front of the bus, it was indeed his! It was a long bus, one of those bendy buses, in orange and blue. There was of course, plenty of room on there, but boy it was noisy and chattering passengers filled the bus with a din not dissimilar to a flock of small birds roosting in a tree. They too, were excited, but it was only twenty miles. As the bus moved off, one or two bags fell over on the floor but everyone ignored them.
The journey was to be about forty minutes, so Steve sat back in the seat and relaxed. Le Baou des Noirs (the black rocks) was one of the stations the bus was going to and the campsite is just a few miles from there, walking distance, apparently. Eventually, the bus did arrive on time there and Steve just sat back whilst the crowd gathered their belongings and started to disembark. The noise was still intolerable, for they did not talk to one another, they shouted. As some of them walked past Steve, they knocked him, pushed and shoved, synonymous with this often frenzied method of travel. After six or seven minutes they had all joined together again at the side road by the station, so Steve was about to get off himself when the driver asked him where he was going. He got the map from his bag that the campsite had sent him, it was quite crumpled by now and barely readable. He could make out where he was though and where he had to go to and showed it to the driver. He was very young as a driver, he spoke some English and seemed to be knowledgeable, telling Steve to stay on the bus. He explained that another ten minutes on the bus will take him much closer to the campsite. By now it was getting late, nearing seven o’clock in the evening. Sure enough, the bus came eventually to a stop in the Rue de Saint-Jeannet. The road went in a circle around a car park and then back down the hill again, all the way down. Steve was by now, the last person on the bus and as he got off, he thanked the driver. On the kerb, he took in a big breath of air, it was clean and pure, he thought. He looked up and there it was, the famous Baou Saint-Jeannet (St Jeannet rock), it was quite breath taking, he had never seen such a site and read once that it was 800 metres high. Following his crumpled map, he found the road the campsite was in, he continued for another half mile before he saw the sign. To Steve, this was like finding the jewel in the crown, it was like a hot bath running, a bottle of chilled beer, paradise!
Down the driveway, he could see the reception building. He went inside and there was a young girl behind the desk. She was very slim, too thin he thought, the clothes she wore displayed her slim structure.
“Bonsoir m’sieur” she said, smiling.
“Hello, I have a booking” said Steve nervously, this was all still very new to him.
“Are you Steve?” she asked, still smiling.
Steve was reassured but a little surprised when she mentioned his name, as if she knew it by magic. “Well, yes”, he said.
“We have been expecting you, please follow me” said the girl and she came from around the back of the desk and out the front door.
“You see over there” she said, pointing “you are in that one, number seventeen”.
She gave him a leaflet with all the campsite information and a key. He thanked her and walked just across the road, his cabin was almost opposite. He unlocked the door and went inside. It was a little stuffy, but very pleasing to the eye, the bed was made up ready and it had a bottle of red wine and a little welcome card. “how nice!” he thought.
He looked in the bathroom, where there was a nice shower and it all seemed so clean. He plugged his phone in to charge it, the battery was very low. Then he lifted his bag onto the bed in readiness to unpack it, when his phone rang. It was Hannah. He answered immediately and enthusiastically.
“Hannah, I am here, I have just arrived!”
He was after all excited himself deep down.
“Is it nice, is it clean?” she asked.
Steve then told her almost every nauseating detail of his efforts to eventually get to the cabin.
“It really was quite a trek, in the end, but the view is fantastic!” he said looking out of his window. He promised he would take some photos and send them to her in the morning and the campsite had Wi-Fi, so it will be easy to do. He told her of the welcoming bottle of wine left on the bed, she was so pleased for him but couldn’t wait to see him back home again.
The next morning, Steve woke early. He was showered, dressed, refreshed and ready for exploring by seven o’clock. Excited and keen, he walked across to the reception desk. The same slim teenager was in there and she smiled and asked what she could do for him. She introduced herself formerly, her name was Eliane. Thin she was, very pretty and today she wore tight black trousers that somehow looked like they belonged to someone else, for they did not fit well. Her top was also tight and although she had small breasts, Steve could not resist a fleeting glance at them. He explained he wanted to explore the famous rock and so Eliane told him how to go up the rock and that it would take an hour to go up then the same down. The views from the top, she explained were spectacular on a clear day like today.
“There are wild herbs on the limestone surfaces and it smells wonderful among the thymes” she said and told him “you can hear the bells of the goats on the hillside”.
She also told him that the village itself was very pretty and that it felt as if you were back in medieval times in parts of it. And of course,
“Nice is just forty minutes or so by bus”.
Steve thanked her and went off. It was again warm and sunny, not a cloud, “perfect for these views” he thought. He made his way to the base of the rock and it was very pretty walking up through the trees in the lower part of the pathway. He took lots of photos, it really was a fascinating experience, the all-round views from the orientation table at the top were simply stunning and it was wonderful to look down on the pretty little village of St Jeannet. He stayed for a couple of hours at the top, chatting to others who had taken the same trek, before the descent back down that took another hour or so. After supper in the clubhouse, he got a beer in the bar, it wasn’t busy there so he decided to take an early night. Back in his cabin, he was able to send about 50 photos he had taken to Hannah.
The following day, once again, Steve was up and out by seven o’clock. He did want to see the village with its steep cobbled streets that are broken by flights of steps and taste the wine of Saint-Jeannet he had read about. But first he was determined to get a good look at Nice, a huge city with wonderful hilltop lookouts, restaurants and glamour, plenty of scenery and apparently it has the most beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean coast. He walked down the road to the bus stop and waited for just ten minutes or so before the bus arrived. He was now on his way to Nice and wanted to see as much as he could there. He had read it was expensive due to the glamour but as long as he was careful, he would be fine. He gazed out of the window as the bus jostled along, stopping occasionally to pick up more passengers and by the time they arrived, the bus was over half full. His travel booklet states there is so much to see and do in Nice, so he was looking forward to his day there. The bus pulled into Gare Nice Ville, in Avenue Thiers and is very central being the train station stop. Steve jumped off and went into town, he wanted to see Jardin Albert I (the city’s central park), it was free and seemingly well worth the visit. It really is massive and runs from Place Massena and joins the Promenade des Anglais to Vieux Nice (the old town of Nice).
Steve did not know of course, but today something would happen, it would be so profound that it would change his life forever.