The Fitzgeralds came to the south of France to write, but the couple didn’t spend all their time shut up in a villa. So despite the fact that I too am on deadline, I venture forth in their honor. One of the sites most associated with them is the iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. The Fitzgeralds visited several times on previous sojourns through the area. In Tender Is the Night, it’s immortalized as the Hotel des Étrangers. It has a fictional feel even IRL, as if gardens this perfect and vistas this glamorous must have sprung from someone’s imagination. Rates start in the four figures, but a meal is cheaper. You can visit for lunch and experience the environs at their sparkliest. I prefer the humble spread dished up at the minuscule, cash-only Bistrot du Coin in Antibes. On select afternoons, tables groan under the weight of boiled vegetables, fish, and aioli so luscious I saw someone at the next table eat it with a spoon. Bold, given the number of garlic cloves whipped into it. Fitzgerald described “breathing dreams like air” in his writing, but I did not want to exhale in a social setting until I had a toothbrush in hand a few hours later. Perfect, delectable, fragrant repast.
Back at Belles Rives, one of the best meals in town can be had a stone’s throw from Bar Fitzgerald at the hotel’s La Passagère restaurant. Michelin-starred French cuisine with a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean. At one point during the dinner I eat there, a waiter points to an island in the distance (past the green light). It’s Saint-Honorat, where almost two dozen monks live in the Cistercian Congregation of the Immaculate Conception and produce ultra-limited wine with a spiritual flavor. The waiter has a bottle open and pours me a glass. Not a religious experience, but I would call it transcendent.
Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Belles Rives
Photo: Courtesy of Hôtel Belles Rives
The next morning, I visit the masterworks of Pablo Picasso, who traveled in the same circles the Fitzgeralds did. The Picasso Museum in Antibes doesn’t have as extensive a collection as the Picasso Museum in Barcelona does, but seeing his Joie De Vivre in person is worth the price of admission alone. Later, I wander through Old Antibes where vendors in the Marché Provençal sell cheese, olive oil, fruit, vegetables, and all manner of straw products to tourists and locals alike. Fitzgerald would not have known what to do with the iced matcha latte for sale a few doors down a winding, cobblestone-paved sidewalk, but a gaggle of teenage girls make quick work of their drinks before loading up on French soap. Over dinner at Jeanne in Antibes, I am so engrossed in conversation that I lose track of my belongings and leave a hat I did quite like on a chair in the corner. As the characters in Fitzgerald’s novels have no choice but to learn, there is perhaps such a thing as too much “joie de vivre” after all. The hat is not returned to me.
