The Unwritten Rules of a Riviera Summer
By the third day of a Riviera holiday, you may begin to suspect that your itinerary was prepared by someone who has never sat down to a particularly good lunch.
There is another village to reach, a reservation to confirm and a beach you are apparently meant to photograph before the light changes. Meanwhile, the bread is being passed, your glass needs water, and the person opposite has finally begun to tell the interesting part of the story.
We would stay for the story.
What follows is Club Riviera’s own set of house rules for a summer well spent. They reflect our tastes and convictions. Take them to the French or Italian Riviera, and keep the useful ones when you get home.
1. Leave room for lunch to become the afternoon.
Make the reservations you care about, then leave some daylight between them. A good lunch is difficult to enjoy with one eye on the time it will take to get to the next attraction.
Order something you want to eat. Ask a second question when someone tells you what they have been doing. Allow the conversation to wander beyond tomorrow’s arrangements. There is a particular pleasure in realising that nobody at the table has anywhere urgent to be.
This takes a little planning. Choose a day when you can linger, respect any agreed time for returning the table, and leave the rest of the afternoon open. There may be a walk afterwards. There may be coffee somewhere else. You may find that sitting in the shade with your book is quite enough.
A well-spent afternoon can be surprisingly difficult to itemise.
2. Become a regular, even briefly
Find somewhere you would happily return to for your morning coffee. Go back.
The second visit has its own pleasures. You know which table you liked. You can try the pastry you noticed yesterday. You begin to pay attention to the place itself, having settled the question of whether you chose correctly.
Give your chosen stretch of coast a chance to become familiar. A week in Antibes need not involve a daily search for a better Antibes. When deciding where to stay, think about the walk from your door to breakfast, the shop where you might buy fruit and the route you could take home in the evening. These ordinary journeys deserve some weight alongside the more impressive addresses.
Return because you enjoy being there. Recognition, if it comes, is a bonus; nobody serving breakfast owes you the role of beloved local after two cappuccinos.
3. Pack for your actual holiday
Before adding another outfit, consider what you intend to do in it.
If there will be walking, bring shoes in which you can walk. If lunch follows a swim, bring something comfortable to change into. If you have dinner reservations, put together an evening outfit before you leave home. Footwear should not be allowed a veto over the afternoon.
A useful wardrobe leaves room for repetition. Wear the trousers again. Give the shirt another outing. Bring the dress you already feel good in, including the colourful one. We have no objection to a little theatricality at dinner, provided its wearer can sit down comfortably.
Try unfamiliar combinations before packing them. This is a much more pleasant task at home than in a hot room with five minutes to spare and a taxi downstairs.
4. Know what you are paying for
There is a reason to enjoy a hotel terrace where the chairs are generous, the glasses arrive cold and someone notices that your table needs more shade. Sometimes a pleasant hour made easy is exactly what you want.
Choose the pleasures you will actually notice. Perhaps that means spending more on where you sleep and eating simply. Perhaps it means modest accommodation and one remarkable lunch. A holiday budget becomes easier to enjoy when it reflects your own preferences.
Pay attention to the unadvertised details, too: whether the chair is comfortable, whether you like the atmosphere, whether the menu contains something you are hungry for. These will still matter after the photograph has been taken.
There is pleasure in a paper-wrapped lunch, eaten somewhere lovely, with the right person beside you. There is pleasure in being beautifully looked after. You are allowed to enjoy both without turning either into a statement about your status.
5. Begin with a greeting
The person helping you enjoy your holiday is usually working through it.
Look up. Say hello before making your request. Give someone a moment to finish what they are doing. A few words of French or Italian, offered without a performance, are a useful place to start.
Good manners also have a practical side. Keep your bag out of the passage between tables. Let a restaurant know if your plans change. Ask before photographing a person or treating their shop as the backdrop to an elaborate production.
Holiday confidence can occasionally become a curious belief that everyone else should hurry so that you may relax. Resist it.
We would take considerable interest in how a person treats the waiter before asking where they are staying.
6. Allow the place to change your mind
Arrive with enough curiosity to discover that some of your assumptions were unnecessary.
In Genoa, focaccia dipped in cappuccino is a local breakfast combination. Anyone arriving with firm ideas about keeping olive oil and coffee apart has something to investigate. Visit Genoa’s local guide.
In Nice, the Cours Saleya changes character on Mondays, when antiques and second-hand dealers take the place of the usual flower and produce markets. A morning intended for buying fruit may acquire an interest in old prints. Nice Côte d’Azur Tourist Office.
Ask the stallholder what is good today. Read the menu before deciding what lunch ought to be. Take an interest in the particulars of the town you are visiting.
Even neighbouring places deserve the chance to surprise you. A little uncertainty leaves room for a better breakfast, an unexpected conversation and, occasionally, a purchase that will require careful packing.
7. Give the evening a proper beginning.
The Italian tradition of aperitivo makes an occasion of a drink before dinner, often accompanied by small savoury bites. Carluccio’s guide to aperitivo.
Borrow the pause.
Come back from the beach with enough time to wash off the salt, put your things away and sit down. Order something you enjoy. Let the conversation find its pace before anyone begins discussing the menu for dinner.
At home, put a few olives or nuts in bowls, bring out the glasses and make space for everyone to sit. A spritz, a bitter soda or sparkling water with lemon can each have a place at the table. Choose drinks simple enough that the person preparing them can join the company.
The first drink need not be hurried into the second. There is still the rest of the evening to enjoy.
8. Make a small occasion of dinner.
We are in favour of changing for the evening, even when the change is modest.
A fresh shirt. A dress you like. Trousers that have been waiting patiently while you spent the day in swimwear. The small act of getting ready gives dinner its own place in the day.
Our preference is for an effort that includes the people you are meeting. Arrive ready to enjoy their company. Put the phone away for a while. Notice something beyond the view.
This can happen at a restaurant, on a rented balcony or around your own kitchen table. Use what you have, and let the setting guide you. Where a venue specifies a dress code, check it when booking.
There is something rather appealing about looking forward to an evening enough to prepare for it. The person opposite may appreciate the gesture, even if neither of you mentions it.
9. Set a table people can settle into.
Begin with the chairs.
Can everyone sit comfortably? Is there room for elbows and serving dishes? Can the water be reached without interrupting a conversation? These questions deserve attention before the flowers.
Then add the things you enjoy: a cloth with some colour in it, cloth napkins, a bowl whose shape pleases you. A few stems in a low jug leave room to see the person opposite. Mismatched plates can look perfectly at home together when the table feels considered.
Keep enough space for the meal to arrive. A table that must be dismantled before anyone can eat has become rather pleased with itself.
And make arrangements that allow the host to sit down. Prepare what you can in advance, put the useful things within reach and accept offers to carry a dish. The person who invited everyone should get to hear the conversation.
10. Bring a habit home
By all means buy the jug, the print or the pair of sandals you will wear for years. Choose something you genuinely want to use.
Bring back a habit as well.
Perhaps you liked having a drink together before dinner, or walking out for coffee without immediately opening your phone. Perhaps you noticed how much better lunch felt when you set the table, or how little food was needed to make an invitation worth accepting.
Try one of those things in the life you return to. Put the jug on the table on a Wednesday. Invite someone round before you have perfected the room. Give an ordinary meal a little of the attention you were willing to give it on holiday.
The first evening home is a perfectly good time to begin.