An old military port, it’s a very deep, natural harbor with a forbidding stone fortress and an antiquated, scary-looking eighteenth-century building that was once used as a prison for galley slaves. From the main, corniche road we had to drive down, down, down, spiralling along hairpin turns with very narrow, walled roads that eventually took us to sea level. With its sheer height and old stone architecture, Villefranche is breathtakingly beautiful, yet on its labyrinthine roads, one wrong turn can send you into a walled-in, deserted cul-de-sac, gloomy in the shadows of mysterious old houses packed in cheek by jowl, so that it can be dark even in daylight. I could see why Cocteau used it as a setting for the underworld in his film Orpheus. And Erik was right; when we paused at a traffic light, aggressive gypsy girls wearing tank tops and jeans that left their midriffs bare, accosted us. They were carrying buckets of dirty water, and brandishing squeegees, trying to intimidate every alarmed driver who stopped at the light into paying for their dubious windshield-washing.
What do You think about A Rather Curious Engagement?
