Monokinis and the Tapis Rouge

On Saturday 23/6 we went to Cannes and it was the second last day of the film festival. We went on a bus organised by ''George'' who runs a tour agency and is associated with the language school. George seems to have a pretty easy life as far as we can see. We paid 25 Euro for a return bus trip to Cannes. We had expected that George might lead some sort of basic tour around Cannes but instead we got about 5 minutes of useful factoids, before arriving in Cannes, and were then told that we had 7 hours in Cannes and to make sure that we were back at the bus by 9pm sharp.


Manuela, Dale and I hung out together with Alice, an English lass/girl/woman in our class. We wandered around a bit and went up to a hill above the town where we found great views of Cannes and it’s harbour, which was full of magnificent yachts.







We sat around and had lunch, ice creams and coffees from various places while we waited for 6pm to arrive with all the attendant excitement on the tapis rouge (red carpet). While we were eating our ice creams we had another distressing experience with the French and their treatment of animals. Manuela was the first to notice that an older woman was feeding rice to the pigeons. Now I don’t like pigeons but this is just cruel. She knew exactly what she was doing and glared defiantly at us when she realised that we had noticed. She also has a younger guy with her who was laughing at the entire scene. Dale and Manuela called her a murderess and asked why she was doing it. She shot back that she didn’t care what tourists thought and that we ruin Cannes. Alice sat there seething while doing everything possible to stay in control and to stop herself from shoving the rice down the woman’s throat. I began rehearsing the explanation that would prevent us from ending up in jail and/or causing an international incident. We complained to a local council worker, who was cleaning the park, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said that there was nothing he could do. He also explained that she did this every day. All in all there was nothing that we could realistically do which made the whole situation even more upsetting.




Just before 6pm we made it to the tapis rouge – well about 50 metres back behind a barrier. I got the binoculars out while Dale, Alice and Manuela clicked away with their cameras. We think that the Taiwanese/French film ‘’Visage’’ was screening since we only recognised Fanny Ardant, who was in 8 Femmes. Michelle Yeo was also there as a guest. As we were so far back it was difficult to get any really decent photos. One of the other girls in our language class did manage to get a spot very close – courtesy of flirting with journalists – but she didn’t know who Fanny Ardant was so she didn’t get any good photos of her either. All in all it was one of those experiences that you say you are glad you did but would not bother with again (short of Brad Pitt being there).

Michelle Yeoh - and all the other non-entity guests (you can pick them out; they're the ones taking photos of each other on the tapis rouge)


My best shot of someone famous and I’ve no idea who it is – first correct answer wins a prize

Fanny centre (no not you PF) – who needs surgery with photos this blurry?

After the excitement of the tapis rouge we just had to have some pizza. Then we finished the evening by wandering around the harbour peeking at glamorous yachts and the film festival parties being held on some of them.

David, Alice and Manuela

Party on yacht (our invites got lost in the mail)

The weather on Sunday was glorious and after lunch Manuela proposed that we visit a beach near Marseilles for the afternoon. Naturally we agreed and we went to Susset-les-pins. This was our first real swim in the Mediterranean and we loved it. There wasn’t any sand, which was fine up to a point because I prefer laying on fine pebbles to sand, which seems to get into everything. On the other hand I much prefer sand on the bottom when I’m swimming. Moss covered rocks just don’t quite do it for me.

At the beach we were struck by the amount of topless bathing. Women of all ages and sizes were letting it all hang out. We later discovered that the French refer to this as ‘faire de monokini’, which literally means doing the monokini. We’ve heard of the bikini and even the mankini but not the monokini. Interestingly ‘’Microsoft Word’’ seems to have a problem with the word mankini but not with monokini so we're obviously very out of touch. Anyway, I think that the concept of a monokini is quite ridiculous. In order to have the suffix ‘kini’ attached to a piece of clothing I think that it needs to cover a modest portion of the body, whether it is one or two pieces. I also think that if the monokini can exits then why aren’t budgie smugglers called monokinis, particularly since the advent of the mankini? My mankini was quite a hit on the beach – just joking – that would have caused an international vomiting pandemic.

Spot the sunsmart Aussie

I am also faintly amused that the French have decided to use the verb ‘’faire’’ (to do) rather than “porter” (to wear). They seem to use ‘’porter’’ in relation to other items of clothing but clearly the monokini is not so much a piece of clothing as it is an event or an activity.

Perhaps some of the women can also help me out in terms of understanding whether the monokini is purchased as a distinct item of clothing or whether it is always part of a bikini and the soutien gorge (bras) is left at home or tossed aside at the beach.

Now Dale decided to bring this topic up during a private class he and I had at the language school on the following Monday. The school gave us this lesson free as part compensation for recommending that we rent an apartment next to a disco. Anyway, this is how we found out about ‘’faire de monokini’’. Dale could not leave the discussion here, he had to go further and note the contrast between the fact that a lot of French women ‘’faire de monokini’’ but French men are too modest to shower naked at the swimming pool. Our delightful teacher, Christine, refused to discuss this issue, giggled about modesty, and moved the lesson on to safer ground. The question therefore remains unanswered. Perhaps this is the real French paradox not all that nonsense about them eating too much fat, drinking too much alcohol and smoking yet still living longer than anyone else.

Our last week in Aix was fairly quiet. We did another big hike at Mont St Victoire. The day started in mist and rain but ended with glorious blue skies. The first hour and a half was tough going as we clambered up to a small former priory at the end of the ridge that is effectively the summit of Mont St Victoire. As we moved away down the mountain the sky cleared and we got glorious views of the dam that supplies Aix with its water. The dam was built in the late 40s and early 50s under the Marshall Plan.

Lake with Mont St Victoire in background which we had just ascended and descended

On Monday night we cooked dinner for Manuela and Alice and polished off our remaining bottle of wine from Bandol. We decided to do things Aussie style by eating cheese before dinner. Manuela and Alice were very obliging and played along with this culinary outrage. We tried another 4 cheeses from the Aix Fromagerie and this time the Pont Leveque was the stand out. The Roquefort blue we tried this time (cow rather than sheep milk) was a little too sharp and salty.

On our final night in Aix we went to Manuela’s place for dinner. She is renting a room, with access to a kitchen, in a large house in one of the inner suburbs south of Aix. The house has a large garden, so we sat outside to eat our tapas style dinner. The landlady was charming and insisted on making us some Moroccan tea to have with dinner. Manuela has had issues with this lady because she is sweet and charming one minute and nasty the next, so we were glad that we saw the charming side. She is separated from her husband who still spends a lot of time at the house doing chores. Manuela thinks that the guests become part of the games that are played between the husband and wife to annoy one another. Sounds like ‘’Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolfe’’! When Manuela first arrived she went out to the main terrace in the garden to eat her breakfast and was told by the lady to get back to the little spot just outside her kitchen. Later on she asked the husband about this and he said that she was welcome to sit wherever she liked in the garden. Anyway, after a couple of weeks the landlady seems totally enamoured with Manuela (who wouldn’t be?) and has even started confiding in her.

We left Aix on Friday morning and trained across to Montpellier via Marseilles. We finally met our landlady before leaving and had the difficult conversation about how noisy the disco is. She was charming and feigned concern, "mais malheureusement c’est habiter en centre ville" (but unfortunately that is living in the centre of town). Despite Dale pointing out that the disco goes from midnight until 6am 5 days a week, she insisted on pointing out how much worse things could be if we were near the restaurant around the corner that plays music outside. True, except that this doesn’t happen 5 nights a week and is generally finished by midnight. We were however complementary about the apartment itself, which was spacious and had a good kitchen. Our discussion with our landlady was entirely in French so we think that the language school must have helped somewhat. Dale thought that we had done amazingly well with this conversation. I was rapt with how much I understood but felt that I sounded like a mumbling idiot. Normally I have difficulty understanding but can also talk under water in French.

Aix was a great place to live and is worthy of many return visits in the future. Here are a few parting images.

View across Aix with Mont St Victoire in the background