Now it's a party ...

We soon headed out of the Cote D’ Azur with heavy hearts, but not after one of the strangest nights in living memory.

Villefranche celebrates Bastille Day the night before on July 13th, where the decorated and brightly lit up local boats do a circuit around the harbour and throw carnations to the crowds lining the water. This was all very traditional and lovely and special to see but it had nothing on the real festivities we were to witness.

We managed to find a table at a restaurant for a drink, granted it had an amazing view from which to watch the boats, that was straight out of ‘Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares’. The frazzled and sweaty dad was rushing back and forth to and from the kitchen whilst the mother stood between clients and screamed at the disinterested daughters to set up table after table after table in the smallest spaces between already occupied chairs and tables. The daughters’ husbands/ boyfriends were working as chef and bartender respectively, but spent more time making out with their respectively partners in public than doing anything resembling work.

In the street outside the restaurant, a rather large African-American man was channelling a laryngitis ridden Barry White to the sounds of a tinny background tape whilst a local kid with exactly 2 dances was breaking dancing alongside a man in very tight white jeans in his mid-50s who was grabbing passing women and rubbing up against them to the rhythm of music. On the other side of our table was a dirty staircase leading up to a set of old apartments. On the steps outside the block, sat two ‘little people’ one on either a children’s play-guitar or a ukulele and the other on synth, who were trying to out-sing and outshine ol' Barry. They were accompanied by a little white dog (I named him Spot) who then decided to attack Gary’s chair at random intervals, and little Spot was being followed around my two little girls who then did a gymnastics routine for us.

The restaurant across from ours was in the aptly named ‘Obscure Street’, and here a drunken and particularly ragged-looking old man with a guitar was also performing, or rather weeping, into his empty beer can with hat askew.

Gary and I didn’t talk for the entire 2 hours we were there, sitting with our mouths slightly a gasp at the sights we were witnessing and, after the little people and the dog led conga-line between the tables, couldn’t help but fall about laughing at this crazy night.