1936 On the Continent

Punta
    Thirteen kilometres outside Ajaccio there is a really fascinating château, the Château de la Punta. The peculiar and unique thing about it is that it was constructed almost entirely between 1886 and 1894 out of stones brought from the Palais des Tuileries in Paris, which was burnt down at the time of the revolution in 1871. The north façade used to be on the Place du Carrousel, while the south façade, which faces Ajaccio, comes entirely to the last stone, from Paris. The balustrade of the terraces is the only part that was not “made in Paris”; it belongs to the former Château of Saint-Cloud.
    Anatole France, who at that time (1886) was still at the beginning of his career, was immensely amused by this reconstruction and wrote in an article: “Corsica has just launched a new fashion. Henceforth when the English find that Westminster Abbey has housed the Lords of theThames long enough, they will burn it down or destroy it … and twenty years later the Hindus or the Canadians will set up the same building in Bombay or Calcutta.”
    In any case, you will certainly not regret your excursion to the Château de la Punta. The big salon and the whole first storey are admirable picture galleries, and a path leads from the château through the “maquis” to the peak of Pozzo di Borgo at an altitude of some 2,000 feet, from which you can get a magnificent view over the Mediterranean, the Gulf of Ajaccio and the mountains of Corsica.
    Bastia (12,000 inhabitants), which is about 90 miles from Ajaccio, is considered to be the most important commercial town in Corsica. It has far less historical souvenirs than Ajaccio, but you will find it perhaps even more attractive as a centre for excursions and walks.
    Calvi is a small town of some 2,500 inhabitants and is one of the innumerable places in Europe which claim the privilege of having given birth to Columbus, much to the annoyance of the people of Genoa. There is a plate up on the house where he is supposed to have been born in 1441.
Beauty Spots
    It would be possible to fill up pages more with descriptions of the innumerable beauty-spots and excursions of which Corsica, the “Island of Beauty” as it is called, is full and overflowing. But you are bound to see them; the island is not big enough to miss them. And it will be sufficient for you to have received some idea of the atmosphere of the place and the character of the people. In any case, the Corsican is a natural guide, and no one could introduce you more enthusiastically or fluently to his little country than he can.

MONTE CARLO
    M ONTE C ARLO is, to some, the capital of a pocket state somewhere down on the Riviera. Further, it is the place from where your aunt’s cousin’s brother-in-law—suddenly remembering all distant relations—sent you the most absurdly coloured postcards. It is also the finishing point of a very straining motor rally—but it is above all, and in the first place, a casino. The blue sea and the blue sky are nice but a mere setting, a good contrast to that white palace where fortunes are made and lost. I am still speaking from the point of view of the average man.
    That is the reason why I feel wholly justified in starting with the casino. It is still
the
casino despite the competition France recently begun by allowing roulette and baccarat on the Riviera. And the buses running between Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo are still as crowded as they used to be with people going there to try their luck.
    I do not know whether many go there in the hope of breaking the bank. Some coming there for the first time certainly do. But I daresay that anyone doing so is bound to feel disappointed. It happens—in films and in books. But otherwise it is only one of the many dreams that never—or very, very seldom—come true. Of course, there is the story of the Spaniard who even broke it twice. But that was in pre-War days when a franc was a franc and people had more money to risk.
    Well, all that was just by the way and not meant as a moralising attempt to persuade you to stick to the narrow path. For the moralist certainly looks upon the way to the casino as a very broad and bad one. Tidy sums are made every day and who knows—you may be the lucky one. Last winter an English lady won about 70,000 francs in an afternoon. She was one of the very few who know the trick how to win. She left Monte Carlo by the next train.
    On the other hand, there are people who actually make their living out of