Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France
Of course I’d heard the words and phrases that talk of this region ever since I was a kid: les Côtes d’Azur, St. Tropez, Cannes, Provence… I bet you have too. But I also bet that you have only the merest senses of how those places relate to each other, and to the greater idea of France.
It’s only normal.
I have, after only about nine months of travel, just now figured this out myself. Place names are only just that – place names – until you can actually get out there and experience them, put them in context. Make some sense of them personally.
The côtes here are a searingly brilliant blue. Not blue, azur. The azur shores.
The very word has more gravitas.