Should I start with the wolves? No, they were in "semi-liberty", said the leaflet, which of course also means semi-captivity. So they can howl and wait.
Holidays and weekend breaks creep up on me. I am utterly disorganised and start thinking about them, what to take and even how to get there if driving, at the last possible moment.
So I was astonished to discover how close to Nice are the Alps. Of course I know that on a map, you just look up a bit, and also that Nice is in the département of Alpes-Maritimes. But the mental image is, or was, of a much longer northbound journey from Med to mountains.
Despite the usual traffic jam starting soon after St Tropez and lasting until Ste Maxime - there's a quicker route than hugging the coast but it means driving west to go east, which is simply not something I wish to do unless in a tearing hurry - the journey went quickly.
By 1pm, we were already in a stunningly beautiful valley, not too far short of our destination, Saint-Martin-Vésubie, and I was tucking into a hearty lunch of tripe.
I ended the weekend feeling envious of the Niçois for their outrageous good fortune in living on the Med, being close to the Italian border, needing only a short, attractive drive to reach the the Alps and having by far the greatest French football team to support. OK, the last bit is an exaggeration.
We stayed in La Bonne Auberge, an excellent family-run hotel that occasionally welcomes players of the aforementioned team for rest and recreation, which I am reliably informed (by the Nice team coach) is likely to be rather more disciplined than the Anglo-Saxon version.
The benefits and trials of life sometimes even themselves up, and the English-speaking Niçois achieves such balance by tuning to Riviera Radio.
"From St Remo to St Tropez and RIGHT out to sea," the endlessly repeated slogan proclaims. "Our job is local news, the very best in music and lots of fun."
Unfortunately, the playlist is little better than RTL or Nostalgie's, the local news consists of a bulletin that is played over and again at intervals and the fun is hard to spot. Apart from the blurbs, the ads, the repeats of local news and marginally better national and international news, there is precious little. Unless it was just our rotten luck to catch them on a bad weekend, this was radio's equivalent of the thinnest of local freesheets pushed through your door in the UK. It even made me think longingly of Radio 2 in Dubai.
Thanks heavens the station's reach doesn't easily stretch west of St Trop.
And the wolves? Ah yes, up in the mountains, the wolf is detested by some - usually those with sheep to tend and not wishing entire flocks to be rendered so afraid of being eaten that they leap to their deaths in ravines - and cherished by others.
Both sides of the divide have Italy to thank for the presence of M Le Loup on the French side of the Alps since he is a relatively recent crosser of the frontier.
But the Alpha wolf and nature reserve, a few miles out of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, is an excursion I would strongly recommend, for the frequent glimpses from observation posts of wolves at feeding time and the sheer beauty of the surroundings.
The journey back, all the way along the coast, was a doddle, without even a jam around St Tropez, except for traffic heading in the opposite direction.
The meal stop at Villeneuve Loubet Plage was less than an roaring success. After a longish wait, the chili con carne arrived, prettily presented on a dish with a separate guacamole dip and taco chips. Unfortunately the chili con carne itself was lukewarm and unaccompanied by rice, which finally turned up several minutes later, the waiter expressing surprise that we hadn't waited before starting on the rest.
At €46.50, with just a couple of coffees and a carafe of table wine as extras, it was hardly bank-breaking, but nor was it cheap. Along this coast, it is becoming remarkably easy to eat moderately.
By the end of the homeward journey, I reached a possibly controversial conclusion which had nothing to do with the disappointment of lunch: the corniche between Cavalière and Le Lavandou presents a much, much more impressive a spectacle that the more famous corniche - think of Edward Fox and the Day of the Jackal - west of Cannes.
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