Mandelieu and the Northern Miners, quite a story!
The coal miners were the first popular summer visitors to arrive in La Napoule, baggage and all. What a thrill it was when Robert, Maurice, and Marcel, fresh from the pithead, still covered in coal dust, learned that their names had been drawn for a family holiday at the seaside! Suitcases were packed with anxiety and care, they boarded a bus, and then it was off to the train, the children's excitement running high as they embarked on their first ever journey. Fourteen hours later, they reached the Mediterranean, even bluer than on the postcards. Then came the climb to Agecroft, where they were breathless under the blazing sun and the weight of their luggage. The discovery was a revelation: real hotel rooms and lunch in a restaurant—yes, here, you were served at the table. There would be swimming, games of pétanque and belote, evening dances where they wore beautiful floral dresses, and excursions to legendary places, like Monaco and Italy. Or towards the ravines and mountains of the hinterland, an extraordinary discovery for people from the flatlands. Fifteen days of shared pleasures that the children, now adults, still remember with emotion.
Others will follow them from all over France and still make the beaches a great success, which, after having welcomed the great and powerful of this world, now meet the desires for sea and sun of today's summer visitors.
