French Riviera paralysed by snow

Not what you normallly expect from the Primo Cup sailing regatta in Monaco

Despite all the warnings the night before, drivers braved the freezing temperatures with the result that many found themselves blocked. On the Cannes-Grasse main road over 250 vehicles were stuck for several hours from 9.30am, with a woman and child having to be evacuated by the fire brigade.

The A8 motorway was blocked in both directions between Fréjus and Nice Est for a while, and was closed to all motorists at the Adrets exit around 11am to allow the snow-ploughs to do their work. Across the region roads were closed, particularly the higher up routes such as the Moyenne and Grand Corniches between Monaco and Nice, and the roads around Draguignan in the Haute Var.

Trucks coming in from Italy were turned back at the La Turbie toll and generally kept off the motorway which did not really get moving again until 4pm. Miraculously there are no reports of serious accidents.

In the air, over a hundred flights in and out of Nice International airport were cancelled and train services were delayed but not halted.

For those who stayed at home it was a magical few hours, a time for children on school holidays to build snowmen on the beaches in Cannes, have snowball fights by the sea in Cagnes-sur-Mer, and slip-slide-away in the streets of Grasse which looked like a scene from a fairytale. In the Var, the perched village of Les Adrets was inaccessible for several hours.

As for the Côte d’Azur capital, a thin veil of snow covered the palm trees on Nice's mythical Promenade des Anglais, as it did in the normally weather-protected Principality of Monaco. And although it did not settle enough to please the younger residents, the virtually nil visibility at sea halted the first race for the 41 Surprise boats at the Yacht Club de Monaco, here to take part in a leg of the Surprise Europa Cup.

They and the other one-design classes taking part in this second weekend of the Primo Cup will no doubt make up for it today as the weather is gorgeous – sunny and windy but still very cold. Not quite the balmy conditions they normally expect from this regatta but challenging! CL