Charles Bricker, our NFL and tennis writer, is enjoying his time in France before the French Open. This is the second in what I hope will be a running correspondence:

The France Pass, allowing three rail trips within a one-month window, was a bit over $300, or approximately what it costs to fill up a gas tank on a French rental car.

Yes, yes. A bit of an exaggeration, but the point is well taken. At the equivalent of $8 a gallon, cars are not such a great bargain anywhere in Europe, and, though I intend to hire a car in Toulouse next week to drive to the Pyrenees, I'm perfectly happy riding the bus and getting around on foot here in Antibes.

Took the 200 mph TGV down from Paris on Saturday, a smooth five-hour ride with stops in Aix and Cannes before alighting in Antibes. The France Pass at 300-and-something dollars is for first-class travel and there was more than enough room to stretch out on the ride down. Don't scrimp on the France Pass. There probably is no better time to be on the Mediterranean than early to mid-May, just before the serious tourist season begins.

Prices are still down and the town is still very largely locals. I'm staying in a modern apartment, which I'm renting from an English couple for about $100 a day. It's on the cape, about a half-mile from the Eden Roc Hotel, which of course was "Gausse's Hotel" in Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night.

This is a peninsula and if you go around the Eden Roc side you wind up in Juan Les Pins, which eventually runs back into Antibes. The walks here are fantastic, whether you're moving up and down the sharply inclined roads on the cape or down below in the town, where the three-block open-air market is open daily and the boats are lined up along their slips near Old Town.

There are exquisite day trips from here. You can be in Monte Carlo in a half-hour by train, though I prefer the slightly shorter ride to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, where you can spend hours in the gardens at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild.

It's also not that far north to St. Paul de Vence or the gorges de Loup, if you care for waterfalls and hikes.

It's Monday, yet another holiday in France, which means only a few stores will be open. No country has more national holidays, which goes quite well with a 35-hour week. May 1 was Ascension Day. Last Thursday was Victory Europe day, yet another day off. And, because it was on Thursday, the government always includes a Friday to make the holiday longer.

Today is. . .let me look this up. . .ah, yes, Whit Monday, another holiday. What is Whit Monday? As far as I can make out, it's "the second Monday after Ascension." Why is this a day off? Who knows. I'm not sure even American Catholics have ever heard of Whit Monday.

Anyway, it's 8:45 a.m. The swallows are diving outside the window of my second-floor apartment, doves are cooing off in the distance and the Navette should be arriving at the bus stop, just a few steps outside the door, on its route from Eden Roc back into town. I'm going to catch it, buy a baguette at the boulangerie in the old town and tour the Napoleon Museum. Antibes, as any Frenchman could tell you, is where The Little Guy reappeared on the mainland after his exile to Elba and where he began his march back to Paris.