A small 32 page book, in English, with the history of The Trophy of the Alps in La Turbie.
I don’t find a lot of old books about Vence or the Côte d’Azur written in English, so I was very pleased to discover this little book about one of my favorite monuments in our area, Le Trophée des Alpes (or The Trophy of the Alps) in La Turbie. I picked it up at the Saturday morning book market in Nice for a mere 2€. It’s very small, just 12cm by 16cm and 32 pages with a nice hardback cover and is in pretty good condition.
The book recounts the story of this magnificent monument built over 2000 years ago to celebrate the Roman victory over the various Gaulish tribes who populated the southern Alpes at the time. Today only a small portion of the original monument remains but what still stands is quite striking and imposing, dominating the landscape for miles around.
The book contains a timeline related to the monument and the various stages it has been through over the years. Several black and white drawings show it from its initial glory through the almost complete destruction and eventual partial restoration. Unfortunately, there’s no date listed anywhere on the book, so it’s hard to say when it was originally published, but I’m guessing sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.
I’ve written a more in-depth article about the Trophy if you’d like to read more and see my photographs.
Download a high quality PDF of this book (216mb)
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[click on any image to see sample pages]