Promenade des Anglais is the name of the high promenade in Nice, so called because it was a fashionable spot for English tourists in the late Victorian era. This is the second visit to Nice in these stories. The first was to the contemporary resort where Marion sunbathed on the beach. This time they are in 1884, at the height of that fashionable period, and Marion is wearing a Victorian maternity dress. It is an interlude, nothing more. There has been a long story arc with Rika and Remonte’s impending nuptials which is now over, and a one off story with Marion and Kristoph having a quiet holiday and relaxing is what the readers all needed after the excitement.

What this story is mainly about, of course, is how much Earth in 1884 and Gallifrey in Kristoph’s time were the same. I have portrayed it very much as a place with a distinct class system and a lot of snobbery among the aristocracy. Lady Beaufort who demanded finer cut marmalade and Lady Ravenswode are two of a kind. And as Kristoph pointed out, the talk about Eton and Rugby, Oxford and Cambridge was much the same as his own conversation about the Prydonian Academy.

And it ends with Kristoph giving Marion’s swollen ankles a massage. What could be better than that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promenade_des_Anglais