Cape Town Square and the Ciapetta

At the end of the 15th century, Cape San Sebastián saw the development of buildings. In addition to the shops built in the 16th century, which were used for the salt gabelle intended for Piedmont, merchants, craftsmen, fishermen and merchants, houses were built. This suburb, often called the village of fishermen, is grouped around the old chapel of San Sebastián. It takes the name of Cape Town square. The road linking the old port and the Promenade du Soleil, called Quai de Monléon, was completed in 1891. The district of Ciapetta moves away from the shore and the old rock (Ciapetta in Mentonnais), disappears under a median that takes the name of place Fontana. At the beginning of the 20th century, the embankment of the Ciapetta district was completed.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the yacht of the eccentric American billionaire James Gordon Bennett, owner of the New York Herald Tribune, was moored at the Ciapetta Rock.
The latter offers the people of the country and the «fourestié» who come in large numbers, multiple entertainments, in which this benefactor does not participate.
We risk the play of lemon, the tub, the stove, the rope, an untranslatable «lilou-lila» and a no less enigmatic «strangla cat». Then a richly endowed raffle whose first prize brings to the winner a pony with his wagon! To top it all off, a fireworks display that is called a «monster» and that puts an end to three consecutive days of ball where one sweats a lot, as well as those who dance the polka, mazurka and waltz as the twenty-five musicians «eccentrics in preposterous costumes»!