Nice

Well Nice was nice…. Hahaha yes ok now that we have gotten that cliché out of the way… it was actually amazing. The Cote d’Azur certainly lives up to its reputation. While no we did not frequent the casinos, we did though hang out on the beach… even if it was too cold to go swimming.

Nice’s rocky beach was a lot nicer than I always assumed a rocky beach would be, and of course my inner child immediately took a liking to the fact that nearly all of stones on the beach were of excellent skipping variety…. Of then I preceded to attempt skip in the ocean…. Which as one would assume is not quite as easy as a lake or river, but I eventually figured out that I should skip them along the waves, not into them… stupid me I know, I know.

What Nice is known for is its boardwalk along the coast (the Promenade de Anglaise… or something close to that… yea can’t spell in French, that’s Jeannie’s job). One can imagine it would be fantastic during the summer months, with tons of people, vendors, street artists, bikers, skaters, and sunbathers… right now during the winter it is still very pleasant and busier than I expected it to be.

Ok now that I think about it… I lied… Carnival is what Nice is really known for… but maybe I was just jaded because we are here a week before Carnival and get to see all the preparations, but not the party.

One thing I find interesting about Nice is that it appears it too has developed former river bed into a strip of parks and cultural centers… this was something that I was not aware of before we arrived and I actually started looking at the map of the city in earnest. So I guess this is another thing I am going to have to research further. It appears that they have either diverted their river or it naturally has gone underground… Either way the river (which currently is barely flowing, and appears that the river bed is either being prepped for some work or is being cleaned) now flows underneath the Acropolis (Nice’s expo center) and a series of public fountains, gardens, and the Carnival grounds, before it goes under the promenade, over the beach and out to sea.

Our hostel here was really nice and was maybe a 2 minute walk from the train station…. Not bad at all. Also the food right around the hotel was excellent. I really enjoyed that blending of the French and Italian cultures that occurs here in Nice. Something I didn’t know was that Nice had been apart of Italy as recently as the mid 1800’s, and was actually the birthplace of that great Italian hero, Guiseppe Garibaldi.

Just some other things while I remember. The old part of Nice was great, it was really interesting to be in those tiny streets with their tall buildings, and then have them open onto the promenade and the sea. Oh god and stupid me I have completely failed to mention the Flower Market… you know the other thing Nice is well known for… boy this getting sad what has happened to my poor memory… anyway… The Nice Aux de Flores is a happening place all week, but Sunday is when it is at its best. It maybe be because Nice is our first truly warm stop but it seems there is nothing nicer than getting to wander through booths and booths of fresh fragrant flowers… and I’m not even that big of a flower person. And of course there is a lot more than just flowers, the Aux de Flores handles all of your other typical market fares as well.

I think one of things I find so remarkable about things the Aux de Flores and Barcelona’s La Ramblas, is that they are common things… not in that they are unremarkable (far from that in fact), but that they are made up of common ingredients that are not taxing a city to provide. I guess what it is that makes these examples succeed where others have not, is the surrounding culture that these spaces work the way they do.

Well off we go to Siena, this part of the trip seems tricky because crazy Italian trains… so we’ll see, we also have to call our hostel in Siena and they are going to meet us there… sounds weird to me but hey I’ll do anything once.