Nice

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I will preface this entry by saying the Nice was not what I was expecting. Nevertheless, we ended up seeing some unique things that made this day worthwhile.

Nice is known as a vacation spot for summer vacationing French. This is due largely to its proximity to other nice beaches and its weather, but certainly NOT for its own beaches, which are cold and rocky. So we did not get to swim here.

We did, however, get to explore the town. Which is very toursity, but in a different way than the other touristy places I’ve been. This is for native tourists far more than it is for foreign tourists. So the stores and such focus more on actual art and furniture and clothing and housing than they do on souvenirs and excursions like at the other places.

We hit the beach, and then turned back instead seeing some random things in the old town before heading up to the first good experience of the place—the old town cemetery ridge. Above the old town there is a large hill which plays host to a garden, a “large” waterfall and a cemetery which holds many of the area’s most influential family graves. It seems here, at least in this case and likely in many, graves are for whole families instead of individuals. New dedications are added over the years, making some of the sites crowded but most of them splendid, especially since it’s obvious that real money was spent on most of them here. We even saw the grave for the Mercedes family, including the founder of the car company himself. And the view from the terraced graveyard was splendid as well.

However, the view got better as we continued up through the gardens to the waterfall. The waterfall was certainly manufactured (seeing as it’s on top of a small, steep hill), but that doesn’t make it any less splendid. And the view of Nice from the waterfall and the balcony above it was certainly worth the walk. This was another example of a city where you could see an obvious delineation between the old and new areas of the city, with there even being a wide tree-lined street separating them here. And the water looked amazing. We will definitely get in the Mediterranean (in an actually swimmable area unlike Cinque Terre) at some point during this trip.

The garden on the way back down had some unique trees that were certainly new to me, and the walk back to the hostel brought us through some large and very empty squares which were extremely hot due to their being nothing but pure reflective stone. Seems to be a theme here in Nice as there were quite a few of them.

We’re not sure exactly what to do now, since we’ve reserved 2 days in Nice and one is definitely enough. We will probably try to see Monaco-Monte Carlo tomorrow, but we think we can do that on the way to Avignon. So, we will try to cancel one night of Nice and move up both Avignon and Carcassonne a day. Again, wish us luck!

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