French Riviera: We Love Nice, People

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Nice:

I am not sure why the French are labeled as rude. We have not found that to be the case. In some obvious ways, the south of France reminds me of Southern California where I lived for many years. The climate is dry and sunny and the hills above the coastal towns have exposed rock and limited foliage during our visit in the late summer.

The French love the beaches, the sun, cars, and their beautiful woman. The French are excellent designers and dressers.

The South of France is a playground for all of Europe. You hear different languages all around you and you would not know that the US is in a recession because America is well represented here.

One day I walked along the beach from the Nice old town Harbor to the airport. It felt like about 4 miles. People ride bikes, roller skate, jog, and walk along the board walk. The people-watching is great. It was amazing how well the aging take care of themselves in France. They continue to dress fashionably at all ages and overall they seem to take pride in their appearance well into retirement age.

Kim and I rented a Scooter so we could visit Cannes and Monaco. I am not sure how to blog this trip, but I am thinking of doing separate blogs for Monaco, Cannes, and Nice; and a fourth blog dedicated to all the people and cars of southern France. We took so many pictures here because there is such beauty everywhere you turn. We also visited Mougins which is about 10 kilometers inland from Cannes so we might also give that a separate blog.

We had a 6 hour layover in Paris on the way to Nice and a surprise overnight layover on the way back. Even more surprising, my sister Kathleen (who lives in London ) sent me an email right before we headed back to Delhi. She mentioned that she would be in Paris celebrating birthdays at the time we were connecting to Delhi. When Air France screwed up our connection and couldn’t fly us out of Paris until 24 hours later, we spent the day in Paris with Kathleen and Chris and Friends. See the Paris blog for pictures of that visit.

Nice , France : “The first known human settlements in the Nice area date back approximately 400,000 years; the Terra Amata archeological site shows one of the earliest uses of fire and construction of houses. Nice (Nicaea) was probably founded around 350 BC by the Greeks of Massilia (Marseille), and was given the name of Νικαία ("Nikaia") in honour of a victory over the neighbouring Ligurians (Nike is the Greek goddess of victory). … Nice also has numerous museums of all kinds: Musée Chagall, Musée Matisse (arenas of Cimiez where one can also see Roman ruins), Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Museum of Naïve arts, Musée Terra-Amata, Museum of Asian Art, Museum of Modern art and Contemporary art which devotes a broad place to famous “the Ecole of Nice ”), Museum of Natural History, Musée Massena, Naval Museum and Galerie des Ponchettes.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice

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Comments

[Steve Wight]

playground of Russian oligarchs
Today's edition of the french newspaper Le Monde was all abuzz over the purchase by some unnamed russian oligarch of an estate near Nice (somewhere on the cape between Nice and Monaco) for 300 to 500 million Euros. The mayor of Nice commented that would be most of the city's annual budget. So are the russians actually annexing Nice as the fear mongering papers suggest? Did you even encounter any expat russians in the Nice nightlife?

[A Travel Story]

Yes
There are Russians running around the French Riviera for sure. But I wouldn't say that they are obviously over-represented as compared to other foreigners. There are still more Brits than any other foreigners as far as I could tell, but it still seems mostly French.