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Published: September 18th 2017
Nice (pronounced niece) was an excellent place to stop for a few days. It has an excellent marina with great people working there that are very helpful, an excellent tourist information center, a wonderful public transportation system which includes buses, trams and a train station that you can use to go to other places; a historic part of town to wander through, numerous museums, great promenades along the water, fabulous scenery with Nice being surrounded on one side by mountains and the other the sea – what else could you want? Oh, yes, I forgot wonderful places to sit and have a meal.
This was going to be our last stop in France as our plans are to head to Italy next. We at first thought we would only stay a couple of nights, but with a the price of the marina being very reasonable and in an excellent location with plenty of places to go to from here we decided to stay a few more days and take some day trips from here. Later we did extend a couple more days but this time it was due to the winds and seas kicking up so decided it was best
to stay. With the extra time we could get to the Laundromat and change the oil as we need to do both.
First, when coming into this harbor you need to contact the marina by radio as you have to be sure it is OK to enter. This seems obvious for any harbor, but in particular this harbor services a wide range of vessels which includes the super yachts, commercial barges, huge ferries and cruise ships and they even kept space for the small traditional fishing boats. Surprisingly we even saw sculls being rowed in here! They do have an excellent traffic light system to let you know if it is OK to enter or exit, but they know if anything is going to be arriving or leaving in the next few minutes so it is imperative to call them upon entering and when you want to leave.
Once we got permission to enter we were told the slip we were to go to and that someone would be there to help with our lines. Normally we don’t need this, but now with what is called “med mooring” we are happy to have the help. With med mooring
there is no “dock”, many go in stern first, but we go in bow first, Janice has to jump over the bowsprit with the lines to secure us and Bob has to get a line that is connected to the quay (affectionately called the “scum line”) and a mooring off your stern to connect to the boat. With people helping, Janice can just throw our lines to the person and they then hand us the “scum” line that Bob has to connect to the stern making it MUCH easier to accomplish. We figured out what slip we were told to go to, but another boat was already there. We called again & found out that there had been an error as there had been another boat with a similar name to Tsamaya (imagine that!) called Tsamara that was given that slip. Fortunately the shipyard in the harbor had a free quay for us to wait about 20 minutes until we were given a new slip. They were very apologetic and very helpful with getting us settled into our slip.
After checking in with the office we took a lovely walk into the old town as well as our normal
first stop of the tourist information center. This sounds like it will be a great base to spend a few days.
One of the places that we said we should go to was Monaco - it is very close by and we could get there by train as well as by boat. With a few days here in Nice at a great marina rate, we decided the train was the way to go as we could also get a glimpse at the countryside. Quickly Janice did some research, bought the train tickets and the next day we were on our way to the principality of Monaco. We broke out the better clothes to at least try to fit in a little better to this high class area. Bob said he couldn’t believe he was giving up wearing shorts and wearing long pants to go sightseeing – the sacrifices we have to make!!
We always enjoy train travel and this was no exception. This area is definitely not flat and the train traveled along the coastline on one side and the mountains on the other. After a pleasant ride we found ourselves facing the hills of Monaco, you seem
Walked The First Day On the Promenade in Nice
biggest surprise was not seeing sand on the beachto be either walking up or down hills here. Monaco is only .75 square miles and is bordered on both sides by France and fronted by the Mediterranean Sea. If you don’t know anything else about Monaco you probably know that this is where the well-known Monte-Carlo Casino is located. If you are of a certain age, you will probably also know that this is where the actress Grace Kelly was married to Prince Rainier and became Princess of Monaco in 1956.
With only having a day to explore we had to narrow down what we would see. As famous as Monte-Carlo Casino is we figured we should at least see the outside of it (and it was conveniently very close to the tourist office!). We learned that it was designed by the same architect that designed the famous Garnier Opera House in Paris that we had toured while there. He designed the casino and included an opera house here in thanks to the Prince for his financial help in completing the one in Paris. It is indeed an impressive structure. While standing outside we noticed that numerous people were going inside so checked to see if we could
The WWI Memorial in Nice
can be seen from the water & from land enter. They allow people to view the atrium in the morning so decided to take a firsthand look ourselves. The inside is over the top spectacular and is in keeping with the opera house we saw in Paris. Just as a side note – after our train trip we both decided to use the facilities while here – to get to them you go down a marble staircase. As usual there is a line to the ladies and not the men’s, but we found that one of the reasons for that was that the ladies only had 2 stalls, while the men had many more – guess in the day when this was built, there were definitely more men than women who spent time at the casino!
In doing research on Monaco we found that there is a changing of the guard at 11:55AM at the Palace, so decided to hike over to see it. This meant DOWN hill from the casino, then UP hill as the palace is located in a very defensively strategic location. The Palace was first built in 1191 as a fortress and was under the control of numerous parties until the Grimaldi family took
control of it in the early 1300’s. The Grimaldi’ first ruled as feudal lords, but since the 17
th C. they were the sovereign prince therefore transforming the fortress into a palace. In reading more about Monaco, it told about the uniqueness of the Palace here in that they have always reigned from this same site due to the lack of land to build elsewhere as well as the need for continued defense. . This definitely looks more like a fortification rather than the palaces of other rulers we have seen with their extravagant Renaissance and Baroque structures. As we have learned in other neighboring countries, during various times (due to the political situations that would arise) the King could rule from other Palaces located throughout their country, this was not possible here in Monaco. This has resulted in Monaco being ruled from this same location for over 700 years. We didn’t take the time to tour the Palace, but we did enjoy the changing of the guard – another one we can add to the list of many that we have seen.
Even as small as Monaco is in physical space, we were very pleasantly surprised by the fact
that there were numerous green spaces. We enjoyed walking through some of the gardens as well as along the cliffs overlooking the sea. One very popular tourist attraction here is the Oceanography Museum. Prince Albert I built it in 1910 as he was an enthusiastic supporter of the sea with Jacques Cousteau being in charge of it for 32 year. We understand they have a wonderful aquarium as well as displays on all things related to the sea, but with only have a very limited time here we just walked by this interesting structure by the sea.
We did make it to the Cathedral where Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) were married. This is also where their tombs are located as well as Prince Albert I. It was built in 1875 on the site of the previous parish church from the 1200’s. It was quite crowded with people coming to pay their respects to the Prince and Princess, their tombs easily identified by a drawing of their wedding as well as a white rose on each tombstone. Those items are the only things that marked their tombstones as different from any of the others that were there
from previous centuries. It showed a dignity of being the same as the others, not distinct from anyone else.
Monaco is known for it being a place with no income tax and as a result is a tax haven for many. The shops that you see here are the of the same caliber of those on Fifth Avenue in NYC and the Champs-Elyse in Paris which is nice for window shopping but definitely helped our budget as we didn’t do any of our own shopping here!
We definitely did enjoy perusing the numerous super-yachts in the harbor here and just wondering about their details – how long are they, how many people do they carry and what the guest/crew ratio might be. Needless to say we knew we would never want to have to pay for the diesel for any of these! We have seen super-yachts before starting with our travels down the east coast of the US, but these are of a different class indeed. We had fun making note of the names of some these yachts and then looking up the details later. Just a couple you might want to check out yourself are MV Lady
The Clock Tower & Dolphin Fountain
are landmarks used in directions here in Nice Moura or MV Game Changer. We noticed both of these in the Monaco Harbor that day. MV Lady Moura caught our eye due to its overall size which we later found out was 344 feet long! How about the ratio they advertise of 30 guest to 60 crew members – talk about service! It is owned by a Saudi Arabian billionaire and all of the name plates and logos on the boat are gold plated in 24 K gold – no wonder we could easily see it when we were viewing it from high up on the surrounding cliff. The other one, MV Game Changer, attracted our attention due to its unique design and of course the helicopter pad was something that you could easily see from above. This one you should definitely check out as it is a brand new 227 foot “support vessel” as their advertising goes. As their product director stated ““Our clients want to go to exciting new destinations with less established super yacht infrastructure and they want to have more fun with larger tenders, larger helicopters and submersibles. They also want to take more staff, guides, pilots and security personnel with them.” If you do
a google search on it you will get more details of the “toys” and facilities it has on this “support vessel” – just remember when you are reading this that this is not the “mother ship”! Using those terms I keep thinking of science fiction terms, not the reality of today, but guess there are people around that have this kind of money to make it profitable to build ships like this as it appears they are in the process of building[ another one.
Our day in Monaco quickly came to an end and we didn’t get to all of the areas we would have liked, but it definitely gave us a glimpse of this principality. We did notice a couple of the advertisements for duplexes in the area – when you think you may be paying too much for your place, just take a look at the couple of advertisements I put in with the photos – one of them even states that it needs renovation and will still cost equivalent to a little over 10 million dollars!
The next day we had a complete change of pace from Monaco as we took a lovely train ride
from Nice up along the Var River valley to Entrevaux. It only took about 1.25 hours by train, but it took you back in time to a medieval fortified royal town. To enter the town you still walk across the drawbridge and through the historic defensive gate into the walls of village of Entrevaux. It is still a functional living village with shops, residence, village hall and church. After having a wonderful lunch at a café at one of the village squares we wandered through the numerous alleyways and roads of the village. We say roads cautiously as they seemed more like walkways, but we did see small vehicles (with license plates on) maneuvering though some of them which makes them a road in our book. We visited the church which appeared quite plain on the outside, but was so inviting in the inside. The village is dotted with numerous places to gather water and we saw that they were still being used by many. No matter where you walked, you had to choose if you were to go up now or down now as you knew the opposite direction would kick in on the return trip!
One of
the attractions of coming to Entrevaux is to climb (walk) up to the Citadel that sits about 500 feet above the village which you get to by following a half mile path that snakes up the hill. This village was originally founded in the 11
th C. as it was in a very defensible location situated on a bend in the River Var. In 1536 it fell to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and resulted in the killing of half of the population that were living here at the time. Those that survived killed the governor and offered the town to the French. By doing this it was declared a royal town which exempted the population from taxes. In the 16
th C. the seat of the Bishop was moved to the Entrevaux Cathedral and remained as such until 1801.
A bridge, numerous towers and a portico were built in 1658 to help in the defense of this area. With the border of Savoy nearby and its location in the Var River Valley it was decided that the fortifications needed to be strengthened, therefore the famous military architect, Vauban was asked to plan these changes. Not all of his plans
The Nice Market Was an Excellent One
with numerous offerings that we couldn't resist were implemented but the walkway to the Citadel , 2 additional forts and the 2 main gates to the city were strengthened. Previous to this the only way up to the Citadel was by ladders. We were definitely happy that his pathway was added as we used this to gain access to the Citadel. The last use of the Citadel was during WWI for the holding of German officer prisoners.
The weather cooperated beautifully for our day trip to Entrevaux as it was clear, but not too warm for our walk up to the Citadel. There are numerous hilltop villages in the area of Nice as we saw on the train ride here and some are mentioned in the guidebooks as places to visit, but we are glad we decided to take a chance in going out to Entrevaux – a wonderful day giving us a chance to see more of the beautiful scenery in this area as well as learn more of the complex history of France.
With Nice being the last French town we will be in we needed to double check on the phone service that we have had since being in Paris. It has
worked very well for us as a phone, but also as a hotspot for our internet use on the boat with our numerous devices. We knew that we could continue to use it in other European countries, but wanted to double-check the details and how we can eventually discontinue the service when we decide to. This meant taking a bus ride out to the very large shopping center on the far side of town. As we say when we need to do “errands” such as these, it gives us an opportunity to see another part of a town or city that we normally wouldn’t travel to. Fortunately with the bus system in Nice being quite extensive, we were able to make connections and get our answers to our questions at the Free Mobile store. It sounds from what we were told we should be able to do everything that we have currently been able to while in France once we cross the border into Italy. He did give us some tips that we will find useful. This bus ride took us along the bay and past the Nice airport that we could see when we were arriving by sea. Our
biggest surprise has been seeing that the beaches here are not made of sand, but stone! Everyone we saw were just setting towels down on the stones before laying down themselves. It sure didn’t look very comfortable to us – what a surprise that this is what we have been seeing along the French Riviera! They have beautiful blue water, but not the sandy beaches that we had always pictured. Maybe there is in other areas, but many of the towns we have been in along the coast were the same, stone rather than sandy beaches.
Nice itself is a very large city, but “Vieux Nice/Old Nice” is a very manageable area to walk through so spent most of our time in this area. There are numerous museums and churches to explore in Nice, but we decided to do away with a “planned” walk and just meandered through the area enjoying the architecture, the maze of roadways, poking into a few churches and of course do some people watching as well. There were numerous references to the US with one of the roadways called “Quai des Etats-Unis” (quay of the United States) as a reference to the Americans entering
into WWI in 1917. A few of the names of the beaches are those people would recognize in the US such as Miami Beach and others. We were able to learn some of the history of the buildings we viewed from what we read in our guidebooks, but we enjoyed just soaking in the atmosphere of the area and not worrying so much about learning all of the details of what we saw as it seems to have become somewhat overwhelming at times.
The history of France is complex and this area is no exception. Nice had been a protectorate of the Italian kingdom of Savoy-Piedmont (the King of Sardinia) until 1860. Italy was working on uniting and the area of Nice was given a choice, either stay part of Italy or become part of France. Italy needed the support of France in helping it gain control of Italian regions that had been under the control of Austria. In return for France’s help in accomplishing this, the area of Nice was given to France. With the history this area has had with Italy, we have noticed that at times we almost feel we have already moved to Italy. Just
look at any of the menus and you will see much more pasta being offered and even the grocery stores now have complete aisles dedicated just to offering the numerous varieties of pasta available. I know I won’t have any problem with finding something I like on the menus here and Italy if this is any indication.
On the last day in Nice we finally took the time to go to the top of what is called Castle Hill. We had thought that it was just a high point in the city to get some excellent views of the city and bay, however, we found that there was more to it. The top of this hill is where the city of Nice first originated as it provided protection from the sea and any invaders that may arrive via the surrounding flat land. This high area became a citadel that protected the area with the addition of ramparts down below on the flat land. In 1706 Louis XIV ordered all of the defensive systems torn down and later the area was turned into a park with the addition of an artificial waterfall in the late 19
th C. It continues to
A look at where some of the observation areas
were on top of Castle Hill overlooking the marina be a park enjoyed by many with its numerous walkways and great views of the city, bay and mountains.
We know that there were many more things we could have taken in while in Nice, but time is going by quickly and we still have quite a distance until we get to Gaeta, Italy; the winter home for Tsamaya this year.
We had planned to leave Nice and called the marina to let them know. We were told that the weather outside the harbor was not good and that we might want to reconsider our decision. We of course have been checking the weather, but it did not show that the wind and seas would be as bad as the person suggested to us. We thanked him for the information and told him we would do some further checking. Fortunately he told us that our berth was still vacant for another night if we would like to stay – quite quickly we decided an extra day at the marina would be fine.
Our plan when we leave Nice is to stop at a couple of harbors doing “day hops” along the coast with our goal of being
in Genoa in a couple of days. With our time spent in Nice and the added day due to the information we received from the marina, we started to make new plans. We now will make a longer jump and do a 16 hour trip to Genoa directly. This meant that in order to arrive during daylight the next day, we would leave in the afternoon. Now a new plan was set.
Just as we did when we arrived, we called the marina to see if we could leave the harbor. There weren’t any red traffic lights lit, but we were told that a large ferry was arriving in a few minutes and that we need to wait – no problem with following that request! After about 20 minutes of waiting we were able to leave.
The harbor in Nice is very well protected and it is not easy to get to a place to see what it is doing “outside”. We left the harbor and found that even though we stayed an extra night and part of the next day, the seas were quite high and to add insult to injury the wind was coming out of
the opposite direction from what was predicted. We look at numerous weather sites so were not happy that it was so wrong! We knew from the marina office that the berth that we had been in was now gone so we figured we could deal with the seas and continued on, figuring we would just change our angle to deal with the wind direction. Well, no amount of adjusting helped enough to make it comfortable as the wind and seas were coming at us from opposite directions. The sea swells were about 5-6 feet high with a very short interval in between them. We continued forward in the right direction, but even with our engine on at 2200 rpm, we weren’t making much headway. In looking at our AIS (automatic identification system) we could see that behind a nearby point of land there were numerous boats at anchor. We quickly checked our chart and pilot book and decided it was time to turn in behind that same point of land and find a place to anchor before more time went by as the sun was going down. Fortunately we found the night at anchor was a good one and we
could rest up for the next day of travel with the hope that the sea swell would settle down over night.
This was one time that we made a couple of mistakes – 1) we were anxious to get to Genoa and make another step closer to our winter destination allowing ourselves to push our time of departure; 2) we didn’t wait a full extra day after heavy winds to let the sea swell settle and 3) didn’t take time to walk all the way around the harbor to a place where we could look out to observe the sea ourselves.
We have always known that the sea needs time to settle down after heavy winds, but thought that by waiting until the next afternoon it would have had enough time to quiet down. We learned that this can’t be rushed for anyone’s schedule. Fortunately we made a change to our plans quickly enough and found a nearby place to anchor for the night.
With sailing you need to be sure to have a few plans in mind as well as be willing to make up a few new ones along the way if it becomes necessary.
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Cyndie
non-member comment
Nice and Monaco
Hello Mates,....What a great few days you had in Nice and Monaco!!! Who would have thought another boat would have such a close name to the Tsamaya to take your spot. LOL I thought Princess Grace was a wonderful individual and what a storybook ending to marry the Prince of Monaco. As for the super yachts,...kind of ludicrous to use gold, and high end tweaks to fix a luxury yacht. Talk about the haves and have nots...a world I would never want to be part of. Yep, fun to look at, but dreaming about it for myself would never work. Monaco is a beautiful place,...and of course a place for the rich and famous. Nice that they let us commoners view their lives...LOL That monetary differential between the politicians [most of whom are millionaires], and those they govern really shows they don't know how to fix it for the average person. I'm not sure anyone can fix the USA any more...too many people think they have THE answer...a product of overpampering adults who think everyone should get a participation trophy. lol...guessing that might be one cause for the dysfunction here. Monaco looks so perfect, clean, pastels, nice shiny black Ferrari, etc. The view of Monaco from the palace which includes the marina is very impressive. The cathedral has a different look to it from others you have captured...then I realized,..no spires. The inside of the cathedral is amazing!!! The rings with jeweled butterflies would be dangerous on my fingers...looking for an eye to poke or clothing to get stuck on. lol Your comparison of the "old" and "new" Monaco....the old is so charming that it would be hard to love the modern part. You two much be in very, very good shape to climb that hill with all of the switchbacks. Worth it??? I can tell you,...the views you captured are candy for the eyes. And....I particularly liked the "dualees"...very cute couple sharing special place. Well, thank you for the tour through Nice and Monaco,...as of noon today, Sept 19,...you have not moved...keep listening for the ship booming alert, but nothing yet. Take care and stay well...patience with the weather. We are in the middle of a return to summer. A week of sunshine, no rain, and high 70's, low 80's. Motorcycle,..here I come!! precious few days left. love and hugs...xoxoxoxox c & B