Blogs from Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe - page 4

Out our front window, "la baie des anges", the Angels' Bay, and just down the coast Antibes, home to a "superyacht" harbors. A super yacht is one so damned big, you can't believe it doesn't belong to a navy or a shipping line. Whatever the formal definition, they are huge. Right now, there are two visible super yachts - oops, now three - on the horizon to the south of us and, thanks to the intrusive miracle of the internet, I can tell you they are the Apogee, which was built for a Texas software billionaire, estimated cost $70 million US, and the C-167, a Spanish registered boat whose owner is a secret. There are several sites where you can check the location of cruise ships, but which will also tell you the names of practically ... read more

930 a.m. Monday Yeah, they're already out there. Some woman in a bikini is already out on the stony beach in front of us, trying to get a sun tan. It's 16 degrees out there! That's 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Man, that's devotion. And I thought the whole tanning thing was ready to die a natural death. Experience here has shown me just how wrong I am. Again. Evidently, I am a slow learner. Yesterday was warm, sunny and beautiful. The he beach was covered with people in skimpy outfits grabbing some rays for hours on end. And considering the size of the bikinis, "on end" it certainly was. From what I saw on my one foray out onto the stony shingle - little sand here - most sun worshippers at this time of year are as ... read more

Special update for the folks back home! Our niece, Kelly, flew in last night to join us for the Easter weekend! Yay! AND her Uber app worked at the airport! We would have been home even quicker but we managed to go to the wrong place (me leading joyfully in utterly the incorrect direction) to meet the first ride she set up. But the second one showed minutes later! Which is just as well because the excellent airport bus upon which I had been relying to return us to our little seaside pied-a-terre had stopped running by then. Which leads to this: A TV SPORTS FANTASY MOMENT: "A pause here for our sportscasters. Back to Berenice and Bill in our Edmonton studio." BERENICE: Thanks, Antoine in Nice. So, let's check the scoreboard, Bill! So far it's ... read more

Seriously, are all male artists just dirty old (and young) men? If the answer is "No," you certainly couldn't tell it from the collection here. Thronging with nudes in all kinds of groupings, the Musee des Beaux-Arts actually has a lot of beautiful work, including the nudes. But, my goodness (chorus: "Goodness had nothin' to do with it"), they's a whole lot a' naked ladies and gentlemen there. A life-size bronze of a beautiful naked girl reclining greets you just as you walk into the first salon on the main floor. Check the title: "The Slave Girl." Hm? Oh, yes. Looky there. She's all chained up. Kinky. Just beyond her is "Surprise," a slightly coy marble of a young lady who is apparently supposed to be clothing herself with her hand. One hand. The other is ... read more

7:10 p.m. A very LARGE jet is flying directly, and I mean DIRECTLY, at our apartment. The floodlight under the nose is aimed right between my eyes and the roar of it overwhelms the traffic noises. Sitting out on our balcony, I know exactly what to do: reach for my glass of rose! Nerves of steel, that's me. Smoothly, the plane banks to the south, turning its belly to us, passing by so close I can read the airline name, see the wheels come down, and practically count the passengers looking out the windows. That's the tenth one in less than an hour! When the wind is in the west, the landing path to Nice airport runs right along the curve of the bay in front of us. Planes can't come in directly from the east ... read more