Continued from yesterday… Christi took a different path down from the Lou Castel park than she had taken up. When she got to the park gate, she found herself on the waterfront. The only problem was that she had no idea where on the waterfront she was! Here is a shot of the Tour Bellanda and the staircase that leads up into the park from from the bottom.
Christi headed inland, and after a couple blocks found herself in the familiar Cours Saley street market. She wandered through Continue reading
Today was Eric’s big day–he was scheduled to do a presentation and be part of a panel. He left the hotel extra early this morning to meet with the other panel members to do a run through before the conference started. Sadly, Eric’s session was the very last of the entire conference, so it didn’t have great turn out. But, the session itself went well overall. He was done in the mid-afternoon and went to lunch with some co-workers before driving back to Nice.
Christi left the hotel around 1000 and caught the 217 bus to Nice. This time, she went three stops farther before exiting the bus, which dropped off even deeper into the historic district than she had gone yesterday. She followed the windy roads up the hill until she arrived at the Lou Casteu park’s gate. In the hilly area, the buildings looked even older than in the flatter parts she had visited the other day. This is a shot of the streets of old town from the gate.
From what Christi can tell from Continue reading
Continued from yesterday…
After passing the airport, the bus took a road paralleling the ocean. Christi noticed that the farther east the bus went, the older the buildings on the other side of the street were starting to look, like they dated back to the 19th and then 18th centuries. Many were ornate, and many were in the more traditional French architecture styles. She wasn’t sure exactly where to be dropped off, so she picked a stop that seemed to be in what she hoped was the heart of town. Here is a view of the shoreline from the bus stop.
She had made a good guess. After walking only two blocks north, she found herself at the east end of the Massena shopping area, a street blocked off to car traffic that is considered the heart of the modern city. The street was Continue reading
A few weeks ago, Eric was told he was going to Cannes, France for a week on a business trip. All the rooms in Cannes were booked, so he would be staying in Nice. We absolutely loved France, so Christi decided to tag along.
Nice is on the Mediterranean coast in an area called Cote d’Azur (AKA the French Riviera). On our world circumnavigation, we made four stops in Cote d’Azur: Monaco, Saint Tropez , Le Lavandou, and Isle de Porquerrolles, so we were excited to be able to visit some of the places we had missed.
On Saturday morning, we left the boat at 0800. When we got to the airport, we were shocked to see it was shut down, with a fire truck and police cars outside the baggage claim area. We were told the building had been evacuated a half hour ago due to a fire. Whatever the problem was, it was clearly at the opposite end of the terminal from our gate. We were terrified our plane would leave late and we’d miss our connecting flight. After another half hour, everyone was allowed back in. Fortunately, things returned to normal quickly and our flight left on time.
Leg one was uneventful. During the first layover, we found out that on Friday, a Southwest plane had a small piece of the roof come off mid-flight and the cabin de-pressurized. They had to make an emergency landing. Not everyone could get their oxygen masks on in time and some suffered injuries as a result. 10% of the Southwest flights scheduled for Saturday had been cancelled for further plane inspections. Oy vey. We were relieved we were on a different airline.
Fortunately, both the second and third legs were also totally uneventful for us. We arrived at the Nice airport, where we rented a car. Our hotel was just a few thousand yards from the airport as the bird flies, but for the life of us, we couldn’t find the right road to get there. After being seriously lost for about fifteen minutes, we eventually found the hotel, the Holiday Inn. Our initial impression of Nice was that it looks like a typical Mediterranean town, with many 4 10 story blocky concrete apartment houses. Most are painted a pastel color and either have flat roofs or red tiled pitched roofs. Most of the buildings we saw look like they were from the 20th century, though we did pass an area that looked like it may have been more historic.
Our hotel is located right on the L’Atoll beach. Our room is charming and has a lovely view of the ocean.
By the time we Continue reading