Our Parks

After another delicious and nutritious breakfast compliments of chef Susie it was off to visit the Nice beaches. But we decided to first checkout the park across the street from our apartment. It is a very green place and it had the obligatory couple of bums sleeping on the benches. Other than that it was a nice place. Here are a few pics:





There was a large construction project at the far end of the park. We found out that they are building a new subway in Nice and this is part of the project...

Nice Beaches

It is about a 10 minute walk from the apartment to the beaches. There is a large boardwalk above the beach. Here is the boardwalk which has these great covered seating areas... how civilized :-) 


This is Lido Beach, one of the famous ones in Nice:


And a few shots from their beach...

A Beach Is Not Always A Beach?

So... when you hear the word beach you would normally assume it would include sand. Well think again! The beaches here are actually rocks, about the size of a bottle cap. There is absolutely no sand on these beaches. I guess the French lost the recipe for sand :-)  Here is a pic to give you an idea of what I'm talking about (sorry it is not my most exciting photo :-) )


Here are few other photos of the other beaches along the boardwalk.







YES... the water is that BLUE (Azur Blue)...





After our visit to the beaches we decided to stop at the tourist office for some advice and to see what trains are still running (the train worker unions are on a strike/slowdown)

Mini-Rant!

This is my first mini rant. If you are new to my blog, occasionally I discover something that deserves a rant :-)

The French are ALWAYS on strike. Don't believe me? Here is fun fact: the French air traffic controller have been on strike 44 times in the last 7 years!!!!! Let's do some simple math here... 7 years = 84 months. That means they have been on strike every other month for the past 7 years!!!

FYI here are few other fun/interesting facts: the French have a 35 hour work week!!! Plus, France's annual average wage in 2014 was $47,885 and compared favorably with Germany's - $48,479 (but the German's still work a 40 hour work week!)

I talked to a few locals and they said the unions "want the MAXIMUM pay for the MINIMUM work". Sounds great... sign me up :-)    Rant off.

OK back to our regularly scheduled programming....

So we went to the main tourist office, but it was closed for renovations. But they had a map of the other tourist office so we headed in that direction. After about 10 minutes, we could not find the tourist office & asked 4 policemen in the main square. The first 2 didn't know where it was... the other 2 gave us directions back to the closed office. Here is the kicker... while this was going on, Sandy found the tourist office... it was 50 yards (50 meters for my international friends) right behind the policemen :-) 

In front of the tourist office was this really cool "interactive water art fountain"... at least according to Sandy. It's normal state is a shallow reflecting pool that is pretty cool:


And then at intermittent times water columns appear and the kids go wild:


After getting our info from the tourist office, we took the bus to Villefranche-sur-Mer. Those of you who have followed our adventures might remember this is the town we stayed in 3 years ago. It is about a 10 minute bus ride east of Nice & is very peaceful & VERY scenic. Here are a few fun facts about the town (Wiki):

• Villefranche has one of the deepest natural harbors of any port in the Mediterranean Sea and provides safe anchorage for large cruise ships, reaching depths of 95 m (320 ft).
• It has been settled since prehistoric times. Celto-ligurian tribes roamed the area and established farming communities on the surrounding hills. 
• The Greeks and later the Romans used the natural harbor as a stop-over  route to the Greek settlements around the Western Mediterranean. 
• After the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, the Romans built an extension of the Via Aurelia (Aurelian Way), which passed through the settlement of Montolivo. 

OK enough of the boring facts... on to the picture. Let me say that this should be called the City of Flowers... they are everywhere!






Here are a few shots from the harbor. We had a nice linner here (it was like 4:30pm) (Lunch/Dinner).

Here is what I had for linner.... Salmon (with an olive relish) and saffron rice YUM!!!!!





Here is a better shot of the entire harbor area.


I talked about the flowers... How about these:














































Here are a few other shots from the area...






Susie and Sandy bought a ton of stuff at this shop 3 years ago and did the same today. So nice that they are helping the local economy :-) 


And finally a few parting shots before we leave Villefranche-sur-Mer:





Kind of hard to see, but there is a rainbow here...












After a delightful visit to Villefranche-sur-Mer we headed back to Nice and to the harbor to buy our tickets to St. Tropez (via boat) for tomorrow. MAN there is a lot of BIG money in the harbor! One example... a his & hers yacht :-) NO, Susie wouldn't let me get one... drats :-(   


Here are a few shots of the harbor...



NOTE the black & white billboard behind the ship. This another part of the subway they are building.  




After purchasing our tickets to St Tropez we headed back to the apartment for a quiet evening and a light dinner (including some Pepsi Max & Limoncello :-)  ) 

OK.... time for bed. We have to be up early to catch the boat to St. Tropez.

Cheers,

-jj