Postcards from Nice

 

 

 

Well, I am back from my European tour, but I picked up a rather nasty cold on my way home. My father remained untouched by this despite the fact that we were exposed to same coughing people on planes and trains.  Nonetheless, I would rather I get this cold than my father (as he redefines the word grumpy when sick and would probably blame me for it ).

The last stage in our tour involves spending a few days in Nice, France (pronounced Neece, but still a rather nice place).  We were expecting to spend some time in warm weather on a beach, but Nice is 15C at this time of year and a bit cool for swimming. Even without beach weather, I rather enjoyed the place. However, it’s very crowded. In fact, it makes Paris look like wide open spaces.

This is the first place I have seen electric cars, complete with a charging station. I’m not sure, but they might even have dedicated parking spots, which are worth a vital organ in this town.

Strangely enough, this is blending in while in Nice….

I’m still sure it’s Solitaire, but I’ve not been able to catch him.

One of my favorite photographs of my father from this trip.

The view from the hotel room, looking inland into the mountains. It’s a very scenic place.

Yes, this is a very rarely seen example of me wearing a suit. I almost never wear one, but my father is convinced we need one to get into the casino in Monte Carlo (yes, from the James Bond movies).  You can see the absolute joy in my eyes about wearing a tie again. I’ve pretty much given them up and consider this a unique relapse. It’s important to him, so I brought it along and wore it for the event. We took the train to Monaco, which became the fourth country we visited on this trip. Strangely, when you’re 6’4″, with long hair, wearing a suit, and you look like me, the camera on the shoulder is not an attractive target for theft. I also tend to hold the camera in one hand which looks a lot like how one carries a firearm. I didn’t notice the effect until I saw some sketchy fellows in the train station decide to look for someone else.  I guess I didn’t look very friendly.

Here we are in front of one of the most famous casinos in the world. Monte Carlo is the district in Monaco that has the casino. Of course, we discovered that they have no real dress code during the day, and the ties lasted 32 seconds after we entered the casino. There are no shots in the casino has security got a little excited, nd I needed to check it.

This is the Hotel de Paris, across the street from the casino.  Sitting at a nearby cafe is a continuous treat of extremely expensive automobiles going by. Monaco,  the second smallest country in the world (about 2 sq km, with only the Vatican being smaller) has a population of 32,000, 0% unemployment, no income tax, and the highest income per capita in the world. They also have the highest concentration of police per citizen, which is to be expected.  It’s also incredibly small since it is built on a steep hill and almost every square centimeter is carefully used. I have no idea what happens in a heavy rain, but I would expect it’s a real problem. This is also the most expensive real estate in the world at $65K+ per sq metre. Basically, this is a very, very expensive country. The harbour is full of very expensive (and large yachts). Yacht owners will park their boat and come up to this hotel to stay the night. I can’t imagine what the mooring fees and hotel charges are like, but they would be impressive.

If you want to find out more about this hotel, you can see there website here.

Although we didn’t see any museums or art galleries in Nice or Monaco, I found this to be a very interesting place to visit and a great way to end the trip.