IntrepidFromDC

Yay Colleen! Thanks for the excellent Carnival news!

Back on the Highway To Hell, Samir was in rare form, if I was a cat I'd be down one life. I can see the indentations in the dashboard from my fingertips. But I can't feel my fingertips.

A couple more pics of locals playing baci ball in the town square

This dog belongs to a British woman who retired to St. Paul de Vence. An abbreviated part of our conversation... me: how can such a small town, so difficult to access, be a favorite place to live? Don't you want to travel? Her: think about your question and even the way you phrased it. Me, after her beautiful dog immediately went to licking me 20 times in 5 seconds after meeting: omg he's beautiful and sweet too. Her: he loves as we all should.

Last pics of St. Paul de Vence, except for the exceptional dog that follows.

St. Paul de Vence is not alot bigger than Eze but the Medeivalness feeling is much stronger and somehow warmer.

St. Paul de Vence continued

St. Paul de Vence is the place on this daytrip I have been looking forward to most. It did not disappoint.

However, his driving skills were very good so I felt ok when the half-day clients got out of the van and I moved to the front seat with the questionable seatbelt.

On the freeway we got our first glimpse into the soul of the madman (aka, our driver). It seems he just has a short fuse and as the day wears on the bombs get bigger. He is from Morocco and doesn't like The French. He had a blood-stained gauge bandage around his upper hand and knuckles and when I jokingly asked if he punched someone he replied "Look at these drivers!"

After the perfumerhell, Eze and Monaco we got on a freeway because the first 3 stops were east of Nice but the remaining stops would be west.

BTW, I saw 7 or 8 large cruise ships and about 2,000 yachts today. No whales tails and no brands I could recognize but beautiful huge ships.

Monaco, continued... Once a multi-millionaire is accepted for residency they are given a certificate to show to the government real estate "brokers" that they can legally buy a residence, and a form to apply for citizenship. It takes 20 years of pristine residency to become a citizen. Even a red-light ticket, which will set you back 1,200 euro, will disqualify you.

Monaco is interesting and I'll try to remember the numbers right. Only 9000 citizens but about 17000 residents total. To apply to become a resident you must be a multi-millionaire but nobody knows the exact figure. The Grand Prix is run on the city streets which are repaved each year. Few details on some of the pics, one is the finish line (sorry for the photo quality, we were in a moving van). Prince of Monaco's Palace. Government building in same square as two billionaire homes (left), mountainside pic showing regular citizens homes (left), Grand Prix viewing stands (bottom), Italy (distant peninsula, far right), France (other peninsula on right). Oh, and Jacques Custeaus submarine.

Eze is a very small, well-preserved hilltop medieval town. Also very cute. Lots of shopping and I think I heard a little grumbling, as the husbands had just heard an hour lecture on perfume. I'm glad I visited. The one bit of history, I think the guide (more about him later), in his best effort at English, said the reason the castle is missing from it's foundation but the town is intact is Louis VI sent soldiers to destroy the castle with a message to the townsfolk to change their allegiance to him, or they're next. Beautiful small town, but not a single sports bar (aka husband daycare for Jamman).

Our first stop was at a freaking tourist trap perfume factory where there were megabuses with mega groups of tourists being fed as bait to the perfume and soap factory. I kid you not when I say this woman took 20 minutes to talk about all the mixtures of chemicals, and why each was so important, in exciting products as varied as perfume, eau du toilette, cologne, etc. What a freaking waste of my time except I got a good pic of our second stop, medieval town Eze, high above the surrounding area on a mountaintop only accessible by foot, after 400 stairs...

We started by heading east and our first wow moment was after climbing the switchbacks on the way to Eze and Monaco and pulling over to take photos looking back at Nice.

We didn't get to see everything on our itinerary because of the Cannes film festival and the road closures in Monaco due to the Grand Prix preparations. We did get to drive the minivan on the Grand Prix circuit. It was a lot of driving and French cussing with visits to beautiful places in between. Most places we got a chance to get out and walk around for 45 minutes or an hour. Here goes...

I just got back from an 11 hour excursion. The traffic and road closures in Cannes kept us from getting close, as the annual film festival is going on right now. I'll post a few pics, more when I get back from dinner. These are Nice from a distance, a few from the east (elevated view) and a few from the west (level view).

LOL took me a couple looks to agree it's reminiscent of the chitty chitty bang bang car, now I can't see it any other way. I'll see if it's still there on Tuesday.

Tomorrow I have a 10.5 hour excursion to St.Paul de Vence, Eze, Monaco and a couple other nearby towns of the "Cote du Azur" and it's non-stop go-go-go. So I won't be posting pics til I get back to the hotel after dinner and bar, which will be about 25 hours from now. I have to admit I didn't do research on Nice like I did on the places I've been to before it, but the upside is I'm thrilled with the surprise of how much I love it day 1 of 3.

Vietnamese was open. I already had Vietnamese food twice this trip, but it should help with the craving so I can get back to rich French food. In Lyon they say "In Paris they cook with butter. In south France they cook with oil. We use both." It has been so true so far.

Turns out Nice has a Chinatown and my hotel is in the middle of it. The Chinese place and all the Chinese places were closed when I came back out of the hotel.

Nice is nice!

The walk from Nice train station to the hotel was one block. I passed a Chinese restaurant and suddenly got a craving for Chinese food. Off I go.