Showing posts with label Nice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nice. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Return to the Côte d’Azur or The Riviera From The Child's Perspective

During the first week of our adventures in the Mediterranean
-->Côte d’Azur I kept a keen eye out for places that I thought would  be child friendly. So we have ended up going back to Nice and Monaco. While we were running around Nice, I thought the beach would be very attractive to the girls and I saw this fantastic playground with a host of items all with a marine life theme. Plus it is a very easy city to walk around with its huge plazas, pedestrian only old city, parks and sea side walk. Plus it was a gorgeous day...a real plus for our family from Amsterdam the Grey. In Monaco the attraction was the Oceanographic Museum with its very large aquarium. That was a big hit with the girls too.
In both cases we decided to take the train as we have two cars and trying to caravan together and get to the same place with parking was going to be a challenge. Plus after doing a lot of walking, carrying and corralling of the five and under crowd, everyone is pretty tired at the end of the day. Avoiding the stressful drive back when we were tired was a plus. And the girls are very used to trains and love them. 
There was one funny incident when we were on our way to Monaco. 3.2 was up from her seat across from #3 wanting Mom's attention when we arrived at a stop. A young woman in her 20's got on board and took the seat. Mom told 3.2 she had warned her not get up from her seat. 3.2 gave the young woman the biggest glares. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. Speaking of which, I will apologize that for the rest of this week, the pictures are going to be dominated by the family. This is what happens when you're family is spread across the world and you only see them rarely. 
Before we head out, another sunrise


In Nice, La Glace (Ice Cream) is served before lunch

Study of family preparing to cross a Nice street

Something Scenic in Nice missed last time
Pippi Longstockings
If she became a French nude model
First Attempts at Aquarium Photogarphy









After that it is a determined team seeking lunch
Head in this direction!
Seated at the restuarant
A calm 3.1

An anxious 3.2
Calmed by bread
Looking up from our table, right behind us is the Cathedral
Look behind us Wife!
Culinary Highlights in Monaco
A first course of goat chesse on toasted bread with salad
A mixed plate of local specialties including a fried baton from salt cod and a variety of vegetables chopped and served as stuffing and fillings. 
Action shot of gourmand putting lemon on salmon tartare
A nice veal ragout over noodles - very good sauce. Meats are often dry here but the sauces tend to be good.
A trio of very good desserts
Lemon tart, a kick butt chocolate cake, and tiramisu 


Daughter #3 contemplates the differences between the $10MM, $50MM and $150MM yachts and why on the yacht purchasing site where you filter for if you want a helicopter landing pad, ballroom, and submarine, you also can filter for if it has an iPod docking station.
Riding the French Rails?
Be Aware of these Rules!
Clockwise from the upper left corner
Have sore feet? Only put them on the red seats.
If listening to music aloud, your notes must be red
You many only yell at railway personnel if your personal cloud has thunder and lightening.
Please hang out of the car 

And there is this from the Aquarium
No striking of people with your phone on a selfie stick














Monday, October 17, 2016

Nice or Can I Resist The Obvious Pun

For our last day with the Granddaughter we went to the city of Nice. Although Nice (pronounced niece) is a major tourist attraction on the French Riviera, for some reason it was never high on my list of places I'd want to visit. I will say after this visit, it ranks up there with some of the most attractive, approachable cities I've had the chance to visit.

We took the train in from Menton given our experiences trying to park in Monaco and drive in and around the airport. One can catch a tram (there is only one tram line in the city which makes it real easy) and it is only a few stops from the train station to the main tourist attractions in town. The weather was drop dead gorgeous with the temperature pushing 80 and the sky being clear.

Arriving at the Nice Train Station
Our first glimpse of Nice architecture
The Nice tram is super modern and has the most melodious station announcements
One of the 'must does' of Nice is going up the Castle Hill for the view. We saw that by going to the far end away from the old town there was a much less steep way of getting up...
...if it is not closed for new tram line construction
But THANK GOODNESS there is an elevator way on the other side...
...which was closed for a terrorist alert
Well none the less we could still go into the old town...
...guided by our enthusiastic (and I must say pretty good) navigator 2.1
 Finally! Into the Old Town
So much color. They talk about the color and the light in Provence and the
-->
Côte d’Azur
Nice on a beautiful, sunny day really exemplifies it.
Churches of course



I'm not quite sure why all the heroic figures in monumental sculpture are always so grim.
This one is supposedly the mythic washer woman who in the 16th century saved the city from a French and Turk invasion (Nice didn't belong to France then).
This is not
More scenes of the old city




10:30 AM?
Must be ice cream time
Wife says that French glace is not the same as Italian gelato

 On to the more modern parts of town!



 The color of the sea and the beach are renowned in Nice


There was this statue of Neptune in the middle of one of the main squares
What I want to know is why the artist felt the need to make one butt cheek be tilted so?
Finally, while the granddaughter went off boot shopping, Wife and I spent an hour in the classic French activity of lingering over a drink without a care in the world
Though I suspect Wife's mind was on where her next great picture was going to come from