Nice

the night train ride was an epic one. there was a crazy guy pacing up and down the carriage the whole night which was a nightmare because it was hard enough to sleep as it was. but i did manage to get a couple of winks of sleep. my plan for heading south was to get away from winter as much as possible, below zero was starting to do my head in. i was a bit worried the trip south hadn't paid off, i looked out the window and saw snow capped mountains, but i then i looked out the otherside of the train and saw the sun come up over the riviera and knew it was all good! it was 16 degree outside, and it was the first time i'd seen double figures in ages!

Nice is well, nice. the beaches are quite beautiful and seem to go for miles and miles. i loved watching the people running along the water. it must be in fashion to where spandex while running and let me tell you, spandex isn't for everyone. the water is so clean too, i have never seen water so blue, there were even a couple of game people in the water having a swim. i didn't think much of the Nice to begin with, but then i stumbled across the old town which was beautiful. full of really old buildings that just seem to be built on top over each other. i really liked the colours of them too, i saw one guy painting his house and was doing such a shotty job, but it kind of added to the charm of it. the narrow little streets with washing lines hanging high up and plenty of food shops at street level was exactly what i had pictured in my head of what Nice would be like. i think the main highlight was the market where you could sample some of the local food and it was so fresh, i think its a shame to think that we don't really do our shopping like this in Australia, and whenever we need vegetables we generally have big chains like Coles or Woolworths top of mind. i managed to find a couple of cool, second hand furniture shops too. the church in the old town was great it was only lit with daylight and i think it made it more attractive, the way the rays of light would burst in though the windows was brilliant, it was like the big guy upstairs was pointing things out.
the view from castle hill was stunning, these days its pretty much a look out, but i from what i could gather from the bad translation, the Greeks once had a castle there and then when it was taken over, it was burnt down. well something around those lines, the translation was shocking. on a day to day level, every morning i would go to this bakery which was around the corner from where i was staying. the food was pretty good, but the part i loved the most was the way the lady would wrapped the food up and then say 'vuala!' i thought it was great, i couldn't wait until the next morning to order all over again!
i think the old town was probably the best bit of Nice, i found the town outside of that didn't really have a good vibe to it, its pretty quiet and i know that its not peak season but i don't think it would be much of a party town in the summer. from seeing the number of chemists around, i imagine its where a lot of the older crowd hang out. the main reason i made the decision to stay in Nice was it was so much cheaper to stay here and travel out to other areas than to move from place to place. i thought with it being in the off season everywhere would be a lot cheaper, but as it turns out, not the case.

i did a day trip to Cannes, which was such an amazing place. in case you've been living under a rock, its where they hold the Cannes film festival, they have to big cinema there with the red carpet, so walked up and down it pretending to be a movie star signing autographs, i think everyone thought i had a screw loose. there are famous peoples hand prints in concrete around the cinema, it turns out Clint Eastwood and i have the same size hand, and Bruce Willis has really small hands, and you know what they say about small hands... small gloves. the old town there is really beautiful also. small little streets with so much character, and its on the top of a big hill so you get to see a great view also. there are 2 islands not far from the beach that you can get a boat out to (something annoying is you have to catch 2 seperate boats to get to them, which means you have to go back to the beach to catch the other) supposidly one of the islands is where the man in the iron mask was held. Around Cannes there are quite a number of murals which i think were pretty cool, generally they have something to do with movies or making movies.
there were a couple of markets that were brilliant, a food one and also a second hand market, you should've seen the stuff they were selling, vintage Chanel, Dior, etc. they had some beautiful old vintage advertising posters that were put on canvas, i fell in love with one of them, the picture was of a swimmer with a diving board in the back ground, i wanted to buy it but it cost 350 EUROS which was a bit pricey, i still considered buying it because i liked it so much, but i eventually talked myself out of it, mainly because it was so big, even if i rolled it up i think i would have trouble sending it home and it would've been tricky traveling with it. not to worry.
there are some really expensive stores along the main street in Cannes too, Yves Staint Laurent, Armani, you name and expensive brand, they had it. i got the shock of my life while i was walking on the beach too, first of all its sand in Cannes whereas it was rocks in Nice, but that wasn't the shock, it was the 70 year lady walking around topless, she reminded me of the lady in 'Something about Mary'. my eyes are still sore! apart from that little episode, i really loved Cannes. Cannes is also the home of the Cannes Lions which is a really big international advertsing award, so hopefully its not the last time i visit here.

Another day i went out to Antibes, which is a nice little spot. it looked like it was surrounded by a huge wall, and you could walk on the the top of it. it was a nice little town, and was lot less touristy than Cannes but in some ways quite similar. not far from there is Fort Carre which is funnily enough an old fort. i didn't get to go inside because i only discovered it later in the day and it was closed, not to worry i think i've seen my fair share of forts and castles to last me a lifetime. it rather silly but i think my experience of Antibes was ruined by one of the waiters in a restraunt, he was just so rude, it was a bit of a shame because the majority of french i have met have been lovely and very friendly but he really lived up to the french stereotype, a stereotype i imagine if your french you would want to prove wrong. anyway, Antibes was still worth a look.

I also did a day trip to Monaco which was quite interesting, it was so clean and it was like everything had its place, i found the town was build really symetrical too which is no mean feat since its built on a hill. it is a lot more built up compare to the rest of the south that i have visited and of course it was extremely wealthy, the highrises are quite amazing and the yachts were unbelievable. i think it kind of had an old world feel too it too, it was kinda like you stepped right into the 1950's becuase generally the architecture is quite classic. i checked out a couple of casinos too, the first one i think was for the plebs but the second was in a beautiful old building, but there was a 10 EURO fee to go into the gaming area, it definately sorted the men from the boys because i wasn't that interested in watching other people pay, well, unless they were going to share the profits. Monaco is a tax haven, but i can't figure out, if nobody pays tax, how do they afford to have royalty? anyway it explains why you see so many sports cars around the place, Ferrari's, Porche, Rolls Royce, etc. and not to mention trophy wifes, it was pretty funny to see 70 year old men with 20 somethings on there arm, but i suppose, when you think about it, both parties are getting what they want out of it. speaking of playboys i saw the Royal Palace where Price Albert of Monaco lives, i get the feeling he's quite popular amongst the locals, they have a lot of photos of him and his family in shop windows. Albert is the son of movie star Grace Kelly, who later became royalty here, you can see heaps of photos of her around town and there are a number of streets named after her and other members of the royal family. its funny as i was walking around some of it was quite familiar and i figured out it was from a F1 nintendo game that i had as a kid, they race on the streets of Monaco when the Grand Prix comes to town, so it was kind of strange to think i had virtually been here before.
being in the south really reminds me a lot of the movie 'The Life Aquatic', esspecially in Monaco where they had a some prehistoric sea equipment out the front of one of the museums.
Monaco was nice, and it was interesting to see how the other half live but it wasnt really for me, it all seemed a bit too polished, i think the other places i visited where more interesting because they were more rustic.

anyway, its been great spending time in the south but now its time say 'Bon Voyage' to France and head to Italy, which i think should be amazing.