ARCHITECTURE + AIRBORNE European Travels: NICE, FRANCE

PJ and I traveled to Nice for the June 4 day weekend. It happened to fall the weekend before our 3^rd anniversary so we counted the trip as our anniversary gift to ourselves. We found a cute hotel downtown [Hôtel Le Grimaldi] that was in walking distance to pretty much everything and gave a small discount to the chair and umbrella rentals at the beach down the street. We are getting a little spoiled during our travels and enjoy renting lounge chairs and umbrellas, however it was somewhat of a necessity when the beaches are all rocks, so it was worth the unusually expensive charge. [We have found that it is typically around 15 euro for 2 chairs and an umbrella at the beach, while in Nice it was 23 euros a person! But again, it was much better than sitting on rocks.]

View from our hotel room

We arrived on a Friday afternoon around dinnertime. We stuck to the main streets for our first night and followed Av. Jean Medecin until we arrived on Cours Saleya. There were many restaurants so we picked a place and I began my weekend of 6 lbs of muscles! Every one of them was worth it! The first restaurant is also where PJ asked the waiter about calling French fries ‘French fries’.

Place Massena

Fontaine du Soleil

Églis Saint-Francois de Paule

Palais des Ducs de Savoie

Saturday morning was a perfect time to check out the beach. The water was perfect, crystal clear and turquois. The place that had the deal with the hotel [Ruhl Plage] had cute lounge chairs that were off of a soft walkway, which lead to a dock so you could enter the ocean without stepping on the rocks.

Côte d'Azur has a mixture of architectural styles. Nice has a strong French and Italian influence and there are very prominent Baroque and belle epoque styles [beautiful era] throughout the city. Gothic facades can also be found throughout the Côte d'Azur. While walking through the city we saw listened to fantastic street musicians, experienced beautiful buildings, and explored lively plazas with every turn. One of the most exciting things for me was to find a Calder sculpture in front of Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. I love his work!!

Opera de Nice

Église Sainte Rita

Chapelle de la Visitation

Eglise Saint-Martin

Chapelle du Saint-Sepulcre

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

CALDER!!!

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

Esplanade de la Bourgada

Palais de Justice

Palais Cais de Pierlas

Cathedrale Sainte-Reparate

One of the best areas to look out over the city is on top of La colline du Chateau, where the ruins of Le Chateau are located [the castle was destroyed in the early 1700's]. The park is really well maintained and has a refreshing waterfall for those hot days. There are a few options to get to the top, however the park was going to close if we didn't get up there quickly, so we took the elevator.

PJ and I scheduled a tour of the Côte d'Azur [the actual name of the French Riviera, although no ones knows why it was translated into French Riviera in English, it has nothing to do with its real name]. This area of France became quite popular with many famous artists such as Picasso, Chagall, Monet, and Renoir to name a few. Below were some of our stops!

Antibes

Our trip began in Antibes at a local market. PJ and I explored all of the fresh foods and then headed down some side streets to see what the town was like. We found the largest bottle of wine I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately it was over 100ml.

Cannes

Cannes is known for the Cannes film festival, which is one of the oldest film festivals in the world. The red carpet is usually lining the steps, however we missed the festival by about a week.

St. Paul de Vence

This is one of the oldest medieval villages [fortified in the 13th century] on the Côte d'Azur. It is sprawling with museums and art galleries and has become quite popular with some celebrities, which has then brought many tourists to the area, but it is still an adorable village to visit.

Monaco

Monaco is its own country and boarders France on 3 sides and the Mediterranean Sea on the other. It is only .78 sq miles [for those of you from RI, Block Island is about 9.7 sq miles of land, so Monaco is much smaller!] and is the second smallest country, following Vatican City. There is quite a mixture of people and languages in the area, as they speak French, Italian, and English.

An interesting fact was how their military works, or their lack of a military. France takes on almost all of the military responsibilities for Monaco. There are, however, 2 small military units and Carabiniers for the Prince. They also have the largest per-capita and per-area police force in the world.

Monte Carlo

AKA, the city that has the largest amount of beautiful and expensive cars in the world... in my opinion. Monte Carlo is known for a few things; their Formula One race track [which we got to drive on], the Monte Carlo Casino [where a few Bond movies were shot along with several other movies], Opéra de Monte-Carlo, and the Hotel de Paris. They host Boxing and poker tournaments as well.

Eze - Fragonard

Parfumerie Fragonard is a perfume, soap and cosmetics factory located right outside of the town of Eze. We were able to walk through the factory and buy some of their products. I made sure not to buy anything over 100ml so that I can bring it in my carry-on!

Eze

Eze is a medieval village and contains ruins from the 12th century. The streets are adorable, and while it seems like half of the village is a luxury hotel, it all blends very well. Unfortunately it is a huge tourist spot, so there are countless souvenir stands and lots of crowds. I would say the village is nice for a quick stop over, but nothing to spend too much time in.