The Last Train to Nice-Ville

Nice is nice.  Monaco – not so much.

Nice-Ville

It was a huge contrast weather-wise from the Italian lakes to Nice.  The Italian lakes were cold, windy, and rainy whereas Nice was sunny and warm.  I am not talking about perspiring warm – I am talking about pleasantly comfortable.  It was… nice. 

There are two train stations in Nice. One is called Nice-Riquier, which sounded pleasant, but the one we got off at is called Nice-Ville.  It sounded like a little town in Canada.

How can you go wrong arriving at this place?

It is hard to think of yourself in France when you are in Nice.  Nice is on the French Riviera where the rich and famous (and us) come for holidays.  That means it feels more like San Diego or the rich areas of Los Angeles.  There are palm trees everywhere planted in meticulously manicured gardens and grand-looking hotels and Casinos. 

Fancy-Schmancy!  We did NOT stay here!  

There is also Burger King, McDonalds, Subway and KFC.  Everyone knows that no self-respecting Frenchman, or any self-respecting Italian would be caught dead eating at one of those places.  I guess tourists have no self-respect.

One of the things one must do in Nice is La Promenade des Anglais.  Translated from the French that means the English Walk.  This is not to be confused with the Monty Python “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch.  I got confused.  Telen quickly put on an “I’m not with him” attitude as I did my best John Cleese imitation down the waterfront walkway.  Eventually she sidled nonchalantly up beside me and casually kicked my feet out from under me.  Crashing to the sidewalk with a loud grunt seemed to draw less attention than my previous behavior.  Then I had to go find some itinerant to repair the  sidewalk...

Telen doing the English Walk

In reality the English Walk is a waterfront walkway that was built, at the behest of the wealthy English, in the 1800’s by a large number of itinerant beggars who came to Nice after a particularly bad winter.  At that time the wealthy English were coming to Nice for their winter holidays and thought that it was a good project for these impoverished transients.  Hence the name La Promenade des Anglais.  It runs along the beach on the Mediterranean and has become the place to see and be seen.

As far as seeing and being seen being comfortable is not a requirement. As I said, the weather was pleasantly warm but certainly not hot, however the beach below the Promenade was littered with sunbathers.   It was not that warm!  I guess it is more important to look good than to be comfortable.  I thought that was a peculiarly North American phenomenon but apparently it holds true in Europe as well.  A lot of them were sunbathing in the typical European fashion i.e. topless.  You could tell they were cold.

It was not really warm enough to be sunbathing.  Some people just gotta be brown

The beaches at Nice were a bit of a disappointment.  I had envisioned soft white sand beaches like those in Hawaii or Mexico.  The beaches in Nice are rocks.  The beaches look artificial but I guess they had no sand because they used rocks that are about the size of chicken eggs.  They don’t warm up really quickly either.  The water, of course is the Mediterranean and is not really warm.  You can swim in it in much the same way as you can take Cod Liver Oil.  You can do it, but you’re not going to like it. Unless you think anything awful has got to be good for you.  The Germans swim there.

Nice at night.  No reason to put this picture here except that I like it

Since we were not going to be sunbathing and since we had already done La Promenade des Anglais we decided to take a day trip to Monaco.  We had passed through Monaco on our way to Nice but the train was underground the whole way.  Kind of disappointing.  It was only 1 hour and few Euros on the train to Monaco so we thought we would rub elbows with the fabulously wealthy.

Telen rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in Monaco.  Ok, maybe there were no elbows to rub... but she was allowed to look.

Monaco has the highest per capita income in the world and the highest population density.  That means it has the highest money per square foot in the world.  Kind of like a concentrated currency syrup.  Prince Albert himself has over a billion euros of his own.  There are no taxes in Monaco so lots of people who have way too many zeros before the decimal place in their bank accounts come here to protect those zeros. If there are no taxes in Monaco where does Prince Albert get all his billions?  If you see someone who has a lot of cash and no source of income…  I’m just saying.

The cheap side of Monaco.  Notice - hardly any yachts...

Normally a train station is a big event.  There is usually a large building with big signs saying  “Train Station” or “Gare “ or “Termine” or various iterations thereof.  In Monaco you arrive underground and you take escalators and tunnels and eventually you walk out of a discrete little doorway in what appears to be a storefront.  There is a little sign beside the door that indicates that it is the “Gare”.  How gauche is it to have a train station anyway when everyone who is anyone travels by private jet or yacht.

Monaco is impressive if conspicuous spending impresses you.  It is a very, very small country with a very, very big bank account.  We saw real estate listings for 2 bedroom apartments for a mere two millions Euros.  Unfurnished, of course.  We saw a yacht in the Harbour that was for sale for 27 million.  Fuel not included.

Strangely enough amidst all this overwhelming wealth we did not see a lot of places to spend your money.  There were lots of tacky little tourist shops all selling the usual T -shirts, coffee mugs and assorted bric-a-brac but none of the Prada, Armani, and Gucci T-shirts, coffee mugs and assorted bric-a-brac.  I guess those people with enough money to move to Monaco to cocoon their Euros are also smart enough to not spend their money on Prada, Armani and Gucci.   Unless, of course, they are Prada, Armani and Gucci. 

Parking lot in Monaco

Of course we did not see all of Monaco.  They probably have all those expensive shops in places that are off limits to the riff-raff.   We qualify as riff-raff. 

Interestingly enough when we climbed the hill to the Prince’s Palace we noticed there was a defibrillator at the bottom of the hill and one again at the top of the hill.  Those made me wonder at the average age of the people who climbed that hill.  While we were up at the top an ambulance came racing up the hill with the siren blaring. If you die in Monaco do you have to pay death taxes…?

One day in Monaco was enough.  There was a few interesting things to see but not a lot.  It was an interesting thing to say that we dropped by at Monaco on our holidays.  When you say that you have to say it like you are yawning and with a posh British accent.  People will be so impressed!

A big annual event in Monaco

They were setting up for the Formula 1 Grand Prix on the 23rd of May.  Some people just play with bigger toys than others I guess.

I just had Hot Wheels when I was a kid.