With only three full days we decide to "knock off" Nice today, so this is where we went and what we did:
Left the hotel on Rue Massena and headed for the old town across Place Massena (the real one and not the one the bus driver pointed at) to the Palais de Justice which seems to be being totally gutted and refurbished. On to the Cathedral which is easy to miss without a map to tell you its there, then up the hill to the Chateau.
The route can only be described as "when you come to a junction go uphill". Another tip is if you hear flowing water, make a small diversion because you'll be rewarded with a fountain or the main cascade.
A further piece of advice is keep looking down - for some reason this area seems particularly densely populated with dog turds.
The cemetery is also worth a diversion - the view is quite nice and there is the tomb of Gaston Leroux (author of Phantom of the Opera - hands up those who thought Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote it). There is also a concrete toilette on the way up if you wish to invest 2Fr.
At the summit there are some more nice views and panoramas, where the peace and tranquillity is disturbed by an occasional crowd when the Nice sightseeing train makes its stop here.
Heading down the other side and seeking out "La Fontaine aux Oiseaux" (if you didn't spot it on the way up), which, sad to say, isn't laid out anything like the postcard you can buy, we got to the port where again you can invest 2Fr in one of these concrete auto-flushing loos. What I would like to know is, can more than one person use them for the 2Fr? If the first person slips in, and the second slips in when the first slips out (as you do in the UK) to save money, does the toilet know it is still occupied or does it do its mechanistic flushing and soak the skinflint who refused to pay their 2Fr.
We walked along the port, spotting two Norbert Dentressangle lorries, then back towards Nice, pausing only briefly to watch some mad woman aged about 60 go swimming. The next view was the flower market which the receptionist had told us that morning was very colourful, what she omitted to tell us was that on Mondays it isn't a flower market, but a flea market (a car boot sale without the car boots).
We had crepes here for a snack (it was, after all, lunchtime)
On, then, around the outside of the opera house and on to the Promenade des Anglaise. Stopped off at the tourist information for some information (being tourists we felt we had to), on to Negresco Hotel then around the back of Musee Massena (today was not a free entry day) to our own hotel via the shops. We dumped our purchases in the Hotel then out again to the Acropolis via the Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemp. We didn't pay the 25Fr to actually go around the museum, but we did spent a lot of time looking at the postcards in the museum shop, so we felt that we'd been round it.
Back from the Acropolis, through the old town, passing the clock tower thing you see on the postcards of Old Nice, then back to the hotel.
Dinner out - I had the very French chicken and chips and Val had the equally French pizza.
Go to Day 3
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Copyright © 1997 Andrew J White