Another perfect day!

But, wow, did I get some sun!  Look sort of like a boiled lobster, but thankfully, I guess I had enough color before I came that it's not bothering me.

Once again, I've taken pictures like my life depends on it.  I took 90!!  But I weeded a lot of them out and have, insanely enough still, 52 to post.  And again, I'm going to do it in the single column cause I'm just not willing to spend the time trying to get everything arranged just so.  And, Chris - be amazed - I offered to take a picture of a couple today and his camera was an SLR or whatever you call it.  Doing that made me realize that I'll always be a point and shoot gal. :)

So, let's get right to it.  I pretty much slept like a log last night, had a friendly little breakfast visit with Chantal, then a lovely shower, and then out and about.  My first destination was the tourist information office back down on the Promenade des Anglais that runs along the sea coast.  I was fairly close to it on my walk yesterday but didn't know it.  I picked up a very nice book all about what to do and see in Nice along with a map that I can feel free to mark up as much as I want to.  And what a nice girl waited on me!  I was walking down the street after I left and kept hearing "Madame, Madame" behind me.  Finally turned around and there she came with my camera that I had left laying on the counter.  As I keep telling the kids, I need a keeper!

So the first bunch of pictures will be of my walk to the Promenade...

This is the smaller side of a beautiful park that goes along for quite a while on the road I took to the Promenade.  Nice sure has made it a priority to have lots of lovely and inviting parks, large or small.

These men on poles (there are seven of them) separate the area in the picture above from the rest of the park.  They're in the Place Massena and the whole park is called Albert 1st Garden.  This area has a tramway but no auto traffic.  Very nice.    After I got my book from the TI office, I found that the seven men are called "Conversation in Nice".  They represent the continents and are illuminated at night! There was a picture of that in the book and it's really pretty neat.  The next picture shows three of them - they're spaced fairly far apart so that was all I could get in one picture.

 And I kept walking through the park and kept taking pictures too, so here are some more.

 A huge "sculpture" in the park with a shot when I was walking back from the TI office below.

 A pretty little arcade type thing that runs down each side of the garden for a while....

And a double-decker carousel!!  I've never seen one before.  I have no idea if this is as antique as it looks.  It was running so it's either been very well taken care of, restored, or is a very good imitation of the old ones.  And I took a video of it running (with no music, sad to say).  You can see it by clicking HERE.  And here's a couple shots up close to see some of the wonderful decoration.

Walking towards the hill I took this picture because the restaurant had made the tables so attractive with the tomatoes, a lemon, some lettuce leaves and the bottle of olive oil. 

 Boy, he hopped in the water as soon as his human took his leash off and by then I wouldn't have minded joining him. :)

 This was the pretty fountain in the pool the dog enjoyed.

So that pretty much takes care of the park.  Next I headed back through the lower section of Old Nice because I had decided that such a beautiful day was the perfect time to go up to Castle Hill.  I'm still not real sure what Castle Hill is all about - I think there are several things going on there.  It's called Castle Hill Park and it's the site of the first town founded by the ancient Greeks, and then the first medieval town.  Some of the original foundations have been excavated so there's that, and the whole hilltop is one giant, gorgeous garden with incredible views of all of Nice and beyond, the remains of a former 11th century cathedral and the Bellonda Tower which was built during King Louis XIV's reign whenever that was.  So I didn't worry too much abut all that - just enjoyed the incredible views, the lovely plantings, all the kids having fun, and a classical guitarist playing some really beautiful music.  Here are the pictures and, really, I did weed out lots of them!  The first several are getting to the hill.  Oh, and by the way, there are steps going up but sad to say I opted to take the elevator (which apparently goes up inside the hill).  I did walk down the stairs though.

 I'm pretty sure this is the opera house, but I won't swear to it.  And it turned out I was in time to see the street market that they have on this street apparently every day except for Monday when it's an antiques market.  Today was beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables, lots of olives and olive oil, spices, breads, fish(!), meats, etc.  It must be wonderful to have something like this always available.

I just liked the pink and yellow together.  And the next one is the side of the yellow building that stood all alone that I posted yesterday. I hadn't really paid attention to the bas relief over each window but all these have it also.

The first three pictures are of the only signage they had up there.  Which looking at the "ruins" and I guess maybe some of the walls, I really couldn't equate it to the pictures, but that was okay.

That's about all the edification I can give you.  But I can give you the link to another video. :)  I decided after wanting to take a picture, move my camera an inch, take another picture and so on, that I should take a video so if you want to see that one, just click HERE.  Not that it took away the need for posting photos! 

 Right after getting off the elevator - still some more to climb - steps and inclines.

  Great place for a field trip, I'd say.  And there were three of them up there while I was there.

 Such a pretty little bird but he really didn't want his picture taken!

 If you happen to remember yesterday's pictures, this is the harbor where I took the boat pictures and one of the lighthouse that you can just about see out at the end of that pier type structure.

 Now this one you have to squint real hard but right in the top center of the picture underneath the little group of white clouds is I think probably the Swiss Alps!  And the round white thing on the right-hand hill is an observatory that I want to find out about.  The pic below is fuzzier cause I really zoomed in but the mountains look a little bigger.

 A beautiful mosaic walkway.

 I do love all the exotic cacti and palm trees and such.

 And this one and the pic below are of the sort of pitiful excavations of whichever thing was excavated.

 And here's a truly spectacular tree for January. :)

 A close-up of the arcade type structure below the tree.

 My gosh, I'm still trying for those mountains - this one is pretty good...

 And I am way up there.

but starting down...

and down....

and done!  With a stop at the Church of the Annunciation, better known as Sainte-Rita's.  And I sure wish I had the info I read in I think a Rick Steves' guide book.  She was the patron saint for desperate causes and wherever I read it, it was about her own desperate case, if I remember right and was quite humorous.

These two above and below are where I sat eating an absolutely way too big ham, cheese and I think homemade mayo on a delicious French baguette.  I had to bring half of it home with me but oh, my it was good.  The man putting new stucco on that storefront sure was good at it and quite fast.  And the picture below is of the tatoo and body piercing shop next to where he was working and I love the sign.

And I'm getting to bed way later than I should and I sure am warm!!

Bonjour, mes amis!

This is going to be very light on words and very heavy on pictures. Once I got to my room in Nice and got settled in, I was pretty tired but wanted to stay up til a decent hour at night so I went out for a very long stroll from the apartment down to the harbor, then a ways along the Promenade des Anglais and then up into the rabbit warren of streets that make up "old Nice".  Then back almost to the Promenade to see if I could find a place I had seen going up into old Nice where I thought I would like to eat.  I found it, ate, and then a long, long walk back through the rabbit warren, to the grocery store to get some yogurt for breakfast, and then home where I've been enjoying the e-mails that were waiting for me and editing the photos I took today.

The main reason there won't be much to say about them is that they are just pictures - I don't think I saw any touristy type sites and the few things I saw that I thought probably meant something, I didn't have a guide book to tell me about them so I can't tell you about them.

But it's a record of my day, starting with the first pictures taken from the plane as we came into Nice - it was truly a stunning view and as you'll see from these and the rest of the photos, it was also a beautiful first day.

I'm pretty sure these are the Alps.  And then the rest are of the Mediterranean and Nice as it appeared.

The next batch I took while I was waiting for it to be time to go check into my room.  It's in a woman's apartment, not in a hotel, and she doesn't want people to come until 2:00.  So I did a practice run to make sure I could find her place, then backtracked a little and enjoyed all the pretty parks, trees, flowers, etc.

Now I can tell you that the picture on the left is the statue of Garibaldi who did something heroic I'm pretty sure  It's in the Parc Garibaldi and it's a very nice spot - lots of benches and big.

And on the right are some of the fountains at a strange square called the Acropolis.  I think when I had a guidebook from the library, I read why but I can't remember now.  The building it's all in front of is just a big, square modern building...

And I can also tell you that this is two shots of what locals call "the square head".  My landlady's notes on finding her place said I would turn onto a street and find the square head building and that's where I'd make my next turn.  I sure didn't see anything that looked like a square head and pondered for a while whether to keep going that direction or not, but once I got down to the next intersection, there is was and I LOVE it!!  Turns out it's the public library which is actually underground and in the square head are the library's offices.  Sure would hate to work there - not a window anywhere.

Kind of reminds you of Italy, doesn't it?

And I just left all these in a single line which makes a very long post, but I'm too sleepy to try and arrange them.  I've also discovered that as far as I can tell, you can no longer enlarge the pictures to their original size by clicking on them.  Instead, you go to some weird slide show type set-up.  Don't know that any of you ever did that but on long shots it's hard to get an idea of the details without seeing it larger.

Ah, well, I'm going to see how I do at sleeping.  I lost my ear plugs (will buy some tomorrow if I can remember) and with the windows open which I would prefer, the noise is pretty astounding.  Plus which I'm not too sure how long the TV will be on... but I think tonight I'm sleepy enough to sleep through anything once I get there.

I really have had a nice first day - just too tired to give a good impression of it.  But trust me, you'd love it here too. :)