Colline du Château and More

My primary destination this afternoon was Colline du Château, but I took in a bit of a happening before then, and afterwards I promenaded for a while.

Let’s jump right into it without further ado because I want to get to sleep at a decent time tonight.

La Carnavalina

In this morning’s post, I mentioned that Nice is in the midst of Carnaval de Nice and that this afternoon there was a festive walk down one of Nice’s main streets. It sounded more like a parade than a walk. It might have been an issue with the translation. (Not my fault! I got it from an English page provided by the carnival.)

In that post, I said I wasn’t sure if I’d take in La Carnavalina,

I finished lunch just after 2:00, the start time of La Carnavalina. The restaurant where I ate was only a few blocks from the square where I think the parade ended.

There were already people lined up on both sides of the street along which La Carnavalina walked. But the crowds were still sparse at that time.

I looked down the street that was the route, but didn’t see anything other than people waiting on the sides of the street. I started walking toward the starting point. By the time I got to where I could just start to hear the lead marching band, the crowds on the sides of the street were thick enough that a person of limited height, such as me, wouldn’t be able to see any of the action.

I turned around and walked back to a point where there was a gap in the crowd, made my stand, and waited.

Then the parade arrived. But before it did, there were walking police officers, motorcycle cops, and a couple of police cars ahead of it to ensure the way remained clear. The police cars drove in parallel down the street, so close to the people waiting for the parade that their side-view mirrors came within a few millimetres of brushing the people standing on the curbs, including me.

Before the parade arrived, carnival volunteers, or maybe staff, came along both sides of the street holding police tape-like ribbons at the edges of the space reserved for the parade. They walked at parade speed, followed by more volunteers/staff holding up their points of the long tape.

Then the parade arrived. There were people in colourful costumes dancing as they walked, a marching band, and other people just being festive. I took a video (see below). Because of the tape-holders walking in front of me, a professional photographer, and a guy beside me with a long-lens camera that he occasionally directed in my shot, you’ll see some likely annoying moments when I raised my phone to try, and mostly fail, to keep them out of the video.

Before the parade reached me and I started the video, I heard and saw some confetti cannons being fired. And some people in the parade who had already passed me fired off a couple of streamer cannons, so that’s not in the video either.

There were a couple of points in the parade when there were brief gaps in it. I put the video on pause then, so you’ll see a couple of jump cuts, I think film people call them.

I didn’t stay to the end of La Carnavalina, or even for very long. For all I know, there might have been a grand finale. Maybe even the king and queen of La Carnavalina. I don’t know.

Do you know that song “I Love a Parade”? The truth is, I like a parade, but I don’t love a parade. And, even liking them, I get bored with them quickly, and my liking turns to “get me the heck out of here.” So I got the heck out of there and went to the Colline du Château before the parade had entirely passed me by.

Colline du Château

For the benefit of those who know even less French than I do, colline is the French word for hill. (*Joel pats himself on the back for already knowing that before this trip.*)

Château means castle.

So, Colline du Château means Castle Hill.

Colline du Château isn’t an enormous hill, but it’s not short either. If it had any more self-respect, it could call itself a mountain, and I wouldn’t quibble. True, not a very tall mountain, but I think it could sneak into the mountain club, if only because it’s short enough that the guard at the club might not see it.

There were a couple of ways I could get to the top of Colline du Château. I could walk up a set of steps that wind and weave up the hill, or I could take an elevator that goes at least partway up the hill.

I saw the entrance to the elevator. A sign said it was “gratuit” (free). To get to the elevator, you have to walk through a dank tunnel bored into the bottom of the hill.

I thought about taking the elevator, but there is an observation deck about halfway up that I wanted to see. I didn’t know where the elevator ended in relation to that. Besides, I thought not taking the stairs was cheating. So, I hiked up.

I got about halfway between the base and the observation deck when an omen was delivered onto me that convinced me I made the right decision in choosing the stairs. It was a printed name in block letters etched unprofessionally onto one of the stairs, in a direction such that it was oriented correctly for me to read when I was walking up. It was slightly weathered, so it couldn’t have been etched all that recently.

The message said simply and succinctly, “JOEL.” That was it. Just “JOEL.” Clearly, the gods intended for me to take the stairs.

The halfway observation deck is atop a tower that would be a fat cylinder had the back portion of it not been hugging the side of the hill. The tower didn’t start at the walkway below. It sat behind and above a hotel.

The view from the observation deck was spectacular. I could see out to the sea, including the full sweep of the bay Nice is on, and the city behind it. I spent a while there enjoying the view before walking up the stairs the rest of the way to the top of Colline du Château.

Colline du Château is so named because there used to be a defensive castle up there. It’s not there now, just some ruins. All I saw was the ruin of a small part of one of the castle towers. The only reason I knew that’s what it was is that there was a sign in French and English saying so. It looked almost like a small natural rock formation.

The top of Colline du Château is a fairly large plateau. In addition to the bit of the remains of the castle, there are also some slightly more substantial ruins of a part of a settlement that also used to be there. In addition, there is a playground, a couple of snack bars, and parkland.

And the views from up there of the sea and the city are likewise sensational.

On a side of Colline du Château other than the one I walked up, there’s an artificial waterfall, which I walked over to see. I then walked back down the stairs to the Promenade des Anglais, where the stairs to Colline du Château begin or, if you’re going down, end.

Promenade des Anglais

As I mentioned in my first post from Nice yesterday afternoon, the Promenade des Anglais is a wide seaside promenade. It runs pretty much the full width of Nice’s shore.

The stairs to Colline du Château are close to one end of Promenade des Anglais. I walked to that end and beyond, where Promenade des Anglais turns into a narrower seaside sidewalk. At that point, the beach ends and the shore turns to rock.

Some of the waves breaking against the rocks were forceful enough to send plumes of whitewater high into the air. It was beautiful.

After watching that for a while, I turned around and walked back along Promenade des Anglais. I continued well past where I was yesterday before turning around and heading back to my hotel.

There’s something about seashores or oceanshores that I can’t get enough of. I find the sound of the waves washing, or sometimes crashing, on the shore to be calming. And the interaction of the sea and shore is beautiful. Of course, there are many ways a sea or ocean can meet the shore. It can run up against a sandy beach, a stone beach, rough rocks, or sheer cliffs, and probably a few other landforms that aren’t coming to mind immediately.

Well, I’ll exclude from that any places where the sea or ocean meets a brutally utilitarian industrial port. Many of those can be plug-ugly. But let’s not think about that. I haven’t seen any of that in Nice. Let’s think happy thoughts as I get ready to try to drift off to sleep.