Nice is Nice

I left Arles this morning and didn’t arrive at my hotel in Nice, France, until about 3:00 in the afternoon. So I haven’t had enough time to fully assess if Nice is indeed nice, as I said in the title of this entry.

Nevertheless, I don’t imagine any anglophones have ever been to Nice, or even just mentioned the French seaside city, without uttering a pun involving Nice and nice. I wanted to get that out of the way early.

Of course, Nice isn’t pronounced like the English word “nice.” It’s pronounced like niece. But that pronunciation only serves to raise Nice in my estimation. My experience is that if the tag for something, or more importantly, someone, is pronounced “niece,” it must be, not just nice, but wonderful.

Nice is my last destination in France on this trip. I’ll be here for seven nights, i.e., six and a half days. I’ll leave France after that, but remain in Europe for a few days before heading home. I’ll probably have more to say about that non-French destination on my last day in Nice. I was there for a couple of days once before, but there are readers of this journal, ones I’ll be visiting there, who undoubtedly already know more about it than I do. But that’s for the future. Now is now.

I have tentative, not so much plans as concepts to take two or three day-trips out of Nice, but if I do, I’ll return from each to Nice the same day. No promises. Let’s see how that goes, shall we?

Wandering Around Nice

This is my first time in Nice. For the little time I had here this afternoon, I decided not to consult my guidebooks, walking tour app, or mapping applications, but just wander a bit from my hotel beside the train station.

I don’t know if this is normal, but when I’m travelling on a multi-city trip, I tend to involuntarily compare the city I’ve just arrived in to the one I just left, in this case, Nice and Arles.

For a reason I’ll get into soon, I didn’t wander around much in Nice, even considering I had only part of the afternoon. From what I’ve seen so far, Nice is newer than Arles. I didn’t, for example, see any Roman structures here, or anything even vaguely close to that age. The buildings in Nice are also somewhat taller than they are in the old part of Arles. They aren’t high-rises here, but they are taller mid-rises.

There are also wider streets in Nice than in the old town part of Alres. And there is much more traffic here.

But having said that, it’s possible that when I spend more time in Nice and make a more determined effort to discover parts of and sights in the city, I’ll find an older, quieter, and quainter quarter of town.

I came across a few buildings that have a certain je ne sais quoi. No, really. I don’t know what. They had a very distinctive feel for me as a classically French architecture of a certain epoch. But I don’t know which epoch, or if I was even right in thinking it was a classically French architecture. Architecture is among the great many subjects of which I’m largely ignorant.

On my walk, I came across a pedestrianized street that stretched for a few blocks. Often, “shopping” comes between “pedestrianized” and “street” when talking about such avenues. However, in this case, it was more of a pedestrianized restaurant street. Restaurants predominated on both sides of most of the street.

It wasn’t solely restaurants. There were some shops lining the sides of a part of one block at one end of the street. And a cross street was also pedestrianized for a block, and that was a pedestrianized shopping block.

After not walking all that long, a light rain started. It continued all afternoon, and according to the forecast, it will persist unabated until early tomorrow morning. But I had my umbrella with me, and there wasn’t much of a wind. So, I unfurled my umbrella, opened it to its full height and width, held it above my head, and carried on.

Nice is on the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the rain, I decided I wanted to see the sea. I knew generally what direction it was in, and headed that way without consulting a map. Much to my surprise, I found the sea fairly easily.

To be honest, as long as you know the right direction, it’s hard not to find the sea. The Mediterranean is rather large. The whole south side of Nice fronts on a wide bay off it that doesn’t dip comparatively far inland. The problem, of course, is knowing the right direction. It doesn’t always happen to me, but this time I did.

Going there today might not have been the wisest decision I’ve made in my life. Once I get through the rain today, the weather forecast says I should have some sunny or partly cloudy days for the rest of my week here, with only one day with much rain. The forecast says, but who knows?

Nevertheless, today wasn’t one of those sunny days. The rain didn’t stop this afternoon after it started. And once I got to the sea and away from the protection of the buildings in town, the wind was somewhat blustery.

I have a great travel umbrella. I’ve had it for a few years now, and I have used it on some quite windy days. It hasn’t yet inverted itself in the wind. It still didn’t today. Nevertheless, even if an umbrella maintains its intended shape, it won’t do much to protect you from rain that blows up under it.

I got as far the Promenade des Anglais. I couldn’t walk much farther in that direction without having to swim. It’s a famous Nice promenade that runs along the seaside. The only thing between the Promenade des Anglais and the sea is a long sand and stone beach. (It was mostly stone, but with some sandy patches where I was.)

The sea was rough today, with a band of whitecaps breaking along the shore for as far as I could see along the beach.

Looking out to sea, beyond the white, foamy band, the water was a gorgeous aquamarine colour for quite a distance out. But, for the entire arc of the horizon, there was a narrow band of very dark water, sharply delineated from the wide aquamarine expanse.

I probably should have taken a photo pointing straight out at the sea rather than along the shore, so the dark band would be more easily visible. I didn’t.

Because of the weather, I spent little time promenading on the Promenade des Anglais. I walked only a few steps from where I joined it and didn’t get to the section I’ve seen in pictures. Instead, I headed back to my hotel in the straightest path I could, this time using a mapping app to guide me.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed the show, what little of it there was. I’ll be here all week. Remember to tip your web server.