Winter on the Cote d'Azur

I know some of my readers don't live in places quite as blessed by good weather as down here, so as I was walking round Nice today, I thought I might take some photos for you.

These photos start in Nice Port, then we go to Place Garibaldi, then along the new park that's been created to replace the hideous monstrosity that was the old bus station, along the beach and back to the port. The last couple are of Villefranche, where we stopped for a drink by the beach on the way home. Enjoy!

Note: If any of you are reading this on a mobile device, this is a very image heavy post - it might be better to wait until you get home!


Nice port:

Place Garibaldi:

Tram line:

Promenade du Paillon (a huge improvement on the old bus station!)

Promenade des Anglais and the beach in Nice:

Every time I see this little building, I think it should be refurbed and turned into a seafood restaurant:

On the way round the point towards the port:

War memorials:

Dog drinking from a water fountain. Took him a while to get the hang of it, but then he was set!

Nice Port:

This is the boat I want to try and buy when I win the lottery. I adore it!

Villefranche:

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Happier things

Before yesterday went badly awry in the evening, it was an awesome day! My husband has recently learnt to drive, and yesterday was the first time I'd got in the car with him. (He is, as I always knew he would be, an excellent driver!)

We rented an Auto Bleue - one of Nice's electric cars, for hire hourly/daily - and drove around the coast, heading up the mountain behind Villefranche and Eze. You get some amazing views from up there, and I'd recommend making the trip that tiny bit in-land if you're here on holiday - there are buses that do the same route, if you don't have a car or don't fancy driving on French roads!

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Today, I walked.

When we woke up, we decided to go for a walk this morning. From Monaco to Villefranche. For lunch. Google tells me this is 16ish kilometres, which is enough to make my legs a little bit sore now, and I may well be unable to move tomorrow.

But the sun was shining, the views are beautiful and once you're actually up at the Moyenne Corniche, the road is mostly flat. (Except the detours to avoid the motorway tunnel just before Eze. That introduces some startling steep hills.)

I'm glad I did it - it's not necessarily a walk I'd do in the middle of summer, but today was just lovely! (Photos might follow, if any of them have turned out well - you get a great view of Eze as you're walking up to it, with all its terraces splaying out down the mountain, but my camera was being a bit weird, so I'm not sure if it came out properly.)

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And, now, the end is near...

The moving van is booked. Stuff is going in boxes. Bags of unwanted clothes are going to charity bins. It's time to leave again.

As you'll all have noted from the long gaps between posts, I've not been around much. Not having internet at home has made blogging difficult. Work is not interesting to write about. Out of work stuff, I won't talk about somewhere Googleable and attached to my own name... Part-time expatting also takes up a lot of time, most of it spent in airports. (I don't really recommend it.) And, in a week or so, I won't even be a part-time expat.

Which means it's probably time to finally wrap up this blog.

I've been escaping packing to wander around one last time with my camera. Some photos follow - there may be a few posts of photos, depending on how inspired I'm feeling, and how long my camera batteries last.

It's been fun, looking back on everything I've written, all the weird and wonderful things I've done. I hope those of you who read it have found it interesting, and maybe useful. (If anyone reading this in the future because they're moving to Nice wants to chat about any of it, send me an email or something.) I might do one more post, a more introspective one, looking at how I've changed and what I've got out of the year or so I've been away. Not for any of you, because few things are probably more boring than other people's introspection, but because it would be a useful thing for me to do before finally leaving and getting stuck back into being a non-expat.

Anyway, photos from today...

Oh, and last but very much not least, Oscar has an orange! All of his very own! One that's actually orange!

You never know, I might start an English blog. If I do and you want the link, let me know.

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