Nice in Nice
Sep. 24th, 2009 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI am in Nice, and it's very nice, apart from the fact that the chambermaid has too many rooms to clean in a single day and that the Internet is performing with its predictable inconsistency. Of which, more later.
Journey to Gatwick was fine, flight was fine, bus to Nice was fine, walk to hotel was fine. I'm getting the hang of this.
Went straight out to eat.
Had epaule d'agneau confite with carrots, celery and potatoes, followed by tourte de blettes, a sweet swiss chard in a short pastry. Definitely not bought in. Rare to find genuine "local" restaurants in Nice. The "Lulu" (26 rue Alberti) is not haute cuisine, but it is "genuine", with the owner doing the cooking and only three staff. Guy running it is named Lucien Brych.
Canteen Lulu
Getting online in a European hotel is easier said than done. You have to go down to the lobby to obtain a code for 24 hours' use (in Vegas you log in at the computer and get charged automatically). Presumably you get charged the 15 euros whether you use it or not. Instead of using it straight away, I decided to try to use my Palm. I got there in the end! That too was an experience. The Palm OS is basically built for people who enjoy working with Linux with their eyes closed. I couldn't for the life of me work out how to change the phone number that it dials to get to my server. Then I realized that I had to change the "conection" to Palm Modem (even though it is a GPRS connection). That gave me a dial-up number that I could change. Then I changed the connection back to GPRS. Voila!
Thursday: Getting up is a real effort these days. But once I am up, I do at least get things done when I am on holiday. I bought my postcards, got the bus to Eze, wrote and sent the cards, and I am currently sitting 450 metres above the Mediterranean in Eze vielle ville. Incredible to think that people actually live here.
Eze Vielle Ville
More Eze Vielle Ville
It's a tourist trap, obviously, but today hasn't been too crowded, despite the warning of the guide book.
Fountains in Nice on the way to the bus station
Trams running on grass is intrinsically cool, I think
The view of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat from Eze Jardins Exotique
The ruined fortification above the Jardins Exotique
A view of the gardens of the very posh hotel/restaurant by Eze Vielle Vielle. I seriously considered the set lunch for E65, but decided against it because I wasn't particularly hungry!
posh cars in the car park of the posh hotel
Cityspots guide book has one great plus: it's small. But as a guidebook it leaves something to be desired. Clearly the maps have been put in with no reference to the text, which can cause confusion.
For example, the main bus station is referred to, but is not marked on the map, although another (subsidiary) bus station is! Irritatingly, the main bus station does not sell tickets. And although the bus from the airport sells a mandatory one-day pass, the other buses do not. However, tickets are just E1.00. Cityspots was wrong on the bus to Eze as well, but perhaps things have changed since the guide was written.
Coming up to 11.30am. Time to wander down to Eze-sur-mer, which will probably take an hour.
Another view of the posh garden as I began the descent of "Sentier Nietzche". Dig the fake giraffe!
I'm getting the hang of the timer on the camera, although I still can't give good face to the camera. The second effort was actually not that bad. It's direct into the sun, so I used the flash. Interesting outcome. Still horribly fat, though, dspite getting rid of half a stone.
Nearing the bottom. Hot, sweaty, tired. This is Eze-sur-Mer.
Defo a cool place to live. Pity that the prices are on a par with London!
Eze-sur-Mer with St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the background.
SUCCESS!!
Later: well, that was a rather tougher descent than I had anticipated. The guidebook rightly pointed out that only the insane would attempt the walk UP.
(But, as you can see from the sign, there is no serious indication to the unaware how difficult the ascent is. Throughout my descent I only passed four people heading up. The bus ride, btw, takes 25 minutes, and covers about 5 miles. The walk is about a mile and a half, maybe two miles, I guess. Until not too long ago it was the only short functioning route, in that there are villagers still alive who remember it!)
However, steep descents down a rather rugged track put their own strain on the body, particularly the knees. It also got rather hot. When I got back to Nice I saw that it was 30 degrees, some 5 degrees hotter than forecast. Then at Eze-sur-mer I had to wait a long time for a full bus. The 100 bus theoretically runs every 15 minutes. In practice it suffers severe bunching and you can often waith half an hour.
When I left my room in the morning I had put out the sign "please make up my room". So I was a bit fed up that it hadn't been cleaned. They got a chambermaid in fairly sharpish, though.
Evening meal was back at Lulu. I fear that I didn't fancy either the tripe or the octupus (the two specials of the night) so I had Veal in cream sauce and mushrooms, with chips. The French seem better these days with the traditional stuff.
Back in the hotel, the internet connection wouldn't work. Or, rather, it would only connect to the Hotel Vendome, down the street! Clearly my password wouldn't work for that. I humped the laptop downstairs to show them, and obtained a promise that I wouldn't charge me the E15. Then, half an hour later, the connection came back on. Presumably the connection provider was told to pull their finger out. So, free connection for a day. Woot woot. The small victories are the sweetest (that's bollocks, of course. The big victories are the sweetest).
Fuck it. While typing this a gold crown has fallen off an upper right tooth. Luckily I still have my plastic "retainers". Looks like I shall be wearing the top set all of the time for the next few days, which will make eating a bit of a problem!
Another monkey to the dentist, I suspect! Better get some $2-$4 in on Party...
______________
Journey to Gatwick was fine, flight was fine, bus to Nice was fine, walk to hotel was fine. I'm getting the hang of this.
Went straight out to eat.
Had epaule d'agneau confite with carrots, celery and potatoes, followed by tourte de blettes, a sweet swiss chard in a short pastry. Definitely not bought in. Rare to find genuine "local" restaurants in Nice. The "Lulu" (26 rue Alberti) is not haute cuisine, but it is "genuine", with the owner doing the cooking and only three staff. Guy running it is named Lucien Brych.
Canteen Lulu
Getting online in a European hotel is easier said than done. You have to go down to the lobby to obtain a code for 24 hours' use (in Vegas you log in at the computer and get charged automatically). Presumably you get charged the 15 euros whether you use it or not. Instead of using it straight away, I decided to try to use my Palm. I got there in the end! That too was an experience. The Palm OS is basically built for people who enjoy working with Linux with their eyes closed. I couldn't for the life of me work out how to change the phone number that it dials to get to my server. Then I realized that I had to change the "conection" to Palm Modem (even though it is a GPRS connection). That gave me a dial-up number that I could change. Then I changed the connection back to GPRS. Voila!
Thursday: Getting up is a real effort these days. But once I am up, I do at least get things done when I am on holiday. I bought my postcards, got the bus to Eze, wrote and sent the cards, and I am currently sitting 450 metres above the Mediterranean in Eze vielle ville. Incredible to think that people actually live here.
Eze Vielle Ville
More Eze Vielle Ville
It's a tourist trap, obviously, but today hasn't been too crowded, despite the warning of the guide book.
Fountains in Nice on the way to the bus station
Trams running on grass is intrinsically cool, I think
The view of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat from Eze Jardins Exotique
The ruined fortification above the Jardins Exotique
A view of the gardens of the very posh hotel/restaurant by Eze Vielle Vielle. I seriously considered the set lunch for E65, but decided against it because I wasn't particularly hungry!
posh cars in the car park of the posh hotel
Cityspots guide book has one great plus: it's small. But as a guidebook it leaves something to be desired. Clearly the maps have been put in with no reference to the text, which can cause confusion.
For example, the main bus station is referred to, but is not marked on the map, although another (subsidiary) bus station is! Irritatingly, the main bus station does not sell tickets. And although the bus from the airport sells a mandatory one-day pass, the other buses do not. However, tickets are just E1.00. Cityspots was wrong on the bus to Eze as well, but perhaps things have changed since the guide was written.
Coming up to 11.30am. Time to wander down to Eze-sur-mer, which will probably take an hour.
Another view of the posh garden as I began the descent of "Sentier Nietzche". Dig the fake giraffe!
I'm getting the hang of the timer on the camera, although I still can't give good face to the camera. The second effort was actually not that bad. It's direct into the sun, so I used the flash. Interesting outcome. Still horribly fat, though, dspite getting rid of half a stone.
Nearing the bottom. Hot, sweaty, tired. This is Eze-sur-Mer.
Defo a cool place to live. Pity that the prices are on a par with London!
Eze-sur-Mer with St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the background.
SUCCESS!!
Later: well, that was a rather tougher descent than I had anticipated. The guidebook rightly pointed out that only the insane would attempt the walk UP.
(But, as you can see from the sign, there is no serious indication to the unaware how difficult the ascent is. Throughout my descent I only passed four people heading up. The bus ride, btw, takes 25 minutes, and covers about 5 miles. The walk is about a mile and a half, maybe two miles, I guess. Until not too long ago it was the only short functioning route, in that there are villagers still alive who remember it!)
However, steep descents down a rather rugged track put their own strain on the body, particularly the knees. It also got rather hot. When I got back to Nice I saw that it was 30 degrees, some 5 degrees hotter than forecast. Then at Eze-sur-mer I had to wait a long time for a full bus. The 100 bus theoretically runs every 15 minutes. In practice it suffers severe bunching and you can often waith half an hour.
When I left my room in the morning I had put out the sign "please make up my room". So I was a bit fed up that it hadn't been cleaned. They got a chambermaid in fairly sharpish, though.
Evening meal was back at Lulu. I fear that I didn't fancy either the tripe or the octupus (the two specials of the night) so I had Veal in cream sauce and mushrooms, with chips. The French seem better these days with the traditional stuff.
Back in the hotel, the internet connection wouldn't work. Or, rather, it would only connect to the Hotel Vendome, down the street! Clearly my password wouldn't work for that. I humped the laptop downstairs to show them, and obtained a promise that I wouldn't charge me the E15. Then, half an hour later, the connection came back on. Presumably the connection provider was told to pull their finger out. So, free connection for a day. Woot woot. The small victories are the sweetest (that's bollocks, of course. The big victories are the sweetest).
Fuck it. While typing this a gold crown has fallen off an upper right tooth. Luckily I still have my plastic "retainers". Looks like I shall be wearing the top set all of the time for the next few days, which will make eating a bit of a problem!
Another monkey to the dentist, I suspect! Better get some $2-$4 in on Party...
______________
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Date: 2009-09-24 11:35 pm (UTC)Titmus
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Date: 2009-09-25 05:31 am (UTC)Keith S
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