And the sun shall shine
Mar. 24th, 2014 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksAn odd Sunday and Monday, really. Yesterday (Sunday) I was clearly still exhausted. Got up after seven hours sleep. Had breakfast. Read book. Went back to bed. Two hours later, got up again. Was determined not to slouch around the flat all day, so I went for a walk, not least because the weather was a considerable improvement on Saturday!
I had half-intended to do my "normal" first walk of the holiday, a short stroll along the coast to the east of town, then up 200 steep steps before getting the bus back.
However, as I was walking down Segurane I was tempted by the road route up to the old citadel (not to be confused with the far newer Vielle Ville) -- a road that I had not walked before.
On the way I encountered the new Central Park (Parc de Paillon, I believe). It being fine weather and a Sunday, it was packed with locals and also with police in various uniforms. The plan is clear; they will do absolutely everything to ensure that the dossers don't take over the park. A similar strategy is adopted on the beach, where anyone attempting to sleep overnight (not a goer in March, but quite feasible between June and September) is moved sharply on their way.
That does not mean that there is not a homeless problem and a vagrancy problem in Nice; there is. Cities with this kind of climate always have to decide how to deal with it. A walk along Hotel des Postes this evening revealed a small area where about half a dozen middle-aged men were bedding down for the night in sleeping bags and cardboard boxes.
What the Nice authorities absolutely stomp on is any attempt for this "underclass" to impose themselves on the myth of Nice as a pleasant haven where everyone can enjoy themselves at no risk to personal safety and without having to encounter the alcoholics or the mentally ill, or both.
It's a strange dichotomy. The police aren't harsh on the homeless or the poor; they just ensure that they travel down strictly delineated narrow channels. Thus there is a homeless centre right in the middle of the old town (unadvertised, you ave to know where it is) that does remarkably cheap lunches. There are parts of the town where the homeless are tolerated and allowed to bed down. But there are other parts, and the new central park is one of them, where their presence is not permitted.
This particular guy (above) could have been an innocent tourist caught up in the rules -- but sitting down on the grass to eat a lunch was not within the unwritten agreement. No signs saying "keep off the grass", but a clear indication that there were benches to sit on and grass was for looking at. It wan't a picnic area.
+++++++
The walk up the hill to the old city was mild enough -- compared to the steep steps on the other side. Once again, it was very crowded. I managed to get some shots of Nice from angles that were not normally available.
Above is a shot of the road to the north of Nice Port (you can see the edge of the port to the right),
Here I am (below) by a musical car:
Oh dear. Am getting weary. More tomorrow.
I had half-intended to do my "normal" first walk of the holiday, a short stroll along the coast to the east of town, then up 200 steep steps before getting the bus back.
However, as I was walking down Segurane I was tempted by the road route up to the old citadel (not to be confused with the far newer Vielle Ville) -- a road that I had not walked before.
On the way I encountered the new Central Park (Parc de Paillon, I believe). It being fine weather and a Sunday, it was packed with locals and also with police in various uniforms. The plan is clear; they will do absolutely everything to ensure that the dossers don't take over the park. A similar strategy is adopted on the beach, where anyone attempting to sleep overnight (not a goer in March, but quite feasible between June and September) is moved sharply on their way.
That does not mean that there is not a homeless problem and a vagrancy problem in Nice; there is. Cities with this kind of climate always have to decide how to deal with it. A walk along Hotel des Postes this evening revealed a small area where about half a dozen middle-aged men were bedding down for the night in sleeping bags and cardboard boxes.
What the Nice authorities absolutely stomp on is any attempt for this "underclass" to impose themselves on the myth of Nice as a pleasant haven where everyone can enjoy themselves at no risk to personal safety and without having to encounter the alcoholics or the mentally ill, or both.
It's a strange dichotomy. The police aren't harsh on the homeless or the poor; they just ensure that they travel down strictly delineated narrow channels. Thus there is a homeless centre right in the middle of the old town (unadvertised, you ave to know where it is) that does remarkably cheap lunches. There are parts of the town where the homeless are tolerated and allowed to bed down. But there are other parts, and the new central park is one of them, where their presence is not permitted.
This particular guy (above) could have been an innocent tourist caught up in the rules -- but sitting down on the grass to eat a lunch was not within the unwritten agreement. No signs saying "keep off the grass", but a clear indication that there were benches to sit on and grass was for looking at. It wan't a picnic area.
+++++++
The walk up the hill to the old city was mild enough -- compared to the steep steps on the other side. Once again, it was very crowded. I managed to get some shots of Nice from angles that were not normally available.
Above is a shot of the road to the north of Nice Port (you can see the edge of the port to the right),
Here I am (below) by a musical car:
Oh dear. Am getting weary. More tomorrow.
