The daughter and me on the famous blue chairs of Nice.
The blue chairs have finally made a late appearance this year along the Promenade des Anglais. There is safety in numbers, many are joined together now - bit of a large souvenir to carry off I would have thought...
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This Summer, for the first time, I decided to spend the whole of the daughter's school holiday in Nice, eight weeks nearly. The husband managed to escape from work for about five weeks and my sister came out for a week.
One week the daughter and I went away to the Ardeche region of France for a week of activities (see my PGL page) so really we only had about four days to ourselves. The time passed very quickly and I wasn't ready to come home by the end. The daughter however, during the last week, was very keen to get back to aschool and catch up with all her friends in the new school year.
This is our third summer in our studio in Nice; the weather this Summer was mild compared o the fierce heat wave in 2003 and I thought it was quite breezy and not particularly hot in July. Although it didn't rain much this Summer, there were a couple of spectacular thunder storms that persisted for a full day.
We visited Nice a couple of times early on in June and I was too cold to sunbathe, yet June is considered the best month. I think summer finally arrived by August; it was sunny and hot most days but not too hot to bear, even cycling along the Prom was fun and refreshing.
It seemed to me that here were even fewer tourist than usual this Summer. This was very noticable to us; although we have been in our studio for three years, we have been visiting Nice for five years and we can see the changing patterns.
This year, the private beaches were never full, it was never necessary to book in advance. Likewise the restaurants. For the first time, 'greeters' were positioned outside the restaurants lining the Cours Saleya, encouraging passers by to stop for a meal or an ice-cream. What a difference to previous years when it was hard to get a a table or sunbed without a reservation.. This made Nice, especailly the Old Town very pleasant for us, no queues and not too many crowds but it does not bode well for tourism in the Cote d'Azur.
A few more grumbles:
Customer service (the lack of it) is one of my big gripes in Nice (and France generally). Perhaps tourists are getting fed up with this and are taking their euros to other more grateful parts of Europe. The lack of service was reinforced to me by a trip to Berlin this year, where the staff and managers from transport, shops, museums and the hotel were courteous, helpful and friendly, what a difference to the surly indifference from the staff in Nice in many of the restaurants, shops, hotels and beaches. See my example on the left.
The second gripe is the grafitti. The Mayor and his team seem to be on to this and many walls have been re-painted in (almost) matching paint. It makes a significant difference to the appearance of many parts of the Old Town. For some reason, only grafitted walls have been covered up; doors have been left - this does neeed sorting so I hope this will be the next phase.
Still room for MAJOR improvement in the car department. Double parking, beeping, illegal and inconsiderate parking, how wheelchairs and prams cope I've no idea. The same for motorbikes, which use the pedestrian areas and seem to have universal unsilenced motors.
Until the Mayor gets to grips with these problems, tourists will be driven out. We visited Menton (a town an hour by bus along the coast almost on the border to Italy) one day this Summer and what a difference in their Old Town, so quiet and peaceful, no mororbikes there, I don't think they would be tolerated.
Final item on my 'to-do' agenda is to sort out the begging. It seems to be highly organised and we have been pestered quite a lot this year, with itinerant women approaching us in the streets and shaking their pots at us. This is when they are not spaced out equally along the main tourist roads, each holding an identical begging sign.
Tramworks (September 2004):
Work on the new North-South tramway and East-West bus lane in Nice is on-going and will be for several more years. All around central Nice, roads are being dug up, new pipes and cables laid down and there is much disruption to the traffic and inconvenience to pedestrians. Obviously this is only temporary but many of the main roads in Nice do not look too attractive at the moment. A main road undergoing contruction (deconstruction, really) is Jean Jaures which starts at Place Massena and stretches east to Place Garibaldi, going past the Gare Routiere (bus station), which is long due a complete re-haul; this would be the ideal opportunity to sort it out. This link for the latest tramway information (French)
Please bear with Nice over this building work. I hope eventually, the tram and bus lanes will reduce the cars, look smart and provide additional transport to the existing, pretty good systems already in place. The main central road in the modern city centre, Jean Medicin, looks rather sad and empty at the moment as all the mature Plane trees have been chopped down. I understand a large programme of re-planting will follow. The last item of new I read in Nice Matin (the local daily paper) at the beginning of September regarding the tram, indicated that the proposed pedestrianisation of Place Garibaldi is under review due to local protest. In my opinion, it would be a huge improvement to this magnificent Square. It's like a mini Parisian Place de la Concorde trying to cross the roads here.
On a happier note:
Two of my other gripes are now in the initial process of improvement. The first is the dog poo. It is quite disgusting, all over the pavement and makes it very difficult to admire Nice as you have to be constantly vigilant.
Fines have now been introduced although I've yet to hear of it being enforced. More important is the chanaging attitude of the Nicois. We h ave have spotted many owners bagging it (see photo left) this Summer - finally, the French dog owners are realising that letting little Frou-Frou crap all over the pavement is socially unacceptable. Well done.
New things we tried and loved this Summer:
La Becasse Restaurant by the Opera House
- see my review
(Sadly, now shut down, May 2006)
La Tapenade Restaurant
Trip to Menton and Cap Ferrat and discovered the free return jouney on this bus line.
Shopped at the Lingoustiere Carrefour
- immense hypermarket out of North from the airport, out of Nice.. Only 1,30 euros via the 11B Sunbus
Sailing course at the sailing club in Nice, just past the Port
PGL Family Active Holiday
Cap Ferrat Zoo
Neptune Plage
Bamboo Plage
Plongeior Plage
Arrato jewellers in Nice city centre
Picard frozen food shop
(imagine how Marks and Spencer might do a frozen food shop, definitely not Iceland) Suffice to say, we saved a fortune on food this Summer and ate like kings, long live Picard and my microwave.
I hope to expand on some of the above either in the form of tips on my virtual tourist pages or with additional info on this site, depending on time and motivation and downright laziness. Any that have been reviewed will have a link to the relevant site.
Roll your mouse over the photo for the full horror or click on your 'refresh' button.
A typical example of how not to do it in a well-known central hotel in Nice this summer.
I was listening in to a conversation between a guest who was on his way out of the hotel and the receptionist. It went as follows:
Guest: "the internet connection in my room isn't working"
Receptionist: "I don't know why that is" (with shrug)
Guest: "Well, it isn't working. Will you sort it?"
Receptionist: "I don't know why it isn't working and I don't know how to fix it"
Repeated several times.
After a pause the chap moved off disatisfied and clearly annoyed. I am certain he will not be staying there again.
This hotel (or any other business) will never know the custom they have lost through word of mouth and Nice simply can not afford to lose anymore tourists.
This was at a well-known expensive 4-star Hotel in the centre of town. The guests pay extra for the internet connection.
In my humble opinion, the reply should have gone along the following lines::
"I'm VERY SORRY sir. I will sort it out and it will be working by the time you come back to the Hotel. In the mean time I willl arrange for a bottle of wine to be put in your room as an apology for the inconvenience. Thank you for bringing this to may attention. If we can not fix it, will will change your room and give you a reduction on your rate."
A bit over the top perhaps but I am sure the guest would have been very happy, and the hotel would have benefitted from future business from this man plus all the recommendations to his friends. Everyone wins.
It's not hard is it???
Sitting on my balcony, at last the summer seems to have arrived in Nice.
An evening bike ride along the Promenade des Anglais.
The light is starting to go, it was about 8pm, a good time to go - not too hot and out of direct sunlight.
An all too brief weekend trip to Nice.
The weather was perfect, about 23 degrees C and sunny. The light on our balcony is gentle now and casts long shadows. There is a definite feel of Autumn in the air inspite of the glorious weather.
Last day to shop before Christmas. Also turned out to be the last of the good weather - it poured for the next two days.
Went to see the Nutcracker ballet at Nice Opera House on Christmas Day. We had a private box and the tickets were very reasonable - 35 euros for an adult and 20 euros for a child. Lovely meal in Le Comptoir afterwards.
For the Nice Opera 2004/05 season see their website:
www.opera-nice.org