October 19 & 20 - Nice

Greetings from Nice! We arrived here from Eze yesterday. Perfect weather - sunny and very warm. After checking into the hotel, we wandered around the old part of the city. I would say Nice is probably most remarkable for it's Promenade de Anglais which runs all along the seafront for approx 5 kilometres ( photo on the left). Very tropical in appearance, palm trees everywhere, and the beaches, despite being pebbly are extremely popular. We headed up to the Marc Chagall museum. M. Chagall lived near Nice for many years - for those not familiar with his art, he painted mainly interpretations of biblical stories from the Old Testament along with some amazing stained glass work. I included some shots here from the museum.

Today we decided to do a day trip to Antibes. We had planned on taking the train but had heard from the hotel staff that a train strike was planned for today so we headed for the bus station instead. Slow ride - took over 60 mins for the 20k trip to Antibes.

Certainly, more yachts than we had ever seen in one place- and massive ones in the outer harbour - Antibes is very much a playground for the very rich. And many stores dedicated to outfitting yachts. Carl's pilgrimage to the home of Graham Greene from 1969-1990 (he died a year later near his daughter's in Switzerland) was his highlight. Greene lived in a true menage a trois with Yvonne Cloetta. She with her husband and daughter on the 2nd floor, he on the 4th. They would lunch at Chez Feliz nearby, spend their afternoons togther, then she would fix his dinner and return to her family. (this info courtesy of Carl)

Here is Greene's apartment. I think Greene would have been outraged by the appearance of a faux Aussie bar but hey we Irish (of any number of exiled generations) have endured cultural appropriation for years.

Unfortunately, Chez Felix appears to have just closed. We had hoped to have a licit lunch there.

Picture of an unusual item over on Antibes resident's front door.

We took a couple of hours to visit the Musee Picasso - no photos allowed so can't show you anything - he lived here for one year in 1946 and produced over 150 pieces of art. He learned pottery while here and produced some very astounding pottery, imagine his exagerated women come to life on a pitcher. The museum is in the old Chateau Grimaldi, the original home of the Monaco mafia.

Tomorrow we head for Monaco - plan to visit the Monte Carlo casino and the grave of Princess Grave...stay tuned.