Nice and Arles, France
Ok, I tend to be slow when I write these and take up a lot of time on the internet. I’ve got a short amount of time so I will get to it.
Dan here. Thought you might want to read a little about Nice and Arles. Here it is.
When we arrived in Nice (pronounced Niece to us English speakers), I was surprised how warm it was. I wasn’t expecting it to be as warm as Sicily since it is farther north. Nice balmy 60’s to low 70’s is a great way to start a city…in January…winter. So, we checked in and then walked the beach at night. NICE…No pun (if that is what you call it) intended. Even though it was dark, the Prominade des Anglais (English Prominade) is so lit up and the buildings (all high class hotels and bigwig bars) were just as lit, the water was blue. There were many people. Some where swimming, some playing guitar, running, walking, fishing, you name it. We saw a lot of cool places that night. Next day found us walking all around Nice but mainly we went to 2 modern art museums. This is a fresh change for us. We have seen so many baroque, gothic, whatever paintings of every kind of Jesus and Mary picture from so many different time periods, I am sorry, but I am burn’t out on them. A modern cut up and stuck to a wall cello is great. The day after that we went to Cannes (as in art, movie and musical festivals). It is a touristy place with a nice look out but we didn’t stay long because it was raining pretty hard. We then went to Monaco. Great, old buildings were to be seen everywhere. They are all very upkept. Everything seemed new and built last year. The Montecarlo Casino is a beautiful building. It also has a great walking terrace outside in the back. I liked Monaco.
On to Arles. This is a friendly, quaint, seemingly smallish town in Provence. It does have a Roman amphitheater which they still use for bullfights. They also have other Roman ruins that are really fun to see. The best thing was a museum that had really well done models of all the ruins in the city. It was great to see the representation of what they were like way back when.
We also did a day trip to Avignon. This city was, at one time, the headquarters of the Catholic church during the late 1300’s to early 1400’s. This was a fantastic place for architecture. Huge castle, big churches, monuments, cool intact city walls, statues, all of which were very ornate and, at the same time, big, heavy, and tough! This was a functional fortress city! Cool! Oh, by the way, Arles is MUCH colder than Nice is. I have got on all my layers, including long underwear!
Well, that’s it for now. We are currently in a warmer Paris.
Write more later,
Dan
Tags: Avignon, Nice, Pre-Trip
timdan2
Tim & Dan,
I am jelous that you were in such “nice” warm weather!!! Sounds beautiful! Wanted to let you know that we are so excited that you are coming home early! Safe travels for the remainder of your trip and we will see you in a few days!!
Love ya
Bren