A FEW NICE PHOTOS

Many shops may be selling souvenirs or cafe to tourists, but there’s still charm, at least in the non-high season.

It’s hard to avoid making bad puns on this city’s name, and even harder to make them funny in print or out loud.

It was a nice day for wandering with the camera through the nice streets and museums of Nice.

First, may we congratulate Cote d’Azur public transport? With a EUR1.50 ‘Solo’ ticket we can travel anywhere in the area, hopping on and off any tram or bus for 72 minutes. That odd figure sounds as if a committee couldn’t decide between an hour and 90 minutes as the fairest time frame and negotiated 72 minutes as the best option. It suited us well, travelling about fifteen minutes into central Nice from the outlying town Villefranche-sur-Mer.

We found ourselves at big yellow Garibaldi Square in Nice.

Garibaldi. An impressive first impression…

…and even more impressive when we notice the tromp l’oeil.

In front of us was MAMAC, the Museum d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, so we made it our first port of call.

Arne Quinze’s “Hommage a Alexander Calder” rather overpowers Alexander’s work…

…though it has its own appeal too.

The permanent collection particularly features work by Yves Klein, Jean Tiguely and Niki de Saint Phalle’s witty colourful Nanas.

Niki de Saint Phalle’s fat ladies are perennial favourites.

The bird’s eye views of Nice from MAMAC’s terrace rooftop made us want to get down in amongst it.

View towards Garibaldi from MAMAC.

The vieille ville of Nice is a jumble of narrow streets, always charming to us antipodeans.

As rain threatened, we found ourselves umbrella-less outside the Palais Lascaris. ‘Entree libre’ said the sign, so in we ducked.

Elegant and dry.

The palace featured a small collection of interesting musical instruments – viols, cellos, a Pleyel piano and this…

It’s a piano on one side, a harp on the other. Made by Luigi Caldera, Turin, 1889.

Mevrouw T spent some time trying to buy a useful guidebook to Nice which she found in the palace gift shop. Unfortunately the attendants couldn’t confirm the correct price (despite a phone call to their superiors) and refused to sell it to her. They seemed afraid that if they sold at the wrong price the descendants of the Order of Malta who once owned the palace would start chopping off hands or heads.

So we were back into the street, guideless… The rain had passed and the market stallholders were packing up for the day. The restaurants were open and a few customers (this is still the quiet season) were enjoying fruits de mer.

Food we could have eaten, but didn’t.

The sweet shop Auer (confectionery since 1820) was open for business.

Instead we ate our boulangerie pain and Petit Casino fromage and pate on a quiet street corner.

Then we headed out to explore a little more.

Nice. Colourful and relaxed.

There’s probably an instructive story to this fountain – something about not leaving your baby in front of a charging bull, even if it means diving in front of it in a state of undress.

Another fine day had left us each EUR1.50 in our pockets, so we were able to travel back to our ‘home’ in Villefranche on a very efficient Cote d’Azur bus.