Nice, Enough

Along the Promenade des Anglais

Most times, to arrive at a place, you have to transit through other places. These may be fascinating destinations in themselves, but you have to keep your eye on the prize. My trip to the Lower Rhone valley, centered on Arles and Avignon has been a 3 day journey, the bulk of it the flight/transit/flight waltz of LA to Amsterdam to Nice. Nice is the big city in Provence with the big airport. My flight arrived late in the afternoon, so I opted to stay a night in Nice and make the onward journey to Arles by train today.


An evening and short morning in Nice is certainly not enough time for a comprehensive exploration of this important southern French city. To ward off jetlag, I needed to stay awake until about 11 pm. So I set out to take some dinner. I walked the main drag through town, the Boulevard Jean Medecin, a wide street with all the big department and chain stores, still festooned with Noel décor. The streets were full of locals sharply bundled against the chilly night. The boulevard ends at the grand Place Massena, sporting a high-tech patina of electronic Christmas decorations blinking at a rate that would induce seizures if gazed upon too long. On the other side of the Place is the old city, with a tighter, ungridded street layout. Bars and restaurants make this a much lively district and I enjoyed a slow reconnoiter, sans map, to take in the atmosphere. Ended at a small, unpretentious restaurant. Soupe au pistou. Entrecote with both an aioli and a gorgonzola sauce. Grilled eggplant. Frites. Delicious Provencal fare. Then back to the hotel to pass out.

Nice, particularly the Old City, has its charms, but I am certainly glad I did not spend more time there. An early morning walk along the Promenade des Anglais, the famous seaside walk along the Mediterranean was enough to get a sense of the pleasure aspect of the Riviera, even in the dead of winter, but there is so much more to see both west and north of here.

As I write this, I am on the TGV heading west along the coast towards Marseilles, then north to Arles. There are some interesting stops on the way that stir the imagination; Antibes, Cannes, but those are for another time; for now they are just part of the transit process.