Couple of days being oh so cool!

Cannes

Joining the beautiful and oh so cool people! We fitted in perfectly of course. 

Put our feet on the "red carpet" (or something red on the concrete), posed here and there and the sun shone with an unseasonable  27 degrees - in our honour.

St Paul de Vence

This is a picturesque medieval village high on a hill top.

Yes, there was apparently a beautiful church if you wanted to climb some more steps. "No, no, no"said my knees and my heart.  "I need a church break". The village is a place where there appears to be lots of art dealers and beautiful things but I'm with our tour director who said he has champagne tastes but beer budget.  Such a beautiful place to visit.

Monaco

Just a small place with so much wealth.  The guide who took us up to see the external view of the royal palace, pointed out about 5  pre teen school kids ( not in uniform of course; designer clothes) and commented how their school back packs were by Gucci.  Poor souls. Perhaps they graduate to H&M and Zara and then, at a later time,they experience the joy of ordinary folks of getting a bargain at a sale at Big W or Kathmandu or equivalent!

Yes, yet another church - where Prince Rainer and Grace were married.

A few cannons outside the Royal Palace

The harbour is beautiful - for beautiful people - and cruise ships and yachts and everything just so not us......but no one could tell because we were oh so cool.......

Nice

I learnt some interesting things as we arrived and started our walk around Nice - just as a protest march started blocking the streets.  The local guide said they were used to the protests as they rarely had a week without them. In the last year they had 19 new taxes introduced and this was a major cause of discontent.

Children go to school until 4.30pm and have their major meal (3 courses) supplied by the school at lunch time.  For health reasons (?) , they are not allowed to take their own food and at school someone checks to make sure the children do eat their meal each day. Before they finish the school day, the children have another small snack before going home.

A lot of the ground has been reclaimed in Nice. This includes the area over the river that is now a long promenade with parks and playgrounds and seats.  

There is grass over some of the area ( but people aren't allowed to have picinics on the grass (?) and under the children's play area the grass is artificial.  The play areas are all quite interesting.  The paved areas have a misty spray emitted every few minutes ( presumably not in cooler months) but it is a lovely idea and I imagine on hot days everyone would make a rush for the spray.

Nice gentle mist being emitted over garden

 

Yellow building front on is where Matisse lived and did many paintings gaining inspiration from the views from his building - that included the beach and the sea.

Some of the dudes by the sea and the "no sand" but "smooth stone" beach

I also found Nice had 6 ( Andoora has 7) of the same male statues in a main square.  I couldn't see one State or town or city in a Australia, copying another with the same "sculpture".