Out And About In Nice, France

By Orson Johnson

The Angels City, Nice is really the nicest city of France. Located on the Mediterranean coast, between Marseille and Genoa in southern France, Nice is a chief resort on the French Riviera. The historical capital city of the County of Nice is a major tourist centre featuring long promenades, stony beaches, and fine weather.

The year around mild and sunny weather makes Nice a perfect vacation destination. Nice is particularly very popular amongst young travelers, but the city certainly has something for everybody’s taste. The city is widely known for its striking buildings, art repositories, good hotels, bars, restaurants, pubs, markets, baroque churches, and lots-lots of more fantastic sites and fun things.

Surrounded by the Cours Saleya and the Albert 1st Gardens, Vieux Nice or Old Town is much more than a must-see site. It is a vivacious and active place with traces of Italian structural designs and cuisine showing.

Situated on the northern side of Pampelonne, Plage de Tahiti Beach is a stylish oasis dotted with coffeehouses and voguish eating houses. This is the best place to relax on the comfy golden sand. Certainly, you should not miss the chance to take a tour of Nice Tourist Train (Train Touristique de Nice). These rubber wheeled vehicles provides a sightseeing experience of the main parts of the town including the place Massena, the promenade des Anglais, and the quai de Etats-Unis.

St. Nicolas Church, built between 1903 and 1912 is a fantastic cathedral with elegantly ornamented exterior in mosaic. The cathedral has 6 onion domes and is constructed in the shape of a Greek cross. It contains superb treasures of icons, woodwork, and frescos.

Cours Saleya is the most renowned flower market in the old town. It remains sparkling and vibrant in the morning. The flower market also offers plants, cacti, fresh fruit, vegetables, delicatessen, bread, olives, socca and traditional glaced fruits.

Musee des Beaux-Arts is a home to a superb collection of Italian and French paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries. You can also find the noteworthy art works by Chéret (d. 1932 in Nice), Degas, Carrière, Sisley, Chagall, Fragonard, Monet, and Braque, and sculptures by Carpeaux and Rodin in addition to pottery by Picasso.

The Matisse Museum, bounded by an olive grove, is a refurbished 17th century Genoan-style villa. It is the home to the Matisse’s private collection with works all through his life from 1890 to 1954. The Monument aux Morts is one of the most distinguished memorials in France. It serves to remember the 3,655 people who lost their lives in World War II. Located in the rocks, the Monument aux Morts is constructed with white stone.

The Promenade des Anglais is an amazing 3 miles long area to take a leisurely walk any time of day or night. Additionally, you can also find coffee shops, eating houses and shopping stores along with hotels like the famed Negresco Hotel. You can rent a bicycle or rollerblade to travel around the area.

Massena Square, established in 1832, is the city’s most renowned place. It has been renovated many times since then and in 1852. This is a stunning embellished square of fountains, sculptures, trees, flowers, etc.

Orson Johnson writes for Holiday Velvet, a website providing listings for apartments, bed and breakfasts, Apartment rental in Rome hotels and Rome holiday rentals

A Trip to France - Paris

By Iuri Tarabanov

Paris is a marvelous city, simply wonderful and beautiful. It is called the Capital of the World, and this is true only because it is being visited by all the people from all the places of the world. Actually, the crowds on the streets consist i think mostly of the tourists that can be easily recognized by the thick cameras on their necks and amazed glances constantly thrown around.

The locals are quite calm though and I would say – not pretty fond of the tourists. Though I did not meet any hostility myself personally from the locals, but they say that it is quite easy to annoy a Frenchman from Paris just asking something like «Where can I find the Eiffel Tower here?». He would probably answer you in French, because the French people are even at the top of the impolite tourist rating when they travel themselves – they try to speak their native language even abroad in the hotels and on the streets.

The city itself is gorgeous, very proud of itself and this is earned. Almost every building has it's own history and is quite old. You won't see actually any skyscrapers in the central parts of the city except one lonely black tower near one of the railway stations and of course the Eiffel Tower. The locals are very proud of the old building and overall the old shape of the city. That is why even the construction of the Eiffel Tower in the 19th century has raised a great complaints of the locals because they thought that this «monster of metal» destroys the original shape of the historically rich city.

But the tower was built for some technological exhibition as the monstrous gate to it. And it remained, in spite of the protests. And with the course of time, the commercial effect of it's existence prevailed over the complaints and it got into the everyday life of the France. Even the real estate costs almost double price if you can see the tower from your windows.

The modern business skyscrapers are also part of the modern Paris life, but the business quarter is located a little bit aside, at the border of the city and is called «Defence». And these skyscrapers are really huge. I have never been in New York or any other city with traditional business parts full of skyscrapers, but I was really impressed, for the first time in my life I have seen such tall building in real and I think even the Empire State Building won't impress me much after those. There is also one strange building in the middle of the district in the shape of arc and you can get on the top of it with two elevators and the look from out there is just wonderful – especially in the night. I have taken a couple of outrageous pictures with a DSLR-Camera with one minute exposure.

Did you ever see how do they park their cars in Paris? I am not sure if they do it in the same way in other French cities, but that was really funny. There were 2 cars with quite a lot of space between them to park in. And a man with the VW Golf, which is a pretty short car, wanted to park in. You would say – it is a piece of cake, what is the problem? But it was even worse – he has driven the Golf between the cars backwards, pretty slowly, but absolutely without looking into the mirrors. Half a meter, 30 cm., 10 cm., bump! Only after he has bumped the car that stood in the back, he decided to switch to the first gear and put the car straight. But this should have also be done with the feeling... and sound! He has stopped moving forward only when he heard the bump with the front car. After that he released the gas and has let his car roll a couple of centimeters back, went out of the car and gone away, as if nothing happened. After that I have tried to find a single car without scratches on bumpers – I did not find a single one.

So, if you want to have some fun in Paris – welcome, but not with your own car.
Have fun in this wonderful world.

Iuri Tarabanov writes about interesting travel experiences. His Travel Deals site is http://www.travelime.com