My apologies for the naff heading but I couldn't help myself. In any case, Nice is more than just nice - it is a beautiful place. We drove here from Isle-sur-la-Sorgue with no problems at all and found our accommodation relatively easily. The accommodation itself is nothing to rave about. It's similar to any two-bedroom place you'd get in any coastal touristy place in Australia. A bit of a letdown after the tiled and mosaic marble floors and big windows with timber shutters at the last place we stayed. But you get what you pay for and we are only five minutes walk from the main beach in Nice.
We went for a walk down to the beach after we'd unpacked the car. An overcast afternoon so the beach didn't look that great really with rocks/pebbles instead of sand and the water reflecting the grey of the sky. But you could tell that the bay itself was pretty special. This is when we discovered that the Nice to Cannes marathon is being held on Sunday. Probably goes some way to explaining why there's so many people about. That and also because it's a long weekend in France (Armistice Day on Monday). We decided the best thing to do in this situation was to avoid the roads and public transport as much as possible over the next couple of days. Luckily we can walk to everything we want to see in Nice itself.
We kept wandering up to the superb statue of an angel overlooking the Bay of Angels. So well lit up that I could take some good photos of her even though it was starting to get dark by now. Further on we came across seven very tall poles with figures (likely made out of resin or something like that) on top all in different poses that were also lit up and continually changed colours. Apparently these figures represent the seven continents and the changing colours indicate their communications with each other. They weren't individually labelled that I could see which is a shame as I would have liked to know what postural position had been allocated to Australia!
The last statue we saw before heading back to find somewhere for our dinner was of Apollo. Apollo had been banished for a number of years as it was considered by some that he was too well-endowed. But as he is four times the size of an average man then I think it stands to reason that his 'attributes' would also be four times larger than average. Anyway, he's back now where he belongs at the front of the main town square Place Massena.
