Aix Postcard #3

Apologies for the delay.  I have been slowing right down.  Sleeping in to all hours (once almost until 0800).  Lolling about when I should be up and at ‘em.  Missed setting up a Photo of the Week for LabourStart last week.  Delayed for a whole day.

Very odd this retirement thing.

Plus the arthritis is in my hands is more than the usual problem as I have my cheap laptop only and the travel keyboard I bought for it only arrived a few days ago…in Cobourg.

Since the last installment we spent a few days in Nice.  Originally we had planned on two nights and three full days but we were having such a nice time we added one of each.  We drove as we had intended to spend some time in a couple of hill towns that have no rail service and the buses looked a bit difficult to sort out given the short time we had.  As it turned out we skipped one of them entirely and the other was a bit of a loss as Geri’s back wasn’t up to walking uphill much.  So we could have taken the train and saved a lot of time and money. 

Still, we gained a few thousand Aeroplan points from Avis.  Pickup and drop off was fairly painless.  The toll highway we used both ways was both incredibly cheap in comparison to what we are used to at home but also quite easy to navigate.

Not so Nice (the first time in) as between the construction, the one-way streets and the large chunk of the city that is either closed to all vehicles or closed to non-resident vehicles.  The car’s GPS didn’t seem to be able to recognize this and so we went round our hotel a few times before finding street parking that allowed us to register.  We would recommend the hotel despite the lack of a lift (for some reason I thought it had one).  A nice surprise was that though it only had 17 rooms it had a quite nice restaurant with a chef from Mauritius.  He had added a few of his homeland’s dishes to the usual Nicoise menu and they were quite tasty.

A really nice little feature of the hotel other than the location right on the edge of the old city and close to the museums strip was the small rooftop terrace.  Which was fun when the church bell in the attached tower rang the hours.  😊

Photos HERE:

Nice is way more touristy than Aix, though not in an offensive way.  It’s just that there are more of them/us than in Aix.  And many more of them are Chinese, interesting in and of itself.  The touristiness also means that the old city is way better maintained than in Aix where the city centre looks more lived-in. 

The last of the CGT protests in response to the rollbacks of labour rights was happening as we were there.  The impressive trams were covered with soaped slogans.  Also prominent amongst the labour law reform protest posters and such were posters re. the ‘stop bombing civilians’ campaign of which I know nothing and have yet to research.  Bit high-end, looked as though they featured celebs of one kind or another.

Just wandering around and stopping for a glass of wine and some socca (chickpea flour crepe native to Nice) was enough to keep us happy and busy most of the two days we spent in town.  Restaurants or finding one we liked took the evenings.  That and making sure that Geri had a chance to dip her feet in the Med of course.

Nice was really lovely and while we might bias another visit to a little later in the season to reduce the number of tour groups we would bump into in the 2m wide streets in the old town, we’d be happy to find ourselves back there.  Some of the US travel groups were very large.  Possibly one guide leading a double-decker bus’ worth.  Even with them speaking in a low voice into a transmitter they still are disruptive when that large in number.

It’s also where I found not only some cold meds (ugh) but also the ‘My Tests’ stand at a pharmacy.  My Tests is a brand of test kits (picture pregnancy tests) for everything from cannabis to the clap.  Looks to be quite popular.

The only disappointment was the contemporary art museum.  Perhaps six photos and paintings, all surrealist, that I liked,  The rest…

Photos HERE:

Cannes was nothing to write home about.  We stopped in on our way to Nice.  Lots of traffic and a not too impressive beach is about what we experienced.  We’ve heard rumours of a film fest that might be fun if you move around by helicopter.

Photos of Cannes HERE:

Monaco took a (hot) day and was interesting.  Of course our Bell roaming package crapped out that day and the one place we wanted to map ourselves around we couldn’t.  It’s more of a problem than it might seem if you look at a simple map.  As you’ll see from the photos the place is built into several cliffs and what looks to be a short trot on a tourist map can be an hours-long hike.

Incredibly clean and fresh and tidy place.  Things like elevators so those in need can avoid the steps and steps that many streets require.

The aquarium was great.  Now our second favourite after Boston.  Well ahead of Barcelona and Toronto and Monterey.

Photos of that (my Blackberry amazing, much better indoors than the Canon) HERE.  Bizarrely, the whole thing kinda hangs out over the ocean, despite its age.  These floor-mounted portholes remind you of that now and then.  Acrophobic, I did not enjoy.

The palace was lush and incredibly well-preserved but photography was forbidden.  A bit like the Sistine Chapel but someone’s home???

The old town around the palace incredibly well-preserved.  Tidy, tidy, tidy.  My mother would have comfortable eating off the sidewalk.

Photos of Monaco other than the aquarium HERE and of Monte Carlo HERE.  We didn’t make the casino however.  Perhaps next time though frankly I dunno that there’s much other than an urge to feel well-dusted that would get us back there.  Perhaps the aquarium.

But the best thing about Monaco?  [Hallelujah chorus] I found a Dink!!! Not a Grand Dink (known as the Big Dink to us cognoscenti) but a 125 certainly beats a Dink 50 (the Baby Dink)! What a find! Worth the Monaco parking charges!

We drove to Eze, Geri wasn’t up to the climb to the viewing spots and I was all wigged-out from the cliffside driving (I am acrophobic), so we had lunch and braked back down to Nice.  Pleasant but it inspired us to spend another day in Nice rather than drive up to St. Paul de Vence.  Which we are just fine with.

But other than simply walking around Nice the highlight for me of our time there was the short trip out to Cap Ferrat and a few hours at the Rothschild mansion overlooking the sea.  Beautifully preserved mansion but the gardens were amazing.  Look for the dancing fountain video amongst the photos HERE.

Having said that, today when it turned into something of a bad back day for Geri we popped E8 apiece and spent an hour on a tour bus working the city centre.  There are times when it pays to just revel in being on a bus full of people dressed as badly and as brightly as I was.  😊

Back in Aix…shopping for food half the fun here.  A daily adventure.  It’s a bit of a pain to cook in an apartment where you either try to make do with the supplies, pots and pans that are on hand, or go crazy (where are the knives that Geri left here two years ago?  And today Geri was talking about buying a small sautee pan, I could use a dutch oven…) and spend money for other people to benefit from after you are gone.

But the daily shop something I could certainly enjoy.  Especially once I got a handle on the hours each shop or type of shop is open (the fishmonger’s hours are starting to annoy me).  Just trying to pick out the mushrooms I wanted took a pleasant 10 minutes of sampling and talking to the mushroom stall guy.

Even supermarket shopping interesting.  Younger folks won't remember coloured toilet paper. Banned in Canada many years ago as cancer-causing dyes used. But here in Aix we have pinkish-red TP just for the hell of it. Should have been banned not for the cancer hazard but for the 'holy shit what is going on in my innards that I...oh, right' factor. 😊

Watch out for all the street shots amongst my Aix photos.  I find them hard to resist and while they might (probably not though) remind me of how I felt when I took them if I look at them years from now, they likely won’t do a thing for you.  But that’s why I put them all online.  So you can pretend to have looked at them and I can avoid inflicting hundreds of them on you.

Le Jeune Marx and a new Juliette Binoche film playing as are some Iranian films that will likely never make it to Cobourg.  Sigh.  Tempting.

I am incredibly impressed with the Office de Tourisme in Aix.  They can do anything I think.  I want to have their children.

Blowing my own horn: my French is back.  All I get now is comments about me being from Quebec and other than some odd cultural references I can even keep up with and make jokes.  That’s a threshold for fluency in my book.  Next up is German and if I start from scratch, Hungarian.  Am tired already.

Starting, for the first time I can recall, to see wines labeled by variety rather than terroir.  Sad.  Also boulangeries that are also patisseries, though that’s not new.  Sigh.  Still, not hard to find a vinegar shop or an oil store.  Thank god.

Stopped into des PTT for a beer on the way home for a nap yesterday. Barfly picking our brains about Canada as he wants to emigrate and shoot bears for food. Has picked out the part of Alaska he wants to live in.  😊

One of our favourite things here are the seven seater plus driver electric buses.  Bored we can just take one for a ridiculously low price and enjoy an hour of sightseeing.  Quiet sighseeing. 

Generally the level of public services, from the post office (and its bank) to the street cleaners to the daily garbage pickup is all amazing and contributes a huge amount to making the country so enjoyable.

Only real down bit is that this is likely our last stay here as the trot up the stairs is a bit much now.  If back we’ll need a place with a lift or on the ground floor.  For a view of it look for the video tour in the Aix Apartment photo album.

I am finding very pleasant red wines consistently below the E5 price line.  Not great but drinakable.  Enjoyable about E8 no problem.  Geri whites at E7 and a few specific vineyards at E5.  And it is hard not to love anything E8 or above.

It’s bit unbelievable but I’ve costed it a few times: factoring out the travel costs as we use points, this is cheaper than driving 2 hours north of where we live and renting a cottage on a lake.

On that note…