Place Masséna in Nice is at the heart of the French Riviera town. Around New Year's, it's decorated with light shows, a little Christmas market and even an ice rink down the road. Lots of family fun!
Here's a quick view of the light show at Place Masséna:
Above: the cool timelapsed video on the Nice Carnival 2011 by Yann Coatsaliou.
It's back and as exuberant as ever!
The Nice Carnival has begun and it runs for 20 days: February 18 to March 8 2011.
This year's carnival theme? It's the Mediterranean Sea. 20 floats with 30 big smiling heads will bob up and down the Promenade des Anglais blowing confettis (20 tons expected in total!) and drawing awe from spectators. All of the big heads will be related to the sea and to the history of the Med. Made of papier-maché by "Carnavaliers" in very intense workshops, these giant-sized cartoon heads need a lot of energy to carry along. Each person carrying a big head expends basically covers the distance of a marathon race over the course of the carnival.
Expect lots of good cheer all around. Some of the floats subjects are a riot: "King of the Greek Loans!", "The Tourist", "Pan Bagnat or Ham Burger".
Where does it run?
Carnival parade starts with a loop at the Place Masséna, a prime spot for spectators. The flower parades take place on the Promenade des Anglais between Place des Phocéens and Rue de Rivoli.
Where is the official program?
See the official program web site.
The current nasty weather on the French Riviera has us dreaming of warmer days...
And the next weekend when the sun is out, I plan on visiting the inappropriately named Plage de Passable on the St Jean Cap Ferrat peninsula.
No need to spend a fortune here to enjoy a picture-perfect view of Villefranche-sur-Mer, soak in the sun on a plush lounge chair. I'm going to just sip on a refreshing drink and enjoy the beach. It's a private beach with a single restaurant-bar on the beach. The water is turquoise blue. Kids love it for its lagoon feel and the freedom of splashing at will while grown-ups relax. Only down-side are the little pebbles, but horizontal on your transat chair, you quickly forget.
Soleil, where are you?
This year, the Tour de France cycling classic won't begin by the French Riviera as it did last year (in Monaco). In fact, it won't pedal near the Côte d'Azur.
For biking fans visiting or living in Southern France, there's always the Paris-Nice event. For 2010, the Paris-Nice begins on Sunday March 7th and runs until the 14th to cover a total of 1,288 kilometers.
The last two legs of the 8-part race takes place here on the French Riviera. Expect lots of action here: before reaching town of Tourrettes-sur-Loup from Peynie, our rides will climb the tough Col de Vence (9.7 km at a gradient of 6.6%, ouch!).
Then for stage 8, they're off to other ascents at La Turbie and the Col d’Eze before their descent to Villefranche-sur-Mer on the 14th and arrival on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
22 teams will race the Paris-Nice, including 3 teams from the USA, 1 from Great-Britain, but also Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Switzerland, Kazakhstan
During his years in Paris, artist Joan Miro developed close ties with Marguerite et Aimé Maeght, art supporters, traders and founders of the Fondation Maeght in St Paul de Vence in southern France.
Aimé Maeght helped Miro when the artist arrived in Paris after the tumult of the second World War. Miro remained grateful to the Maeght family for their early trust and helping hand. He donated artwork to the Maeght galeries and dealt almost exclusively with Aimé Maeght in the trade.
As a result of this tight connection, the Maeght fondation's gardens are filled with Miro's playful sculptures, ceramics, and fountains in Miro's "Labyrinth" creation: there you'll find his fundamental egg (1963), the smiling wall lizard, a ceramic wall, sun dials.
But from June 27 to November 8, 2009, Miro does more than adorn the Fondation Maeght's gardens. During the "Miro dans son jardin" expo, Miro shines all over the open art museum in Saint-Paul de Vence. Over 250 of Miro's creations dot the lively museum's gardens and interior spaces from expo rooms to library. Many of Miro creations' now on display have never before been seen by the general public.
If you're on the French Riviera and curious about Miro and his art, don't miss it.
Getting there?
Half a kilometer from St Paul-de-Vence.
By train, the nearest train station is Cagnes sur Mer then bus to Saint Paul.
By bus from Nice: bus number 400 to Vence by Saint Paul.
Highway: from Nice exit number 48, from Cannes exit number 47 Villeneuve Loubet/Cagnes sur Mer then follow the signs to Saint Paul
When?
The Maeght Foundation is open from:
October 1st – June 30th : 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
July 1st – September 30th: 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
"Miro dans son jardin" takes place until November 8, 2009.
Quite a few of you are ready to plunge into the French language with the help of a language immersion school on the French Riviera.
And why not? It's fun, it's like a club, it leaves you enough time for sight-seeing, it is a chance to meet other fellow travelers who are deeply curious about other cultures, it opens a window into the best local spots from teachers' insights, and some include nice options for room-and-board.
Above photo by Institut de Français
We've heard a few good things about one French-language program in particular, the Institut de Français in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. The school offers a 2 and a 4-week French immersion program. It's intense. No English allowed during class-time, not even during lunch. Yet folks love it. Many come back regularly. The fact that it's set in a beautiful villa in gorgeous perched grounds in Villefranche-sur-Mer has something to do with it. But the school's atmosphere and the students' progress surely also play a big part.
A couple of days ago, the Financial Times published an insider view into this program. Read the piece here.
Along the French Riviera, the Sentier du Littoral or coastal path winds its way up, down and along creeks, cliffs, sandy beaches, pebbled beaches, Riviera town promenade, villas painted in peachy pastels, even a national park (in Port-Cros - check it out here).
We've written about it almost as much as we've hiked it. If you are in reasonable walking shape, we highly recommend you fit a walk along the Sentier du Littoral on your trip to the Côte d'Azur. This site is full of hiking tips and pics. We also recommend the English-language hiking guide, 26 Gorgeous Hikes on the Western Côte d'Azur.
Until now, if you longed to walk from the Cap de Nice to Villefranche-sur-Mer, the Sentier du Littoral would take you only half way there.
The Sentier du Littoral is gaining new ground. This week, a new section of coastal path opened, completing the connection between the the Pointe des Sans Culottes under the Mont Boron in Cap de Nice, along the Pointe de la Rascasse, Pointe Madame all the way to le Lazaret by the port in Villefranche-sur-Mer.
If you're expecting an easy flat stroll between Cap de Nice and Lazaret in Villefranche, think again. Steps were added along this section, making the new 1.5 km connection a pleasant session of aerobic exercise. Of course, you can stop anywhere along the way and catch your breath and soak in the cliff-side views of the sea.
Where to begin?
For the Cap de Nice to Villefranche hike, begin at the end of Maeterlinck Blvd, east of the Port Lympia of Nice. Parking is sparse here. Reach it by bus (Nice-Menton Ligne 100, or Nice-Villefranche) and hop off at the "Hopital Anglais" stop. See Google map below.
More Riviera Sentier du Littoral?
Plans are in the works to connect the Maëterlink to the Pointe des Sans-Culottes with a safe hiking path by 2011, likely through steps up to the Basse Corniche road.
The dream is to connect the towns of Théoule-sur-Mer in the Var all the way to Menton. There's enough determination among key proponents and the Alpes-Maritimes administration to make it happen. The question is when. Until then, we have plenty of smaller stretches of coastal hiking paths to enjoy...
View AzurAlive.com: Cap de Nice Sentier du Littoral in a larger map
If you follow a bit of travel technology, you've heard of Google StreetView. It's a hybrid concoction of Google Maps mixed with Google Earth and it shows you photographic renditions of city streets so you see intersections, lights, shops, haggard-looking blurry faced folks (haggard-looking for legal reasons). With your mouse or control, you twist the views into all sorts of angles.
How are these views taken?
Unlike plain old Google Earth, Google StreetView does not use satellite pictures to show an area. It relies on cars (and bikes too!) equipped with multiple cameras to criss-cross the streets of our planet and to beam back their multi-angle photo shots.
What towns of the French Côte d'Azur are currently covered by StreetView?
As you can imagine, it takes time for a camera-equipped Google Mobile to StreetView a whole city. As of May 2009, Marseille, Nice and Toulon have been StreetViewed on the French Mediterranean coast. More will come.
How can I use StreetViews?
Since we're street strollers, we're going to get walking directions for the city of Nice, France. Then we're going to cruise through the streets from Point A to Point B using StreetViews and its pegman icon.
Here's what we do:
Go to Google Maps and zoom on the city of Nice. Click on Get Directions. Type in a Point A starting point (we picked Centre Commercial Nice Etoile, Nice) and Point B (Cat's Whiskers, Nice) destination, in our case, a nifty little English-language bookshop that carries good local titles including our hiking guidebook.
In the drop box, pick Walking. You get the walking directions. Granted, these are simple given the short distance, but no reproaches here.
Next, we drag the little Pegman icon and drop him anyplace we want to visualize the streets.
Google calls its StreetView application and here pops views of the street. What's nifty is the way we can twist and turn the angle on these views, so you move with the views. We see our Cat's Whiskers shop, right next to an excellent Artisan Chocolatier. Very cool.
Of course, you can't smell the chocolates or pate d'amande creations at the chocolate shop. Nor can you experience the warm potpourri aromas of baking bread, roasted chicken, pipe smoke and a tinge of dog pee.
Could Google have a Google StreetSmells project underway? You can't really experience France without it.
Until then, you'll have to visit yourself.
In July of this year (2009), the Velib rolls into Nice. If you haven't heard, the Velib is a popular albeit controversial self-service bicycle rental system. Sturdy gray Velib bikes abound in Paris. Swipe a subscription card and you can pedal away on a Velib over the cobblestone streets of Paris.
By this summer, you'll find the same kind of rental bikes scattered across automated rental stations in Nice. To reflect Nice's beloved big blue Med, Nice will call its bikes the Velos Bleus. By mid-2010, 175 rental stations are promised for a total of 1,750 Velos Bleus. Bikes will, bien sûr, be painted blue.
Where will you find the blue bikes?
In a first phase, you'll find the bikes in the most popular areas: in the center of town and in the south-eastern end. Later (estimated November 2009), bikes will cover the western quarters of Magnan to the Plaine du Var. By April 2010, coverage will expand to the north.
How safe is biking in Nice?
We need bike lanes. By 2013, Nice has promised 125 kilometers of bike lanes, an essential ingredient for any effort to encourage safe travel on bikes. Nice currently counts only 29 kms of bike lanes.
How much will rentals cost?
First, you need a subscription. For 2009, a yearly subscription costs 25 €, monthly 10 €, weekly 5 € and daily 1 €. Then the rental cost runs 1 € for the first 30 minutes to 1 hour, with 2 € for each additional hour. The first half-hour of rental is free. A great deal of users are expected use the Velos Bleus for under a half hour for a short trip down to their destination.
Heritage Days on the French Riviera
September 19 and 20, 2009 are European Heritage Days. Every year at the end of September, many historical buildings open their secret doors to the public. And in France, over 12 million visitors trot through these doors on Heritage Days.
What's open to visit? In Paris, the Assemblée Nationale, the Hôtel de Ville, the Elysée Palace.
We knew Paris would offer tons of tasty heritage site visits, but what's on for the French Riviera?
The most popular spot for last year's Journée du Patrimoine on the French Riviera? The 18C Villa Arson in Nice for its reputed Arts school and its pretty Niçois hilltops views.
What else could I visit on the Côte d'Azur during these open days? Here's a full list of open visits for the 2009 Journées du Patrimoine across the Var and the Alpes Maritimes. See the "Voir la fiche" link for more info on individual offerings (in French).
Our piece of advice? Come early for the more interesting sites - entrance is free, lines are long.
In the Var:
50 - Solliès-Toucas - OPPIDUM DU CASTELLAS > Voir la fiche
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