Yes, it's Nice.

We arrived in Nice on a sleeper car from Florence, we were very well-rested and in good spirits. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and hurried down to see one of the most famous beaches on the French Riviera. On the way to the Mediterranean Sea, we appreciated the classic architecture of the region, and marveled at the city that was home to such people as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jean Cocteau, Roman Polanski, Posh Spice and Sinbad. The beach itself was a bit short and rocky, and there were more tourist-traps than I expected... but the water was beautiful and there were plenty of topless women, but it wasn't quite what we expected. I'm sure things have changed since the time when Jacques Tati would visit, but images from films such as To Catch a Thief were always present in my mind. Maybe I should have called ahead to see if the entire main street had been dug up and would be under construction.

Friends of mine have told me that some of the more secluded spots near Nice are truer to the legacy of Nice itself, and someday I would like to get back there to see, but we had to pick up a car in Nice! That's right: a Peugot. There will be more on the car experience later, but we had an interesting first day with it in Nice. Driving in the south of France is madness, so we were happy to hear that our building had two private parking spaces available... we booked in for one of them and received a large keychain and instructions on how to get there. Once we had the car, we drove around the street and down the narrow alley, as indicated on the map. A door about as wide as a desk was ahead of us. We pressed the magic button we were given and the door opened. After flipping in our side-view mirrors, we fit into the elevator on the other side of the open doorway. Another press of the button closed the door behind us and sent the lift down one floor before another door opened. I felt like I was in one of those early PC games. I typed Look Key but that didn't work. The dungeon/parking lot was lightless except for our headlights. I kicked Dana out to search for a light switch or an oilfield to burn, and the room was illuminated... and smoky. The spot for the car was a double spot, and the other car had not pulled close enough to the wall for us to pull in beside him. We spent about 40 minutes trying to park, fuming and saying, "This will be funny someday." How sad we would have been if we knew it would only be slightly amusing one day. When we gave up and I held myself back from letting the air out of the Russo-German's tires, we found a comfortable spot at the train station. Ahhhh.

Nice photos.