Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Bus speed?
Two of my most recent rides on the 14 - this past week - have been and breathtaking speeds, well over the 30 km/h speed limit. To whom can we complain and will it make any difference?
Friday, October 29, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
"Star Architect Jean Nouvel" - CBS News Video
Our second most famous neighbor on Mont Boron! (The most famous is surley Sir Elton John.)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Nice Mont-Boron : le projet de Jean Nouvel se peaufine et se précise | nicematin.com
I intend to get an update on this project.
If you didn't like the last grocery walk, here is another....
A minute from our house - literally - we are back into the Mt Boron Forest for a walk to the grocery store in Villefranche sur/Mer.
This is much more rustic than the first walk, but no less pretty. Here we approach one of the exercise stations along one fo the trails.
This panel shows the complicated path one needs to travel to pass- and hopefully, use! - the exercise stations!
If one wants to picnic, here is one option.
This is the view you would have over the picnic basket! That's Villefranche sur/Mer down there, the center of which begins near the top of the lefthand side of the photo. The water is called the "rade" or bay, of Villefranche. In the foreground, the area is called the "darse" and is a multifunction area dating back more than a 1000 years, now ranging from the marina to a shipyard and saliling/shell center.
Back to the walk down the hill, here's what you find next!
And when you get down to the level of the "Basse" or Lower Corniche, there is a nice sidewalk. I have never undersood the bike lanes to be honest. I think they are a great idea, but it is really only a bike "lane" here, with none in the other direction. Maybe it is just a case of "you have to visit Villefranche, but you don't have to leave!"
The Russians are not coming (again), they have arrived in large, rich numbers.
My grocery trip really has two parts to it. Here is the first, the Saturday market, where I bought tomatoes, fennel, garlic, string beans, squash, and pepper. I bought a total of 5 lbs altogether, for a total price of 7.50 USD. That's 1.50/lb on average.
The other half of my grocery trip was to the local frozen food store. I don't understand why we don't have these in North Carolina; they are very popular here, and many, inclding this one, offer home delivery. Excellent products and choices.
Before heading back up the hill, I, of course, had to pick up the Nice-Matin newspaper here!
Total walking time - about 25 mins.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Benches at Fort Alban
It occurred to me today that it would be lovely to have a few benches installed at Fort Alban overlooking Villefranche. That area attracts a lot of visitors and while one can sit on the stone wall, it would be so much nicer to have a bench seat on which to sit.
I'll try to find the right suggestion box into which to insert this idea.
I'll try to find the right suggestion box into which to insert this idea.
One of the world's better walks to the grocery store?
Shortly after leaving our house, I find myself in the park that surrounds us. The "Forest Park" of Mt Boron is the biggest in Nice, and spectacular. It is laced with paths like this one. We are 600 feet above the Mediterranean.
If that view is not attractive, turn to your right and here is what you see. That's the Port of Nice down there, doing lots of things including serving as the port of departure for regular ferry service to the wonderful island of Corsica. The Port is a twenty minute walk from this point, if you want to go down!
Yes, that's the Mediterranean out there. And, yes, cactus in the foreground!
World War II left a big impression here. These are remnants of a German bunker.
Now, while still on the grocery store path, we are looking toward Italy, via Monaco and the three famous Corniches that connect us and Monaco. Directly below is the deepest harbor in the Mediterranean, former headquarters for both the US and Russian Navy operating in the Mediterranean (at far different points in history!), and now a center for both cruise ships and oceanographic research.
This is Cap Ferat, the most expensive piece of real estate in France, by many estimates. Off beyond the lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula is Corsica.
Back to the grocery walk, we are now winding our way back in the direction of Nice, which lies slightly in the distance and to the left of which is its airport. The airport is about 6 miles from here.
Yes, we live by a number of rules, but not too many. This is one of the more complex governing only when trucks can offload. I seldom see any trucks and yet we have the rules because the road is so narrow! (One of the rules not enforced very much, but still nice, is that only the couple of hundred of us who actually live in the Park are supposed to be here at night.)
It gets a lot narrower before we arrive at the grocery carts!
I'd argue that it gets even prettier, too! This is the same Port of Nice that was hidden a bit in the trees higher up the hill.
And now we've arrived at the Carrefour Market which shares this building with a cleaners and a pharmacy.
And we have a number of other businesses here from a florist to a real estate agency, a small cafe and newsstand, and, occasionally, some others appears.
Time to shop! How to resist those tomatoes at 50 (US) cents a pound! Join me the next time?
Total walking time? About 25 minutes.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
"Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche sur Mer" -- Bienvenue
One of our most interesting Mt Boron neighbors!
"La boulangère ne rend plus la monnaie!" - nicematin.com
This is the same boulanger who serves us so well from Col. They have two locations....and two such machines! I was reminded just today to use it for coins. As for dirty paper money?
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