Vendettas, nuraghi and the marches: Nice of the rocky beaches

From the lavender provender we negotiated the High Provence to get down the mountains to Nice. As soon as you arrive in Provence something happens to the light: it turns brighter. Blues are bluer, whites are sharper, leaf edges glisten in ways different than anywhere else in France. No wonder the Impressionists wanted to hang out here.

The road down to Nice, was just that: down. It took us over half and hour of driving to descend to sea level and as soon as we were on the flat we were virtually in Nice. The first thing you notice on the streets entering Nice are the prostitutes. Well, Peter noticed them before we both did, but he spies them first in every place they are.

The second thing you comprehend is that Nice is not meant for motorhomes. We had ferry tickets to buy and tourist information to seek and all of that took us down into the heart of Nice. Slap bang in amongst the wee streets, the hectic port, the crowded tourist centre, the masses of languishing people. What are all these people doing here? Do they not have jobs? Along the greatest slowest car park route in the entire world we dawdle: ten kilometres and more of road circling the Mediterranean, called the Promenade des Anglais.

Nice cars are small. All cars in Nice drive along this Promenade. All the time. Up and down, with nothing better to do than ogle the posing bikini-clad bodies lying on the beach.

The road designers, attempting to solve an insoluble traffic problem (Nice is forever doomed. There is no solution to their traffic problem. Nothing will solve it. Doomed.) -- but the road designers must have decided that traffic might appear to go faster if they painted lines to make three lanes instead of two, for traffic heading along the Promenade. Hah. Only Smart Cars can actually fit in these drawn lanes, so when our big bulky motorhome joins the oglers we occupy most of the lanes. Horns toot constantly. Mosquito-sounding Vespas launch themselves up our blind side, disconcertingly. They are all fourteen years old, these bikers, tops - and show no fear.

Luckily for the cyclists, there is a dedicated cycling track taking up more room than the road. And, too, a bus lane, where we might have fitted easily, had we been allowed to use it. We weren't. We had to drive from red light blockage to red light blockage, up and back this stretch at three different times throughout the afternoon to accomplish all that we needed to do. And it took us ALL afternoon, so slow it was.

Bec and I managed time out to walk a few kilometres with the beautiful people. Our overwhelming impression was that all of the short men in white and cream crushed linen prancing in their white pointed shoes, black dyed slimy walrus mustaches, wizened brown leather skin, and designer sunglasses, were really Aristotle Onassis, in disguise. Not one whit different.

Bec hated it. I thought it all extraordinarily picturesque, part of a play, and want Baz Lurhman to do one of his brilliant caricature movies of it. He could just use the shore front as the movie set and the people as characters: no other props needed, just throw in some music. Movie done.

Oh, except for a few trillion tons of nice white soft sand. The beaches, for as far as the eye can see all the way up and down the coast, are all hard grey pebbles and large bruising stones. Terribly hard to lie on while attempting to look louche.

oooOOOooo