A bit of culture - Nice

Armed with a map and instructions for buses etc, we stepped out for a trip to Nice. The bus part was fine, you speak to and pay the driver. Second lap of the journey involved a tram ride. Once on, we realised we couldn't get a ticket at the machine on the tram, so we asked someone who said in French that we needed to buy it before boarding. So we got off and bought from a machine, what we thought was OK but on asking a few others, two lovely kind chaps told us how to do it and got off the tram with us and showed us, then we all got on the next tram again. One spoke very good English as he works in the University Business School, so has English speaking students and was proud to tell us they had links with Imperial College, London. A friendly interlude, and we couldn't have found more eager people to help us.

The crowded Nice streets hit us with a bit of a shock. People everywhere! Pleasant place though, with a large long strip of garden area leading up to Musee of Modern and Contemporary Art. MAMAC. Set on 4 floors and a rooftop area, it was an amazing building. Very peaceful and spacious with beautiful rooftop vistas. I even managed to walk around rooftop route without wobbly legs.
Some good exhibits, my favourite being textiles by Marcel Alocco where he removed the weft from fabric but left some areas to make a shape and drew or stitched on the shapes (see picture of woman).

Had a tasty panini type sandwich thing from a tiny food place, cooked by a happy business owner who told us he was from Albania. Negotiated our way around streets, some of which are being dug up and have red carpets along the footway. Sat munching in the park then had a look around the seafront and by 4pm it was cooling down as sun began to set by 5pm.

We struggled a bit to find the station again for our return. That took a while. Lost for a while but AOK and back at base now.Read more