Aug 29 - Nice / Cannes

Our day was pretty simple -- drive from Annot to Nice, then to Cannes, then back. The time in Nice and Cannes was the least exciting part of the day ... it was the drives that won that award !

Both spots on the Cote d"Azur are beautiful, Nice being more "residential" with all the high rise condos along the water and Cannes with hilly streets right down to the water and much more touristy. Both places were semi-busy, the weekend gone and summer traffic almost over. They have rental bikes but the stands only ever seemed to have one bike, so we walked along the water in Nice for quite some time, eventually turning back and stopping for lunch at a restaurant down by the water. I had an excellent Salad Nicoise; Sandy had an artichoke salad that wasn't quite what she expected ...

It was a very large, whole, artichoke, that had been roasted. The trick is eating it ... and she managed down to the heart and then I figured out how to get most of that, however not to the waiter's satisfaction. His "oh Madame", then taking her knife and fork he cut away the remaining part and fed her ... I got a picture of the artichoke itself but neglected to get a picture of the waiter feeding her ... rats ! She probably won't order that again although I have an idea that it might make for an interesting 5pm drinks snack.

After lunch we drove to Cannes and found another spot by the water and had espresso/cappuccino. Sandy didn't feel like wandering any more so we headed back to the car and plotted our drive home. She wanted to try a different route ...

The route to Nice from Annot was very winding and mountainous up and down, up and down, through canyons -- no cruise control here ! The road clung to the side of the mountains, amazing engineering really. Traffic was heavy -- Monday morning -- with lots of trucks. The road is cut into the side of the mountain and when it's on the driven side (eg. mountain on the right side of the road) the trucks often have to move part-way to the center because the cut-away isn't high enough to accommodate the truck and the top of the truck would clip the rock. Sudden slow-downs due to oncoming traffic and/or road width issues abound -- this is an area where the driver's attention is glued forward.

On the way back, Sandy picked an even more exciting route, but not intentionally ! From Cannes we climbed switch-back over 3000 feet (of course the elevation is actually marked in meters). The switch-back was interesting because it was all city, different towns of course but continuous building upon building up, up, up until finally we were clear and I could stop at a lay-by and look back down towards the Mediterranean, all the towns and Cannes by the water.

The speed limit is 90kph on most of these roads once you get out of the cities but for the most part it's impossible to travel that fast. 100km is easily a two-hour drive on these roads because even if you do get up to a reasonable speed, a few seconds later you're braking to take an extremely tight turn, often tighter than 90 degrees.

Today we're off to Genoa, getting part of the way to Florence where we'll spend a couple of days. We have to re-trace the route to Nice and then we'll be on the motorway. I'd have liked to find a different route than motorway along the coast but that's not very easy. We've booked a hotel already so we're set.

Before we leave for Genoa we intend to do laundry ... yes, regular life intervenes. The machines are at the supermarket and it doesn't open until 9am.

Onward !