Nice lift to the castle hill. Nice, France - Climbing Castle Hill. Lavender fields near Nice

To be honest, I never considered the French Riviera as a tourist destination, it was too poppy and banal. Cambodia, Nicaragua or Mozambique - yes, interesting. And the Cote d'Azur has never attracted. But it so happened that from the country where I live lately, cheap tickets consistently appear to Nice, Geneva, Istanbul, Athens, Basel, London, Manchester and Budapest. It is to these cities that low-cost airlines fly from us. So it turns out that any of my trip to Europe inevitably runs through one of the cities mentioned. This time the idea was to fly to Tunisia, so tickets to Nice were bought long in advance in order to transfer to Tunis Air to Tunisia. But then riots began in Tunisia, and the "voucher red tape" did not please (as you know, citizens of the CIS need a voucher to go to Tunisia), plus two friends were not allowed into Tunisia, despite beautifully forged vouchers. It used to work with a bang, but now it doesn't. Usually I am prone to such risks and adventures, but this time for some reason I did not want to tempt fate. Therefore, at the last moment, I changed everything and decided to fly from Nice to Sicily, and from there towards Malta. So I ended up in Nice for a day, waiting for a flight to Palermo. And you know what? I liked Nice.

I must say that the preparation for the transit in Nice was not easy. A week before departure, it turned out that the hotel booked through Booking.com, and only thanks to the use of a deliberately non-working card, I avoided problems. They simply unilaterally reported that they would not be able to accommodate after 23.00, although there were no restrictions in the original reservation. Moreover, when I told them that in this case I would be forced to cancel the reservation, they tried to withdraw money. It didn't work out. But, as they say, "the sediment remained." Therefore, I decided to do without Booking this time and booked myself a Kyriad Nice Port chain hotel directly on their website. Surprisingly, a week before arrival, I caught a chic price of 40-something euros. For the city center and 200 meters from the embankment - almost for nothing.

Given the extremely limited time, I decided to sleep off after a night flight in the evening, and in the morning I went for a walk around the city. First of all, I climbed the Castle Hill (Colline du Chateau), which rises almost vertically between old Nice and the port. Once upon a time there was a fortress at the top, but now little remains of it. The mountain has been turned into a park, with numerous ladders and paths winding up to the top. An extremely popular place for sports-minded citizens. The climb requires some (minor) physical effort, but the magnificent panorama that opens up on the city from the top is worth it, believe me.

Having risen from the side of the port, I went down in the direction of old Nice (Vieux Nice) -

At first, the narrow streets are quite deserted, there are practically no tourists here -

Ordinary residential quarters, preserved almost unchanged from the 18th and 19th centuries -

The lower, the livelier: more shops, restaurants, tourists, bustle -

I accidentally raise my head, and here, it turns out, Napoleon lived -

In his youth, the dog drove his grandmother, and now the grandmother took the dog -

Perhaps someone will notice, they say, the Arabs were in the frame. Yes, they did. Moreover, the south of France is increasingly reminiscent of Morocco. Visually, every third person here is from the Maghreb. It is very difficult to take a photo where visitors will not get. I sincerely tried to capture some typical French people in the frame, but it was not easy. I believe that the real France is best sought away from Nice and Marseille -

The famous Promenade des Anglais -

Grandfather of modern Citroens -

The famous hotel-casino "Le Negresco", built in 1913, is named after its founder - Henri Negrescu, a Romanian immigrant who made a dizzying career in France and planned to build the most luxurious hotel in Europe. The frame of the famous pink dome, which is the hallmark of the hotel, was made in the workshop of Gustave Eiffel himself. According to legend, the famous architect was inspired to create this masterpiece by the breast of his beloved. The French, what else can be added here, except: "Cherche la femme." Well, the hotel itself is still a symbol of Nice. Agree, the building is beautiful -

However, I preferred the simpler Kyriad to Le Negresco, because the tenfold difference in price is no joke!

Lastly, grumbling about airplane food at Air France

Recently, I, mistakenly believing that the Turks do not feed well during the flight. Listen, after eating at Air France, the Turks start to seem like masters of cooking to me -

This is where I finish and start packing my things - in the morning I fly to Palermo. For support in the implementation of this autumn trip, I thank the online service for buying air tickets and booking hotels around the world

Each city has its own color, which usually consists of shades of houses, roofs, architecture in general. And, probably, Nice is one of the few cities whose color is influenced by a completely different factor - of course, this is a sea of incredible shade. It is this color that is used to the maximum in the decor of everything that can be imagined in Nice. This is the color of Nice.

It is pleasant to admire the sea here from any angle, but how great it is to see it from above, literally soar above such beauty. I will always remember our plane flight from Nice to Vienna, the picture from the porthole is still in my memory. But not only from the plane you can see Nice from above, for example, you can climb to a wonderful observation deck ..

The path to the observation deck lay from the Flower Market through Pierre Gautier Square (Place Gautier). The palace of the Dukes of Savoy is located there, in which the city prefecture (Palais de Préfecture des Alpes-Maritime) currently operates. Also located here is the Chapel of Mercy (Chapelle de Miséricorde), in which the Brotherhood of Black Penitents was based, helping the sick, the poor and the homeless. But personally, I was attracted by this building of pale yellow color with a fairly simple but pretty stucco molding.