Monaco is nicer than Nice

I had to go to Nice for a conference last week, so M and I decided to take advantage and spend the previous weekend in town and check it out.

I had never been to the South of France and I was pretty excited about it. I was imagining crystal clear turquoise water, spotless white beaches, beautiful homes with beautiful people to match. Well, with Nice, it wasn't quite what I expected.

I should be fair. The water is definitely gorgeous as fitting the Cote d'Azur. When you fly into the airport it looks just stunning. But once you get to the airport and out to the town it goes downhill pretty fast. The city reminds me a lot of the older parts of San Diego, with a lot of run down oceanfront hotels and condos that were perhaps once brightly pastel. Now most of it just looks tired. The convention centre and the area around it where we were staying was a bit sketchy, not too different than my own little neighborhood of holloway road with kebab shops, little markets and tacky bars. The convention center itself was probably built in the 70s and looks like it attracts some pretty upmarket events (Tissue World had just left town) and the beachfront, made up of stones, had a large encampment of homeless folks there.

The worst part of Nice is the dog culture. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against dogs, in fact, I like most of them. However, there is a limit. And in Nice there is no limit to the little doggie reminders left for you on the sidewalk. By Tuesday it was starting to become like a game to avoid ruining your shoes. Then, like a miracle, Tuesday night the streets were cleaned. I guess the promotion should be 'poop-free Wednesdays.' Ironically a few restaurants were closed Wednesday night. Dogs were everywhere, inside without leashes. Once morning I ate breakfast with a dog on the bench with me at the restaurant. I thought the lady next to me was sniveling and whining - I was a bit relieved that it was her dog instead.

Several good things about Nice - the ice cream was really good with a lot of unusual flavors. Bubble gum was a big hit with my friends though I didn't try it myself. The old town is beautiful and bustling at night. The food in general was quite good - we had a few really nice meals and no real bad ones. The people were also very friendly and forgiving of my awful attempts at French.

We took a 15-minute train ride up to Monaco on Sunday and Monaco was pretty much all I expected Nice to be. The town is spotless and reeks of money everywhere. Lucky for my credit card all of the stores were closed. Pretty much everything was closed except for the casino, the hotels and the palace.

The city is pretty small really, but built up onto a big rock. To make it easier to get around the city has installed a huge network of tunnels and public elevators to get up and down the different streets. They came in pretty handy, especially on the return back. We walked around the town all day but it took us about 15 minutes to get back to the train station from the palace, which looked like a really long walk on the map.

We had to go to the casino of course. Well, not really, but the coffee shop there was open and we were starving. I found it quite ironic that I went all the way to Monaco to eat in a casino coffee shop. It was nicer than the Carson Nugget though, and definitely more expensive. We didn't go into the casino itself because they charged a 10 euro entry fee, and I just couldn't see paying that to see people gambling. We did go over to the little free casino area and play a bit of video poker, just to say we had. They had all the same machines as Nevada (made by IGT even) and they were all in English. The gardens around the casino were not bad, but in general Vegas blows Monte Carlo away - but they cannot duplicate the ocean view.

In a way it was nice we picked a Sunday to go. It was so quiet and pleasant to walk around. We saw virtually no residents, not sure where they go on Sundays but all the homes and apartments seemed to be pretty empty. I guess it is early season and all, but felt kind of odd. The Palace and the gardens were beautiful and fairly busy, though it was hard to tell if the Royals were home or not.

Pictures from both places are posted here, including a few really memorable signs.