Nice and Monaco

Well we quite liked our little spot in Nice and took advantage of the (rare) nice weather... it was back to shorts for the first time in 6 weeks!  Both Jen and I had (separately) been to Nice before... me on the company dime as we have a (stunning) lab outside of Nice in a town called Lagaude that I used to visit in my old call centre days that build IVR applications.

It hasn't changed for the worse.. just a LOT more busy than I remember.  I had never been to Monaco on the other hand although I'd driven right up to the border once.  WOW...  what a nice little town.  Way outside my beer budget but WOW.  We managed to stumble into town on a Friday just as they were getting ready to run the historic series of the Formula 1 car races.  We parked right under the casino (and race track) and wandered around town just prior to the first race.  As it was the qualifying day, they had made the admission free (70 per person euros otherwise) so we grabbed the chance and set ourselves up on the stands right in front of the casino and the famous turns there.  We literally had front row seats and I set myself up for some amazing shots.  Jen was freaking out about how we were going to get locked into the town but I had talked to a porter at the Fairmount hotel on the water and he'd explained that we would pop out on the hill side of the race and therefore should be able to get out of town without incident.

We watched the first 2 heats of the 1995 Formula 3 series and it was quite impressive.  Here are some shots of our days in Nice and Monaco before we turned north and headed for Chamonix.

An old Porshe Spyder (like the one James Dean died in)... we were to see this one quite a bit around town later in the day

The Casino

The Fairmont Hotel... most of the "normal" car pictures following were taken right in front of that red car at the rail.... but look under the overhang of the hotel!

Bentley's!  Every one of them in beautiful show car condition.  

Some more toys of the rich and famous... note the $100K runabout tender carelessly floating behind the first yacht...

Here's that Spyder again.

A nice little Ferrari

He's moved it to watch the race... nice boat!

Ugly as sin but I can just imagine what this one would cost... it had to be at least 150' long.  I called it the "Stealth Ship"

Monaco from the perfectly clear blue water

From our front row seats for the race

From our drive along the mid road back to Nice (heading away from this).  It was breathtaking.

Trying out the new zoom

Nice (and a couple of nuts swimming in freezing cold water)

Trying out the new zoom again.  Jen and I were at least 500 yards away walking towards a war memorial the kids didn't want to go see

The spectacular memorial carved right into the side of the mountain.

The harbour at Nice... going to have to sail into here one day!

Somehow I don't think I'll have anything this large though!

A nice US registered boat.