We picked Nice to have our Sunday coffee partly because it's a very lovely place to visit on a sunny day and partly because I've started a new blog called Nice in France Daily Photo so come over and visit when you've got a spare minute.
Yes, the Negresco. This is one of the world's great hotels situated right there on the seafront albeit with a dual carriageway out front (but the sound proofing's so good you'd never know). Here are some things I didn't know: that the hotel remains in private hands which is what gives it a certain individualism and its owner actually lives there in a penthouse apartment. The other thing I learned was that the owner, Jeanne Augier, has the most fascinating collection of paintings and sculptures on show in the foyer and galleries of the hotel and that visitors can walk round and enjoy it all.
It was towards the end of the visit that 2007 started to slide downhill: I threw my camera at the Renoir bronze of his wife's head. Yup. Really. I was taking a photo of the head when the camera started to slide through my fingers and while trying to grab it I managed to, well, throw it. I'll just say that again;
I.threw. my. camera. at. a. Renoir (as in famous French impressionist painter) sculpture. It hit the head and then the floor and burst open...It was fixable but doesn't work quite as smoothly as it did. The bronze was fine...
This happened just a day or so after starting the photo blog and receiving photoshop as a Christmas gift. Of course.
And just to complete the destruction of any other photo hopes Picasa has tidied my photos away somewhere and won't tell where. Yes, they are still on my hard drive so all is not lost but they're not so accessible there and then do I trust Picasa to look after them again? I like Picasa and more importantly I don't want to have to become accustomed to another software but it's time to back up the files.
And while pondering all this I caught this year's microbe: a flu-y stomach bug so I'm not really a very happy bunny.
This was supposed to go in the paragraph on the hotel but I forgot it and it's one of the things about Nice that enrages me....
Take a good look at the photo of the hotel frontage and let me point out here that this building has been classified as a National Heritage. Given its splendour how on earth did they obtain permission to put that extremely ugly door at street level? How can anyone think it's a good idea, except for makers of aluminium door frames that is.
I'm stunned...
Say Carnival and the elegance of Venice or the fleshy temptations of Rio float into mind but here on the Cote d'Azur we too have our version of Carnival, a boisterously colourful affair that involves thousands of flowers, loud music, dancing and hugely high spirits. I was in the city centre yesterday and the streets were packed with holiday makers and school children all set on having a good time.
