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I’m on my own again and staying at the very low end of the budget hostel strip near the train station. The hostel owner has a reputation of having a ‘loose fist’ amongst the online hostel listing reviewers. But as I left the accommodation bookings till the last minute (plan A to spend a few days in Marseille fell through) and I had no choice but to brave it at the dingiest shit hole I have ever seen. The bathroom smelt like a rat had died in the pipes, and the floor looked like a Gladstonbury Festival had been held there over night. To add to the insult, I was attacked two nights in a row by a large clan of bed bugs at the shit hole I was staying at. The hostel owners insisted that they were mosquitoes ‘le mosquito’, but I’ve never been bitten so badly by mosquitoes that all four of my limbs are swollen and infected with over 150 bite marks. I’ll spare you the trauma of looking at the photos.
Nice is a bit disappointing I must admit. At the moment the main street is in the process of being dug up and constant chaos of bulldozers, old ladies’ shopping trolleys stuck in the temporary holes, and sweaty tattooed construction workers with ogle-addictions complete a crazy picture.
The reputation of art deco era glitz and glamour is a bit distorted. Sure, the rich is still here but the really rich have actually retreated to beaches towards Cannes and Monaco and to the outer suburbs of Nice. Central Nice and its beaches at the moment is completely taken over by bright pink doughy Brit chavs complaining about everything from being sunburnt to the price of food and ‘Frog Rules’. Occasionally they are joined by Chinese tourists rolling up their trousers on the surf, with the smaller ones engulfed by an unexpected wave every so often. The afternoon I was there a young boy of about five covered himself in kelp resembling one of Jane Goodall’s jungle subjects or an obscure Sean Connery in a 007 love scene back in the 60s. And then there’s the compulsory (and compulsive) European bathers who are pretty much turning into prunes. Why is it that a stark naked person, say, one that feature in a Matisse or Klimpt could look perfectly graceful and dignified and beautiful, but as soon as they don a tiny black g-string or a pair of red speedos (aka budgie smugglers), which is essentially more than stark naked, can look absolutely trashy and tasteless? Yes and I do have a problem with the segregation of private and public beaches.
I only lasted a day at the beach in Nice before I escaped to greener pastures. I mean lets face it, who wants to clunk around unbearable giant pebbles and squeeze into a beach towel into a space only big enough for a size zero mademoiselle and her make-up bag when you have ninety miles of white sand so fine that you can sell it to the Arabs waiting for you at home?
Nice is a bit disappointing I must admit. At the moment the main street is in the process of being dug up and constant chaos of bulldozers, old ladies’ shopping trolleys stuck in the temporary holes, and sweaty tattooed construction workers with ogle-addictions complete a crazy picture.
The reputation of art deco era glitz and glamour is a bit distorted. Sure, the rich is still here but the really rich have actually retreated to beaches towards Cannes and Monaco and to the outer suburbs of Nice. Central Nice and its beaches at the moment is completely taken over by bright pink doughy Brit chavs complaining about everything from being sunburnt to the price of food and ‘Frog Rules’. Occasionally they are joined by Chinese tourists rolling up their trousers on the surf, with the smaller ones engulfed by an unexpected wave every so often. The afternoon I was there a young boy of about five covered himself in kelp resembling one of Jane Goodall’s jungle subjects or an obscure Sean Connery in a 007 love scene back in the 60s. And then there’s the compulsory (and compulsive) European bathers who are pretty much turning into prunes. Why is it that a stark naked person, say, one that feature in a Matisse or Klimpt could look perfectly graceful and dignified and beautiful, but as soon as they don a tiny black g-string or a pair of red speedos (aka budgie smugglers), which is essentially more than stark naked, can look absolutely trashy and tasteless? Yes and I do have a problem with the segregation of private and public beaches.
I only lasted a day at the beach in Nice before I escaped to greener pastures. I mean lets face it, who wants to clunk around unbearable giant pebbles and squeeze into a beach towel into a space only big enough for a size zero mademoiselle and her make-up bag when you have ninety miles of white sand so fine that you can sell it to the Arabs waiting for you at home?
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