We’ve heard stories of Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, etc., but experiencing these places allows their essence to permeate the senses. During this week in Nice, our routine has been a balance of site-seeing and relaxation.

Below is the view from our terrace at La Perouse Hotel here in Nice, where we arrived four days ago and will depart on Wednesday for a week in Paris. The stop after that is home on July 16. The photo below is a bit deceptive. People do not lie on fine sand, but on rocks…unless they are willing to pay $55/day for two lounge chairs and an umbrella.

Children frolic in a huge water park in the middle of an even more huge promenade, only two blocks from the beach in Nice.

Two days ago, we took a tour with 10 other people and a driver to Cannes, Monte Carlo, Eze, St. Paul de Vence and Antibes. Here’s the outside of the Monte Carlo Casino. We did not bring a passport, so no chance to gamble.

A very sweet highlight of our tour was discovering the quaint shop-lined street of St. Paul de Vence. We did not have enough time there.

In Nice, we toured the Chagall Museum three days ago and the Matisse Museum yesterday. Chagall spent the end of his life in St. Paul de Vence, not far from Nice. We found his tombstone in a beautiful little cemetary on our tour. His second wife and her brother are buried with him. His tombstone had no significant prominence among a hundred or so others. I could not recognize the names of any of “his neighbors”.

On Wednesday, we will take a seven hour train trip to Paris for our final week. We obtained tickets for La Boheme on 7/12 at the Paris Opera House (whose ceiling is by Chagall), Bastille Day is 7/14, and we return to friends and home late on 7/16.