Nice Old Town (Vieux Nice)

Some say that tourism was born in Nice on the French Riviera in the eighteenth century when British, Russian and American aristocrats came to visit. In this region you can enjoy mild winters and good food. Nice is very touristy but if you make your way a bit into the city center, the old town, you can still find small signs of life in traditional "Nice": full of colors, olive oil, bread and bagnat (a famous sandwich in Nice), accents of singers, etc. It feels a bit like Italy when you can walk down the narrow streets and alleys of old Nice, with clothes hanging on the aged windows and the elderly talking from one balcony to another.

The bay of Nice smiles, the pebbled-filled beach its big, grinning teeth. She takes my hand. It is night and the beach sleeps. She prefers rocky beaches. I cannot agree to this.

“Pffft to your sand” she says, her lips vibrate, shooting anxious air.

Two fishing rods stand buried. Desolate and abandoned, as if two emaciated figures, monks perhaps, their lines drop submissively into the Mediterranean. We duck under them and collapse, laughing. The breeze feels soft as calming hand might. Her brown hair loosens from her pony-tail.

We hear cars on the English promenade; Castle Hill looms over us.