Nice/Nizza

I just read the Christopher Reeve is dead. Very sad. He was really inspirational - after his horse accident in 1995 which left him paralysed and almost dead, he never gave up and always stayed positive. Before he died he was even beginning to have more sensation in parts of his body, and he starred in and directed a few films. I'll always remember him saying once on Oprah, "I feel like the luckiest man in the world", because he survived the accident and could see his kids grow up. An incredible human being.
We just returned from a long weekend in Nice. Known as "Nizza" in German, which doesn't sound quite as pleasant. One of those cheap EasyJet flights. The first day we just wandered round, looked at the beach, walked up and down the promenade, drank coffee and chocolate and ate crepes. I practised my lame school French, but whenever something spontaneous happened, German slipped out.
On the second day we took a whirlwind tour around Eze, a Medieval village, a perfume factory, Monaco, St Paul and Cannes. It was all the bit fast but otherwise we wouldn't have seen these plces so I'm glad we did it. The people on the trip (it was an 8-seater car) were interesting. Our French and English-speaking guide was fed up and laughing at them quite openly by the end. One woman asked him to speak English when he was, just because he was saying names of French places. Most of them just discussed America and terrorism (having the same coversation three times!) and clearly had little interest in learning what they were seeing. One woman kept asking, "Are we in Nice now?" When the guide pointed to the road where Princess Grace died in 1982, an American guy piped up, "Oh, is that Princess Diane?" A Turkish woman kept saying "the Garibaldi family" and wanted to know who was skydiving in the distance- the driver told her it was Prince Ranier and I think she believed him. Anyway, we were sitting upfront and heard the most interesting information - about the guide's three-day stint looking after a Spanish billionaire and his insane behaviour with drugs, celebrities, yachts and so forth.
Monaco was unbelievable - so much bling bling. Apparently there is one policeman for every 4o people, so therefore no crime. And it was so clean, especially compared to Berlin where there is dog crap everywhere. We saw the Saudi king's yacht with helicopter on top, and we drove over the Monaco Grand Prix starting line. Part of Monaco has also been built over the sea because of space limitations. We drove up to the Grimaldi palace and saw the changing of the guard over other tourists' heads, then went to the cathedral to see Princess Grace's tomb. It was errily dark and quiet - luckily we missed a bus load of about 70 tourists who followed us.
Cannes was nothing really special - I'm sure it's mad during the film festival, but in October it was just a pretty, and ritzy, seaside town. Lots of people swimming and sunbathing on golden sand. We saw the ugly building where they screen films during a festival and had a cursory look at all the star's handprints. and pawprints (Pink Panther).
Back in Berlin now and it is always good to be back, but damn it's cold already! Minus one this morning when I got up.