Day 9_Marseille to Nice

Today was a travelling day, moving from Marseille to Nice on a 2.5 hour train ride.  The woman who owns the apartment in Nice is from Canada and was recently laid off by Citibank (see worldwide recession).  She and I share the same accent which is hard to find over here.  The apartment is state of the art with everything new EXCEPT wifi (pronounced "wee fee" en francais)  which means I have to go to an internet cafe across the street to get online.  The fee for using their internet access:  a drink.  So I sit here having a drink to compose.  Nice is a very expensive city with my room here nearly twice the cost as the one at the sea in Marseille, which is more of a blue collar town.  The apartment is approximately 250 SF, with my bed a pullout from the couch....yikes..for $600/week.  The location is good, however, and only 250 feet from the Promenade des Anglais.

Researching the city, here are some interesting facts about Nice.  Like Marseille, it is a very old city, tracing its founding to around 350 B.C. with the Greeks.  Historically, Nice has gone back and forth being a part of France or Italy and is only recently part of France.  In the 1860s, King Immanuel III of Italy, in exchange for French financial and military backing, sold Nice to Napoleon III.

In the late 18th century, the English aristocracy began to vacation in Nice for its beautiful weather.  English wealth brought an unprecedented prosperity to the region.  The English needed to build not only large homes, but with their strong religious values, began to also build churches.  During the winter of 1821-22, an unusually sharp frost prevented building construction and unemployment rose.  Rather than not building at all, the English churches in Nice had a little fundraiser and put the unemployed to work building a walkway along the sea now called the Promenade des Anglais.  The walkway was built out of marble since the English didn't want to dirty their feet.

After the incorporation of Nice into France, Marseille extended its railway to the city.  Nice became the first city to have a tourist-based economy.  Until then, people traveled for economic, religious or cultural reasons.  An interesting side note:  as Nice was long a part of Italy, raviolis were first made in Nice.  I'll have to look for some...

A few more Marseille pictures before we move on to the Cote d'Azur.