Nice 2018: The January Report

We've arrived in Nice and settled in to our usual rental in Musiciens.  Some things have changed, some carry on.  The nice elderly people at the end of the hall both passed away last year, and Grand-mere across the street has disappeared as well.  The cat-lady's couture shop has become a vendor of hair extensions.  No more cats...well, probably.  One never knows.  The piano player upstairs, unfortunately, is alive, well, and persistent.  The construction of the east-west tram line is chugging along.  The tunneling is finished and the first above ground section is due to open this fall.  It'll still be 2020 before we can all ride from the airport to the seaport, though.  As always, we're dining well and there's a lot of duck and goat cheese pastries on the menu.  The local patisserie is still cranking out the croissants in fine form.

We've been over to Monaco twice.  First to see the circus animals.  Lots of african influence this year. 

Joe Camel, on his way to the camel wash:

Who knew that you could power-wash a camel?

But the poodles steal the show.

Then to Monaco again to watch the World Rally Championship cars arrive after the race.  We convinced ourselves that the cars would arrive from the east side of town and set up in the perfect spot to catch some really great photos.  So, of course, the cars arrived from the west side and we missed out on the best photo locations.  Here's the scene, anyway, and Sebastian Ogier won the rally again, making the French tres heureux.

Everyone (and we mean everyone) waits in traffic in Monaco:

Here's Ogier arriving:

And JM Latvala is always a popular driver.  Follow his arrival through to tech:

Everyone got a car wash (borrowed the power washer from the circus), then into Parc Ferme for a few minutes before heading up to the palace for prizes.

Monaco's building continues unabated.  We thought that the Principality moved all the high-end shops temporarily into an area that used to be a park while they refurbished the Hotel de Paris area.  Wrong.  They moved the shops permanently and are building apartments not only where the shops used to be, but in the cotton-pickin' park next to the shops!  They're dredging in 15 more acres in the Larvotto area for more housing, and the prices keep going up.  It's actually amazing to think that there are so many multi-millionaires out there. 

And speaking of multi-millionaires, Lewis Hamilton has dropped in to visit his "home" in Monaco.  At least his airplane has.  The candy-apple red Challenger sits at the Nice airport, but Lewis' vanity plate tail number (it was his initials, all four of them) has been replaced.  This could have something to do about a little investigation that was launched in the UK.  Seems that the airplane was registered in the Isle of Man from a company owned by Lewis to another company owned by Lewis, thus somehow dodging over three million pounds sterling in taxes.  Now, the airplane appears to be registered in Austria to a company containing the name Lauda.

We've just come from the optometrist and our new glasses are on order.  Frederic, our optician, has quite a selection of great European eyeglasses.  Our next big adventure is the RetroMobile auto show in Paris.  Yes, we hate Paris but we're making an exception since we've wanted to see this exhibit for years.  More on that in the February report!