Carnaval Parade - "Big Heads"

Here's a sample of the Corso Carnavalesque with its Grosses Tetes ("Big Heads").  The Carnaval has 60 floats, 30 of which are Grosses Tetes.  It has 150 other animated features, 80,000 to 100,000 locally grown flowers, 1,800 employees, 1,500 street artists, and makes between 30 and 35 million Euros for the city.

Fire Breathing Sea Serpent!

Check out the dog!

Carnaval Nice!

 February 18 marked the beginning of the 2011 Carnaval de Nice.  The 127th Nice Carnaval, this year's theme is Roi de la Mediterranee, and here he is.  OK, this funny squid is all over town, but he's the mascot, not the king.  The King, Queen, and her court were installed at the foot of the Place Massena two nights ago with great pomp and ceremony.  These benevolent rulers will remain on their thrones throughout the Carnaval, which continues until Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) March 8.

 

Pictured here, the Royals stand about five stories high and are lighted and guarded 24/7.

 
Carnaval in Nice is, apparently, a lot like Rio!

 
 
The Flower Parade participants had fun with the Mediterranean theme.  We especially enjoyed the array of inflatable sea creatures. 

Kids of all ages are having a great time. We were confetti'd and string'd at least twice yesterday, and apparently the flowers on the floats from the parade are up for grabs at some point, because just about everyone walking by our window later had flowers of some sort.


It's a rainy Sunday today, so the next parade will have to go on without us, but we'll be back into the mix tomorrow.  Right after laundry and shopping. 

Monaco Historic Rally 2011

It's Tuesday, February 1.  On January 26, the participating autos left from five locations: Marrakech, Glasgow, Warsaw, Barcelona, and Reims.  They've been through the Alps and all over southern France, and now they're arriving in Monaco for a brief rest before their final segment which begins at 8:30 p.m. tonight.  They'll arrive back in Monaco sometime between midnight and the wee hours, and those who have enough energy left will attend the gala awards ceremony tomorrow night ("gala", in Monaco terms, means "the Prince is gonna be there, so dress up").

Pati always cheers for the real Mini Coopers.  This one is a 1964 Austin Mini Cooper S.

       This little Fiat 650 TR2 from 1968 won our Cutest In Show award.

Wait...wait!

                                                                   Wiener dog!!

And, as always, the Comas Historic Racing team made a large showing with their fleet of Renault Alpines.  These cars can be rented from Erik Comas, a former Formula 1 driver, and driven in historic racing events.  Comas provides transportation, automobile, mechanics, etc.  All for a price that's within reason...if you don't have to ask the price.  For some reason, we took no pictures of the Comas gang, but it's an impressive operation.  Another impressive group is shown below...some of the large number of Citroens that also compete.

We enjoyed our day in Monaco, and were a bit nostalgic, thinking about good times at the apartment we used to occupy.  The building is shown here, just above the maroon-and-pink Citroen, which was piloted by two ladies, dressed to match their car, who served champagne to their friends upon arrival.

For more information about the Historic Rally, see the Automobile Club of Monaco's website:  http://www.acm.mc/

Starting a Winter in Nice

Arrived in Nice on January 4, 2011.  We've rented a one-bedroom apartment that is overlooking the "pedestrian-only" segment of Rue de France.  Great people-and-dog watching!  This place is smaller than we're accustomed to, but it's in what's just about the best location in town!  We're a block from the Promenade that follows the beaches along the Mediterranean Sea and very close to all the services (several grocery stores with excellent selections of wine, for example). 

Quite quickly, we found the best bakery in town only two blocks away.  You know, in Portugal we loved "Pao de Casa con Chorizo", a simple bread that's loaded with sliced hot sausage, for breakfast.  We called it "belly busters".  We've been to Nice many times and never seen anything similar...until now.  Our new favorite bakery makes French belly busters...a ciabatta-like bread with lardons (bacon bits) and emmenthal cheese.  Oh.  My.  God.

We've been over to Monaco twice already, to check out the Monaco Rally and the Circus Parade,  The Rally seems to have changed hands, since it's now the International Rally Challenge.  The catch is:  it no longer features the featured drivers!  Were we ever surprised when all these cars rolled in and we'd never heard of any of the drivers...it was fun to watch, though. 

The Circus Parade was fun, as always.  Princess Stephanie of Monaco runs the circus show and she never disappoints.  Monaco's annual circus spectacular attracts the best acts, and always the best clowns.

You can find our location on Google Earth, the address is 15 Rue de France.  More to come as the excitement builds.

The Grand Crossing

The big plan was this:  we fly to Venice and spend a couple of days, get aboard the Regent Seven Seas Voyager and set sail for Athens on a 10-day cruise, visiting Croatia, Montenegro and Turkey on our way to Greece.  Off the ship at Athens, spend a couple of days watching the riots, fly to Barcelona and goof off for a week before the Voyager would catch up with us.  Back onto the boat again and sail for Ft. Lauderdale.

But NO!  Two weeks before departure, good Captain Mario broke the boat (OK, it probably wasn't his fault) and the cruise from Venice to Athens was cancelled.  Boat went to dry dock in Marseilles instead.  Now, this caused quite a hassle for us.  Flights and hotel reservations cancelled, new tickets to Barcelona instead of Venice, etc. etc.  Kept Pati busy for several days.

So, we did go to Barcelona and had a great time.  The weather was very cooperative and we walked all over town seeing the sights.  As we pointed out on our earlier blog, Barcelona is full of architecture by the inimitable Gaudi.  Here are some more of his works:

 

 We took a side trip up to Montserrat, Spain via the Rack Railway.  Way up into the mountains to visit a monastery.  It's a beautiful trip, but not for the faint of heart.

Montserrat itself is an interesting location.  It is said that one side of Gaudi's cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, is patterened after the rocks atop the mountain.

 Speaking of the Sagrada Familia, while we were in Barcelona, Pope Benedict XVI decided to make the cathedral into a basilica.  So, one Sunday morning he showed up and did just that!  We were fortunate enough to catch him on his ride through town!  More about the cathedral at http://www.sagradafamilia.com/.  Click on "ENG" in the upper left-hand corner for English...or challenge your knowledge of Catalan.

We caught the Voyager and headed off for a 15-day trip to Ft. Lauderdale.  We made a few stops in Spain and one at our favorite island of Madeira.  Also, stopped overnight in Hamilton, Bermuda.  Here's the ship in port at Hamilton.

As always, sunset ceremonies were held each night in the ship's Observation Lounge.

The end.

Lillian is 100!

On October 6, 2010 Pati's mother, Lillian, celebrated her 100th birthday.  A distinguished group of party-goers gathered at 100 Palms Tucson for cake, ice cream, and entertainment by our favorite pianist, Sandy.  Here we have Gordon, decorating!

                                                                         The big party!

Gordon, Mom, and Pati

                                                                                       Mom and Pati

What The Hell Was That Thing??

We've often said that we'll watch 'em race anything, and this proves that it's true.  On June 26, the annual American Solar Challenge car racers took the checkered flag at one of the high schools here in Naperville.  We walked down to the school with cameras in hand and staked out a shady spot to watch the competitors cross the finish line.  It was refreshing to see a bunch of enthusiastic college students who were having a good time and were very proud of their efforts. 

After the race, the kids exposed the innards of the cars and explained how any way they worked.  They answered plenty of questions, many of which must have seemed ridiculous to them.  For a complete list of results and more information, check out http://www.americansolarchallenge.org/.