July 17, 2004
It turned out that walking to the hostel was no fun at all. I had called one of the two hostels in Nice in the morning I left Marseilles, and the receptionist said that there was no problem getting a bed, but they didn't take reservations, so just arrive at 5 when reception opens for the evening. I then looked at the map more closely, and decided that the other hostel might be better located. But oh, the 2-D deceptiveness of the ordinary map! And oh, the 45 minute hike _up a mountain_ with a heavy backpack, to be greeted with the information that the hostel is "full". I cursed, asked if I could at least rest and get a drink of water, and apparently looked quite pitiful: the clerk told me that if I would have patience, he might be able to squeeze me in for the night, if nobody came in on the next bus. (That's right, there was a bus. I thought it would be quicker to walk from where I was. That was when I still thought Nice was flat.) So, joy of joys, I got a room there and gratefully changed my clothes.
My next move (brilliant as you will see) was to charge back down the mountain, again on foot. I still had the idea of going to the beach for the fireworks, and so I wanted to time my trip and see how spooky it was in the dark. So I wended my way down the stairways, and wandered the picturesque old city of Nice. If you imagine a medieval city of close, winding streets surrounded by tall pastel houses that block all but a tiny slice of sky, complete with flower-boxes and laundry hanging from the windows, and then make it clean and add about a million tourists, that's the old city. I made a dinner of one of the Niçoise specialties, a chickpea-flour pancake called socca, as well as some ice cream, and found the beach. Regardless of what you may have heard about the beach in Nice, the truth is that it's a limitless expanse of rocks, spread thick with sunbathers as far as the eye can see. I saw three amusing sights on my walk that evening. First was a pair of dogs leashed together, puppy to oldster, which is apparently a much less bad idea than it sounds. Next, a tribe of Segway-riding tourists rolling through the old city. I had never seen a real Segway before, and they are as comical as I had hoped. And lastly, some enterprising soul had carted several tons of sand to the beach at Nice (which, as you'll recall, is made of rocks), charging 10 euro to play beach volleyball.
Braced by the sight of these wonders, and hastened by the approaching dusk, I turned back towards the hostel. On the way down I had begun to suspect how bad a plan this had been, and so it was: switchback after switchback on the main road, or poorly lit and uneven stone stairs? The bus had stopped running at 8:00. I took the switchbacks and was grateful for them. Thank goodness it's not worth anybody's while to stake out backpacker trails.
The hostel turned out to be quite pleasant, aside from the ridiculous location. One of the residents was M., an up-and-coming Olympic-class sprinter, supposedly one of the best in France. And what a friendly guy! He is in Nice for medical reasons, and doesn't have much to do for the time being other than make friends with backpackers. I also met A., a recent Air Force Academy grad who will be training in "space control" within the month, and L., a student of French who hailed from the tiny town of 84, PA. I spent the next day with A. and L. We lounged on the beach, ate lunch on the beach (I had the famous salade niçoise, featuring salmon with mustard dressing), and ate more ice cream in the old city. Seeing them off at the train station, and not seeing even a sliver of the famous Bastille Day spirt, I went back to the hostel. I shared dinner with a Swedish girl who had plans to go to Corsica the next day, in hopes of finding a job and summering there. What luck to have an EU passport -- EU citizens are allowed to work in any EU country for up to three months without needing a visa. (Of course, I could get a job anywhere from Alaska to Louisiana without needing a visa, but that seems different.) I ended the night watching the fireworks from the hostel, which had quite a good view of the beach some kilometers away. Perhaps the mountain location was good for something after all.
The next day I was off to Italy! It turns out that I am apparently unable to read email correctly, and I will rendezvous with A.P. and I.F. both in Venice. So I have made a stop in Milan, fashion capital of the world, where I am presently. I planned to take the noon train from Nice, to arrive at Milan around 4 p.m., but I was delayed by computer trouble at the station that made it impossible to make out tickets. I made it onto the 2 p.m. train and into Italy without incident, but in Genoa we spent over an hour in a tunnel, often with the lights off, not going anywhere, for technical reasons I never did understand. The other passengers in my compartment were all Italians who spoke no English, but they were very kind, offering crackers and smiles to bolster my corregio.
Finally, I reached Milan well past 9 p.m. No grocery or restaurant was open within reasonable distance, just bars and clubs, except for that pan-global ambassador of America, McDonald's. It's actually kind of interesting to see how each country does it's McDonald's. In Italy they sell breakfast pastries from a glass case, and one McD's I saw had a McBar on the side, but I assure you that the hamburgers are exactly the same as in America.
The next day, the 16th, I did a partial walking tour of Milan. My current hostel is actually quite well located within the city, though as a tradeoff we have to put up with traffic noise at night and the street cleaners in the morning. I spent nearly an hour sitting in the spectactular duomo (cathedral), reputed to be the 3rd largest in the world, and chock-full of intricate stained glass and marble tombs. The famous Teatro alla Scalia is closed for renovation, so I just passed by on my way to the fashion district. Few of my readers will be surprised to learn that I didn't buy anything, but it was worth it just to see what it looks like in the most fashionably up-to-date place in the entire world. (It looks very posh and expensive, and some of it looks a little ridiculous.)
Evening: As the social scene at the hostel began to warm up just after dinnertime, I met two girls, N. from London and T. from Pretoria, who wanted to go to the Navigali district for drinks; coincidentally, that was my plan too. The Navigali district is full of canals, originally built to haul in all the marble that went into the duomo during it 500 years of construction. I discovered that canals are also full of mosquitos, even in Italy (nothing like in MN, though). We took a table canal-side, with two young Finns just out of high school, and were "served", one person at a time and with great delay, by an extraordinarily surly waitress. It turned out that N. will be starting as a resident (or "junior doctor" in England), and that T. teaches at a Montessori grade school, so we had quite a bit of common ground. Apparently England just instituted a 56-hour work week for residents, and they are soliciting residents from other countries to make it work out. Any readers with an eye on medical school might see if they are also soliciting Americans. Our evening was cut short (but not very) by the hostel curfew: all throughout Italy, and in much of France, hostels lock their doors at some point at night, and all too often it is annoyingly early. I've seen 10:30 before, and it only gets worse if the hostel is in the boonies, as they often are. Here we were lucky: we had only a 10 minute walk to a 12:30 curfew.
Morning: N. and T. and I went to look at the castle of Milan. They only got to see the grounds, and then left to catch a train, but I explored the excellent-yet-free sculpture museum inside. Without a doubt, their most famous piece is Michelangelo's last work, an unfinished pieta, but they had a lot of really good late medieval bas-relief too. It boggles my mind how the artists can carve such details, even into the far side of a figure that stands out from the base. I'd give names, but too often there weren't any. I can only assume the artists' identities have been lost in the mists of time.
The rest of my stay in Milan promises to be quite ordinary: laundry, self-cooked dinner, packing for my trip to Venice tomorrow. I am looking forward to this: meeting up with I.F. and A.P. will be quite the reunion if we can bring it off, and I may join up with L. from Nice as well. My solo travels have now accumulated a troupe!