French Riviera and the Alps

Nice is elegance and beach mixed into one, and enlarged to city dimensions - this is what all resort towns should look like. (It's also the setting for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!)















The water is really deep azure color there:




The week we were in Nice was the week when a Chinese tycoon named Li Jinyuan brought all of his corporation's employees to French Riviera as a bonus. All 6,500 of them! They fully booked 200 hotels for miles around. We got a peek at him being given an honorary ride on the waterfront:


We also caught a parade of historic cars:






Then it was on to Italy - through a pass in the Alps.




Scenes from the French side of the Alps:






The pass from France to Italy is through Tunnel Routier du Col de Tende, a 130-year-old, two-mile-long one-way tunnel. We were lucky in that when we approached, the direction of the traffic was going our way. Otherwise, it would have meant waiting for more than half an hour for the incoming traffic to pass. (This road is close to the entrance to it.)


And these are the scenes that were waiting for us in Italy!