Who is Online

We have 129 guests and no members online

Europe

Southern France - Nice

Details
Parent Category: Travel
Category: Europe
Hits: 45293

Article Index

Page 9 of 10

Nice

We found plenty to entertain us in Nice, including excellent, food, museums, shopping for Wendy and a long tram trip. 

 

Nice Nice2
Nice3 Nice4
 

Nice

 

 

The Museum of Modern Art was particularly worthwhile.

Museum of Modern Art Museum of Modern Art2
Museum of Modern Art3 Museum of Modern Art4
Museum of Modern Art5 Museum of Modern Art6
 

The Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain - MAMAC

 

 

Of course there is the famous beach which is less marvellous than we had anticipated as it consists of pebbles.   Being on the Mediterranean there is virtually no surf (in calm weather) but areas are given over to cafés restaurants and bars and there are large sand pits, kept in place by timber surrounds like one at a kindergarten, where sand has been spread over the stones to facilitate sunbaking. 

Along the promenade there are rows of seats on which sit people fully dressed in frocks, shirts and long pants, I even saw a tie, gazing out over the beach below where a proportion of the young women and all the young men sunbake topless.

 

La Plage de Nice La Plage de Nice2
La Plage de Nice3 La Plage de Nice4
La Plage de Nice5 La Plage de Nice6
 

La Plage de Nice

 

 

We didn’t partake in either activity.

But there were plenty more museums and more shopping...

Nice was a fitting place to conclude a very nice visit to southern France.

 

 

No comments

Travel

Bali

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of February 2016 Wendy and I took a package deal to visit Bali.  These days almost everyone knows that Bali is a smallish island off the east tip of Java in the Southern Indonesian archipelago, just south of the equator.  Longitudinally it's just to the west of Perth, not a huge distance from Darwin.  The whole Island chain is highly actively volcanic with regular eruptions that quite frequently disrupt air traffic. Bali is well watered, volcanic, fertile and very warm year round, with seasons defined by the amount of rain.

Read more: Bali

Fiction, Recollections & News

A cockatoo named Einstein

 

 

 

A couple of days ago a story about sulphur-crested cockatoos went semi-viral, probably in an attempt to lift spirits during Sydney's new Covid-19 lock-down. It appears that some smart cocky worked out how to open wheelie-bin lids.  That's not a surprise - see below.  What is surprising is that others are copying him and the practice is spreading outwards so that it can be mapped in a growing circle of awareness. The cockies are also choosing the red (household rubbish) bins that may contain food, disregarding yellow (cans and bottles); blue (paper and cardboard) and green bins (garden clippings). Yet, now they have also been observed checking-out other potentially food containing bins.

One has even been observed re-closing the lid - presumably to prevent other birds getting to the food.

Back in the 1950's I was given a pet sulphur-crested cockatoo we named Einstein. I was in primary school and I didn't yet know who Einstein was. My father suggested the name - explaining that Einstein was 'a wise old bird'.

Read more: A cockatoo named Einstein

Opinions and Philosophy

Bertrand Russell

 

 

 

Bertrand Russell (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970)) has been a major influence on my life.  I asked for and was given a copy of his collected Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell for my 21st birthday and although I never agreed entirely with every one of his opinions I have always respected them.

In 1950 Russell won the Nobel Prize in literature but remained a controversial figure.  He was responsible for the Russell–Einstein Manifesto in 1955. The signatories included Albert Einstein, just before his death, and ten other eminent intellectuals and scientists. They warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons and called on governments to find alternative ways of resolving conflict.   Russell went on to become the first president of the campaign for nuclear disarmament (CND) and subsequently organised opposition to the Vietnam War. He could be seen in 50's news-reels at the head of CND demonstrations with his long divorced second wife Dora, for which he was jailed again at the age of 89.  

In 1958 Gerald Holtom, created a logo for the movement by stylising, superimposing and circling the semaphore letters ND.

Some four years earlier I'd gained my semaphore badge in the Cubs, so like many children of my vintage, I already knew that:  = N(uclear)   = D(isarmament)

The logo soon became ubiquitous, graphitied onto walls and pavements, and widely used as a peace symbol in the 60s and 70s, particularly in hippie communes and crudely painted on VW camper-vans.

 

 (otherwise known as the phallic Mercedes).

 

Read more: Bertrand Russell

Terms of Use

Terms of Use                                                                    Copyright