Luminy

I had a g-2 / LFV workshop at the Aix-Marseille University in Luminy. It is wonderfully near the Mediterranean coast. There is a hiking path in the area that brings you to many different places where one could see students and local French residents sunbathing and playing the the water. It is at the very last stop of bus 21 in downtown Marseille.

A view of the calanque in Luminy. You have to be there to be amazed.

We are actually quite high up. We would finally end up at the area near the boats below.

The calanque. So beautiful.

This is the place great for retirement. I could imagine myself waking up and taking a small boat to sea every weekend.

It totally worth spending a whole day here to chill and soak in the sun. The sea also provided a spectacular view. Azure blue totally. Just remember to bring your own food and water since everything there is either non-existent or very expensive. Its also a good alternative to downtown Marseille if you want to get away from the busy-ness of a city.

Very high cliffs we went down from.

Finally, the first thing you will see when you enter the national park is this.

Nice, Côte d'Azur

So here I am under the Osaka Wheel Expocity writing this entry about nice weather Nice, Côte d'Azur way back in May this year. There is nary a cloud blocking the sun in 万博記念公園 so the temperatures in the middle of the day reached a high of about 34 degrees. No wonder everyone in the neighbourhood crowded over into the Expocity mall (huge mall by the way) to escape the heat and enjoy the cool air supplied by the air conditioning. I gets very crowded here with families with kids getting ice-cream, teenagers, retirees and some tourists visiting the Gundam cafe here. Surprisingly I see people riding the ferris wheel (they call it Osaka Wheel).

I flew to Nice, France from Minsk Belarus right after the physics conference was over with Belavia, the national carrier of Belarus. The plane I flew in was one of the smaller jet planes that probably carried about twenty people and the trip took a little bit over five hours. From cold and cloudy Belarus I reach sunny, blue skied Nice on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.

I had planned to stay in Nice for only a night before taking the trip to my next destination Marseille via car sharing BlaBlaCar. It is an interesting concept similar to Airbnb but instead of rooms, you share a car. I paid about 13 euros for the trip of about five hours by car. It took a little longer since there were other passengers travelling to the other cities in between Nice and Marseille, like Cannes.

More about Nice. Let's start with some pictures of the beach.

From the airport to the city center, the road the bus travelled on was beside the beach.
Amazing blue sea and sky!

No reason not to enjoy the sun.

Sun, sea and sand.

More sea from another angle.

I walked of a slope and you here you see rocky shores.

My favourite shot of Nice.

I stayed in a hostel room in the middle of the city. It gets pretty hot in the day but its just more reason for me to go out exploring the city.

Renaissance sculpture of a naked man.

This view is kind of typical to French cities. Cars parked on the sides of the road
and apartment building everywhere, even going up the hill.

The fancy looking TGV station to anywhere you want to go in France.

My bed in the hostel. Not too shabby I'd say.

Sorry I did not try pizza.