NICE (ABC News): Nice has undergone a facelift in the past decade. She took advantage of the Corona crisis to present herself in a new, green way – without abandoning her unique personality and appeal. More and more Norwegians are flying to the largest city on the French Riviera. Some decide to stay.
The couple from the small farm in Valdres, known to many from the famous TV series “Der ingen should tru in nokon kunne bu”, settled in the center of the “capital” of the French Riviera – Nice.
I met Norwegian couple Yvonne Toner and Ole Jacob Christensen at the sheltered marina in Nice.
– Wasn’t the big city of Nice a sudden transition from the harsh life in the village in which they lived?
Close contact with nature? I ask them.
– on the contrary! They laugh and say they made several “inspection visits” before they were serious about moving to the French Mediterranean coast.
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Yvonne Tonerre and Ole Jacob Christensen From “No one should think that anyone can buy” to…….. Photo: private
…The place where many people want to live: beautiful. – The transformation was not significant, say Yvonne Tonerre and Ole Jacob Christensen. Photo: Arild Molstad
15 minutes-city
– Nice is a city called “the 15-minute city,” says Uli Jacob.
– Within a quarter of an hour, we reach most of the big city’s attractions on foot, two wheels, bus or tram. In addition, beautiful mountains and hills are located just a short distance away.
Nice, despite its population of about half a million, is surprisingly small in size
Fast one. It’s a short walk from the harbor district, where local carpenters hunched over their paint buckets dockside, to the Petit Marais district, named after its coveted Parisian role model.
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In the evenings crowd here. The streets and squares are filled with travelers from all over the world.
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During the day, there is bustling life on the beach in Nice. Photo: Ariel Molstad
We orient ourselves to the decorations facing the sea. Along the way, we wander close to each other
Sidewalk cafes and flea market. The windswept eastern end of the beach promenade is called Rauba Capeu – “Miste Hatten-odden” by permanent residents. From here, in the clear morning hours, the silhouette of the distant island of Corsica is sometimes visible.
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Now we are content to admire the panoramic view of the cape at a distance of eight kilometers
A long, recently expanded waterfront, wide enough to be a lively meeting place for loungers, runners and cyclists.
On the sand, a strict new environmental law ensures there is good elbow room between umbrellas, restaurant tables, wine coolers and sunbeds.
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Yvonne Tonerre and Ole Jacob Christensen in the protected marina in Nice. Photo: Arild Molstad
Living history book
Toward the horizon, we glimpse a few tall, 10-story cruise ships gliding east toward the elegant pearl string of beach towns — Villefranche, Beaulieu, Eze, Monaco, Menton — the border town with Italy.
Recently, the authorities in both Nice and Monaco decided to ban large visits
Cruise ships and litter caused by giants, both at sea and on land.
But visits by luxury yachts will be allowed. After all, Nice and its surroundings are a magnet for billionaires. The first large wave consisted of visitors supported by Russian nobility who had fled with their wealth, fleeing the 1917 Revolution.
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Nice early became a playground for the famous and the wealthy.
In the interwar and postwar years, the nouveau riche Yankees began to emerge. With them came Hollywood faces and literary couple Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, who played out their Great Gatsby fantasies in chic beach hotels on the Côte d’Azur.
At the same time as the luxury blue train arrived at the platform, the mountain road from the Alps to the Mediterranean was opened to automobile traffic.
But Nice is first and foremost a city where people live. It’s a great,
A cosmopolitan melting pot of Europeans, North Africans and, above all, immigrants from Italy.
Originally, the city bore the name Niza, which characterizes the city’s culture, way of life and, not least, the dishes that can be enjoyed in its bistros, restaurants and trattorias.
It was to be a new generation of politicians, led and coordinated by Christian Estrosi, the city’s mayor and expected by many to be the next president of France, who took on the task of injecting Nice with the doses of energy it so desperately needed.
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Nice has recently undergone a green transformation, with parks, squares and beaches being renovated. Photo: Arild Molstad
On the World Heritage List
Under Estrosi’s rule, the city has recently undergone a green transformation, with the parks, squares and beaches giving Nice a facelift. This was done without losing Nice’s character and identity. It is a work of art, say most permanent residents as well as visitors.
It draws repertoire from the green transition that is beginning to characterize Europe
Political scene. Estrosi, a charismatic and impatient former motorcycle racer, woke up the sluggish French bureaucracy and launched a green operation that was also noticed at the national level.
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– We want to return to the residents of Nice the heart of the city, as promised.
And it hits hard in Vieux Nice – the old town. Here they still live, under faded Baroque facades and lopsided church towers: shoemakers, wine merchants, butchers, fishmongers, spice blenders, ceramicists, flower arrangers – although there are also juice and sushi bars, nail sculptors and luxury hair salons, here. As elsewhere. In the world, in narrow alleys, and in crowded squares.
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The coronation came in 2021, when Nice obtained its rightful place in UNESCO
World Heritage List. The following year, the city was awarded the “Greenest City in France” award.
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The Nice Jazz Festival is an annual event.
The spacious Place Massena is the focal point of daily life in Nice. The space became larger and greener – a large rectangle of lawns, palm trees and plants (brought here from the five continents of the world). Together the rectangle forms an elegant garden that turns in summer into an attractive fountain-splashed water mirror, and in winter into an ice skating rink, which is decorated for Christmas in December.
The annual Jazz Festival in July is also held nearby.
These days, the finishing touches are being put on the airport area, the second largest in France.
It will serve as a transportation hub to the rest of the Riviera, and to all the picturesque mountain villages that were once fortresses, built hundreds of years ago to protect farmers and fertile agricultural settlements from enemies threatening the sea route.
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On most streets, side streets and alleys you will find artists of all kinds selling or exhibiting. Image: Dreamtime
Artists showed the way
Within half a century, they have transformed into beautiful, well-preserved villages offering some of the best French cuisine and wine. And where you can stay in charming small hotels – the south of France is the answer to the mass tourism that has increasingly left its mark on the Mediterranean coast in other countries.
The art galleries that have multiplied in recent decades in these small towns have also become part of the list of attractions in the Nice region. No wonder, because it was here that Picasso, Chagall, Van Gogh, Miró, Cézanne, Renoir, Bonnard and Matisse got their motifs – and thus revolutionized the world’s art of painting.
Even our Munch was inspired by the color that characterizes the region of Provence
Landscape – deep blue shades of sea and sky, pastel colored fruits
Vegetable farms.
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The artists also discovered that on these sides, Nice has just over 300 buildings
Sunny days of the year – You can paint outdoors all year round. Here, spring begins just before Christmas:
The Lemon Festival in Menton and the Carnival in Nice offer a preview of everything in February, while almond and jasmine trees often bloom before Easter.
Previously, the grape harvest in September was a reminder that summer was coming. With climate change, this has changed. Now October and parts of November can provide pleasant temperatures for bathing.
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Dinner time brings crowds in Nice’s Old Town. Image: Dreamtime
Rich life
A few days later, I met the Norwegian couple again near Piazza Garibaldi – the eastern part of the “green strip” in the center that has replaced cement with fountains, tropical plants and large swimming pools: not only beautiful, but pleasantly airy when summer temperatures reach +30 Celsius.
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Previously, the square was the closest neighbor to a dilapidated bus station inhabited by outcasts. It is now full of restaurants overlooking huge trees and small shops. A small, low-cost cinema showing first-rate films.
We accept the “happy hour” beer offer while we study the menu, which tempts us with a three-course dinner for less than €25.
Yvonne smiles slyly and reminds me why the couple settled in Nice.
-We wanted to go to a place where we could live a rich life with simple means.
“Coffee trailblazer. Certified pop culture lover. Infuriatingly humble gamer.”
