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Nice is located on the French Riviera, which is on the South East coast of France, near the border with Italy. It neighbours include Monte Carlo, Cannes and Marseilles. I travelled there from Venice, which was a comfortable 10 hour overnight train ride.

Nice is famous for its beach… and rightly so. Even though there is no sand to speak of, the shore line is made up of uncomfortable small (and not so small) pebbles, the water literally shines blue. Few waterways you visit will be more inviting for a quick dip, or a leisurely month long stay…

The town of Nice is the essence of Bohemia, there is a rich variety of market stalls, designer shops, flavorsome restaurants and even a decadent Casino. There was way too much to see and do in this play ground of the rich, famous and everyone else for the short 3 days I visited for.. I will definitely return for a longer stay soon…

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The Above picture was taken from the Rialto Bridge, a famous lookout over the Grande Canal. It was taken in the same place as the picture from Part 1, only at night. This area is also a great place to have dinner, with many restaurants to choose from along the bank.

Wandering around the backstreets and alleys of Venice is worthwhile, you never know what you might stumble across. The below picture was taken in a small alley near a courtyard that had remained unchanged for centuries. A cruise down the Grande Canal and out to Lido Island is also recommended.

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Venice is a small, semi-submerged town in the North East corner of Italy, about 4 hours by train from Rome. Stepping out from the station is like walking into a different world, Venice remains timeless… aspects of the Venetian lifestyle remain as they were hundreds of years ago. This is especially evident in the buildings… nothing new is built, only the old restored, but at no where near the pace of entropy as evidenced by the many tilted structures.

Transport around Venice is via ferry down the Grande Canal, not by Gondola, which as always remains one of the staple methods of removing money from a tourist… though by no means the only way, with parts of Venice so heavily shopped with glass, masks and other local trinkets that at times you could easily imagine you were in a slightly damp shopping mall.

We stayed in a little boutique hotel near St Johns square, one of the centres of town… the other being the famous Rialto bridge from where the picture above was taken. The picture below was taken at night, just outside where we were staying.

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We got back from the Isle of Capri at around 5pm, a couple of hours before sunset. Using the GPS on my Nokia 6110 I had marked a section of the Amalfi Coast that looked good while on the tour bus to Sorrento. According to my trip planner, that spot was around 7kms away. I made sure my camera was charged up and set off.

I decided to walk instead of catching a bus or taxi, so I could check out the local area. I soon realised that walking is not the done thing to do in Italy… if traveling more than a few kilometres you really need a moped or car.. even if you wanted to walk its difficult.. there is little or no infrastructure that we take for granted here in Australia, such as sidewalks. It def got interesting working my way around double parked cars into on coming traffic.

When I finally made it to the look out I took the above picture of the sun setting over the volcano Mt Vesuvius.

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We got picked up from the Royal Hotel in Sorrento and transported down to the town’s ferry terminal, where we boarded the cat to the Isle of Capri. The trip out took around 30 minutes in the mid morning glare… (see first pic below)… before docking at the island’s bustling little port, Marina Grande… (second pic).

One of the big attractions on Capri is the Blue Grotto, a sea cave renowned for its extremely blue water. Its only accessible in calm waters though, and at low tides… so its never certain you will get in… our guide told us no one got in the day before….

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We were lucky that morning, we got our tickets at the pier and got into a small runabout which took us around the island to a small opening in the rock cliff face that was surrounded by a myriad of little rowboats, complete with local guides. These boats could only fit two passengers and needed to be small because the entrance to the Blue Grotto is fairly tight… infact the tide must have been fairly high when we went in as we all had to lie down to avoid getting crunched!

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The Blue Grotto is amazing… the light entering through the small cave opening lights shines a deep blue through the water, contrasting dramatically with the general blackness of the rest of the cave. Soon after we entered the rowboat guides all broke into song, taking advantage of the caves good accoustics.

Returning from the La Grotta Azzurra our guide took us via taxi bus up the mountain to Anacapri, the islands main town. We toured around, visiting the little shops where you could sample Limoncello, the local alcoholic drink made from lemons. We walked up to a lookout over the Marina, (Below), then walked out to La Migilerra (Last pics) before enjoying a pasta and pizza lunch…

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