NICE

The Niçois don't just love their city they are in love with it.

And how not to succumb to it? There is so much beauty in Nice; it is like a mosaic of lights and movements where the sea breeze of the Baie des Anges breathes life into the paving stones. Take just the harbour area, where the pastels are bright and the jostling spars of sailing boats sing out their international ports of call. In the shadows of trees scented with the lemon and orange flavours of their fruits, you can sense the promise of this seaside resort's vitality.

Nice is like a huge villa nestled in the open, and all the Niçois will tell you that you must go outdoors to live here. Real life is outside, found in a walk along 'The Prom', for its clarity and transparency. A way of life is at work in this city, which softens the sadness of existence. Time here seems to be denser and richer than elsewhere, like the light, which one feels could be drawn in with both hands, given how it flows in such abundance. Nice is the emotional homeland of all great sun-worshippers!

Its heart balances between sea and mountain, between snowy slopes and fiery pebble beaches. But here too is 'Cultura Terra', as the kitchen gardeners of the Cours Saleya a farmer's market proudly tell you in nissard the local dialect who are so tanned and hale that you might imagine them just back from an odyssey or a crusade.

There are so many stories and anecdotes to gather along with all these vegetables bursting with sunshine and bouquets of flamboyant bird of paradise flowers. Consider, for example, how it is that Nice has such endurance. 'From its many green lungs,' suggests a passer-by, muttering to himself, 'and from the sea, the sea!'