Preamble
Me and another expat spouse who's currently living in France, recently took a trip down to the French Riviera. We spent two nights in the city of Nice and three days touring a few locations in the area and along the coast of the Mediterranean. We did this trip on a major budget and to be honest, I was pretty surprised at how little it cost given everything we did. In total, for the flight from Paris to Nice, two nights in a decent hotel, and all of our food, drinks, and public transit, I only spent 210 euros. To out that i to perspective, it's quite difficult to drive to a destination 6 hours away without spending close to that on gas and toll roads these days (round trip of course).
I think the low cost just helps me justify traveling for fun while my wife is at work though. Luckily to ease my guilt, she will soon be going to Prague, Germany, London, Belfast and I think Romania for both work and pleasure while I watch our pets at home, so that does make me feel a little better.
Anyway, we went to Nice specifically for the Carnival celebration so that's what this first post is going to be about, our experience of the event. To be honest though, it really didn't work out well for us, I'll get to that shortly.
Carnival in Brief
The Carnival festival is actually a semi-religious event that dates back to the middle ages. It takes place from 16 February to 2 March and is held in the Masséna Square near the old town. The event sort of relates to the religious time of Lent.
Traditionally it was meant to celebrate and eat a lot of fatty foods up until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, when everyone begins their long religious fast. It also goes by another familiar name "Mardi Gras," or fat Tuesday.
According to the official website the title "Carnival" is believed come from the phrase "carne levare," which translates to "away with meat," again another reference to Lent.
The official website for Nice Carnival had this to say about its Festival:
The Nice Carnival is the most important in France and one of the most famous the world over. It takes place every year during the month of February and is one of the most popuar events on the French Riviera, attracting each year hundreds of thousands of spectators.
I think it might have talked itself up a bit personally, because our experience of the parade wasn't all that great.
Based on all of the photographs we saw online we were expecting a parade with floats and confetti and people dressed up in costumes. These things were all there, though we thought that the celebration would be in the streets and that everyone would be a part of it.
Thats what the photos online portray and all of the blogs we read seemed to talk about. It wasn't really like that at all though. In actuality the parade and event was entirely closed off and took place behind a large barrier fence that extended for several blocks.
You had to buy tickets to get into the event and unfortunatley they were completely sold out when we went to buy some. After the fact we did see on the official website that you had to buy tickets but everything else online that we had both read stated that the event was free if you wanted to stand in the crowd and that you only had to pay if you wanted to sit up in the grandstand. This was obviously not the case at all.
We were pretty confused when we saw the massive wall standing there and were equally surprised that the event was completely sold out basically until the end of the month. We weren't the only ones who experienced this of course, many people in line seemed equally confused and appeared to be asking the same questions.
According to a local that we spoke to afterwards, Carnival in Nice isn't like it used to be. After the terrorist attacks some years ago the event went from being a parade held in the streets for everyone to a closed off event that you had to pay for to be a part of. The city no longer even really celebrates outside the event itself and the guy we spoke to made it sound like it wasn't that big of an event for the city.
Dealing with the Fun Police
After walking around the entire perimeter of the wall we eventually found a pretty decent spot to view the parade and the floats. It was on a public promenade down by the water and was a little ways back from the parade street, but we could see everything clearly and were fairly satisfied with it as a spot to view the event. It actually didn't seem any worse than the paid seating area just a few feet in front of us really.
We took up spots along the fence with a gathering crowd and patiently waited for the parade to start. It ended up starting about 20 minutes later than the official start time of 8:00pm.
After about 6 minutes of standing there though people working the event began breaking up the crowd and shooing everyone along. They didn't want us stopping apparently.
No one understood why given that we were on public property a far distance away from the parade and outside of a metal gate. It literally felt like they just didn't want us to see it. Maybe it related to what I said previously about the terrorist attacks some years back but I don't know for sure.
Once the parade started it sort of became a game that everyone played with the workers though. The workers would walk through the crowd telling everyone to keep moving and everyone would walk slowly until they passed by and then everyone would stop and watch for another 5-8 minutes until we were all told to leave once again. We all repeated this procedure for about 20 minutes or so until the workers brought in the big guns to get rid of us.
I actually mean that literally too. The military personal that you see around every major citiy and every event, the ones dressed in camo carrying assault rifles, began walking the promanade telling everyone to leave.
We all tried our usual game of moving slowly but it only worked for one pass. The soldiers weren't having it at all and started walking slowly in a line that spanned the the entire walkway from one end to the other and no one could get around, nor did anyone have the confidence to try.
The soldiers then stopped at both exits and didn't let anyone onto the walkway afterwards, not even an UberEats courier trying to use the promanade as a shortcut. His delivery would definitely be late since he had to go around the entire large event.
The fun police had won and we had to move on to a different location.
We ended up finding a better spot though. It was a place behind the wall but one where the floats got really close to it and towered high above.
We could see them perfectly there and got some great photos of them passing by. Most of the photos of the floats close up were taken in that location.
A Look Behind the Curtain (I Mean the Wall)
I could have talked up the Carnival event, posted my photos of the floats upclose and said how amazing the experience was and I'm sure that no one would be the wiser.
But the truth of the matter is that the experience for us was mediocre at best. We did have fun but it was only because we stayed positive and made the most of our situation. That being said, this is the part where I give you a glimpse behind the veil and show you the truth of what we were dealing with.
Like I said above, the floats towered over the wall and looked really cool and I was able to get some great photos of them. It's what you've seen throughout the post. But when I zoom out with my camera you can see the actuality of the situation.
We were on the outside of a wall looking in, or maybe I should say "looking over."
Some people were literally peeking through the cracks in the gates to see what was going on inside.
The Carnival in Nice isn't actually a city celebration or a parade for the public like it's portrayed online. In truth it's actually a paid event in a closed off space that didn't seem that large really. The event lasts about 2 hours and then everyone leaves and its all over. There are no further celebrations in the city from what we saw or heard from the local so I really wouldn't go in thinking that its a celebration. If you do go in the future, keep in mind that you need a ticket and that they sell out fast, so make sure to buy them well in advance.