We spent the day in Monaco and Monte Carlo. The weather was again perfect. The best part for me was the architecture, especially the Hotel de Paris. This is the side door, which I don’t think is as photographed but is amazing:
The yacht show had just ended the night before, so the docks were full of enormous ships. As always, the roads were full of high-end cars. On the way back to the hotel, I was surprised that the extent to which my students were talking about the cars they had seen. I knew some would be excited but I didn’t expect most of them to be. They did enjoy being by the water, but thought the water was too cold to swim in. They were impressed that Nietzsche swam in that very ocean—and in February.
A coffee at the Café de Paris Monte-Carlo was the extent of my extravagant purchases. Nietzsche, too, enjoyed Monte-Carlo but didn’t gamble—but wasn’t able to stop his friend from losing everything he had at the tables. About two hours before we left, I saw this building, which I thought was beautiful—and I’ll leave you with that.
The weather was perfect all day. Sunny, warm, blue sky. Here we are heading out for the day:
This is my class. The assistant dean is somewhere on the other side of the street leading the group, and I’m in the back pushing it forward.
We took a walk around Nice to visit some of the places where Nietzsche lived. One is marked with a plaque:
I had combed through Nietzsche’s letters looking for information about where he had lived (he moved at least every six months). Two of the places he mentioned I could not find over the summer when I went on a planning trip. One of the two I thought simply didn’t exist anymore as there was a large gap in the street numbers, with Nietzsche’s former residence unfortunately being in that gap. The other was even more mysterious as even the street apparently no longer existed. The weekend before we left, I discovered in that a letters to a friend, Nietzsche writes “P.S. Pet. rue St. Etienne is now renamed Rue Rossini.” A quick search on Google confirmed that Rue Rossini still exists. Nietzsche never gave a street number; just that he was living in the pension de Genève. Rue Rossini is about ten blocks long. I was excited that we might find another of Nietzsche’s former residences. My students and I walked about 20 minutes out of our way to get to it, and then walked down it, only to find nothing. Not one of them complained about being sent on a fool’s errand. I walked back later to see if we missed it. We hadn’t. Many of the buildings were Art Deco, so I’m guessing that Nietzsche’s former living quarters had been destroyed.
The days have become so short! It’s 7h15 and it’s still pitch black out. When did this happen?
Today I walked to France. It was about an hour each way. The route I took to France was not much fun for about twenty minutes—a narrow windy road with no shoulder and plenty of people enjoying driving along it and certainly not expecting a pedestrian. I found a better way on the way home. Next time I want to check out the little border town. This time, I didn’t do more than cross the boarder. In fact, if not for my phone letting me know that I had entered France and then that I had entered Luxembourg, I wouldn’t have noticed.
Even though it was Saturday, I had to get some work done. I thought a change of place might be good, so I went into one of the classrooms downstairs that I thought would be particularly sunny.
This is the a spot in the back of the classroom that pushes out. I was an enjoyable place to work. The classroom itself is the “Charles the Bold” classroom in honor of perhaps the most famous inhabitant of the Château.
All work and no play…plus it was a beautiful day, just perfect for walking to France. I followed the signs to an unusual restaurant, Bache Jang. The restaurant is supposed to be quite good. If the parking lot is any indication, it must be. Despite being in the middle of the forests and farmland between Differdange and France, the parking lot was full. Here’s the path I took home:
I took the long way home and stopped at the supermarket—and bought enough cookies to make up for whatever calories I burned on my walk across the border.
Classes in the morning followed by a full day of traveling to Nice via Barcelona. On board the flight to Spain, I discovered Mare Rosso. It tastes just like Campari but has neither alcohol nor calories. Unfortunately, it seems to be available in Spain only.
Before I mess the bed, here’s half of my room. Behind is a kitchenette, closet, and bathroom.
