Diano Marina – Nice – Monaco – San Remo (Part 3)

The third stop was Monaco, a small but well known country located along the French Riviera. It is one of six microstates in Europe (the other five are Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, San Marino and Vatican City).

Monaco, HDR

It is the world’s most densely populated country with a population of just 32’410 and an area of 1.96 square kilometers (second place is Macau and third Hong Kong). It is also a tax haven because there is no income tax for individuals.

Monte Carlo is the wealthiest of Monaco’s areas and probably the best known for it’s casino. The permanent population is about 3000.

Monaco is one of the most expensive places on earth but despite of this fact we enjoyed a Banana Split in front of the casino (it was about 12 Euros).

Casino Monte Carlo, HDR

To gain residency in Monaco you need to live there for six months a year and you also need a bank certificate from one of Monaco’s banks showing a deposit of 400’000 Euros.

Casino Monte Carlo, HDR

Property costs are now higher than in London. A studio for one person and no special view is about one million euros. The square meter is about 27000 Euros (based on abcnews)!

Monaco Trip Details

KwaZulu-Natal South Coast

During our visit of South Africa last year we used the Southern Explorer for planing some of the tours. It’s a guide which is published by the Southern Explorer Association as a free service to visitors to KwaZulu-Natal. The Association has chosen the rare Samango Monkey (Cercopithecus Mitis) as a mascot and logo. It is a shy but also a highly social animal.

We decided to go the tour 3 which is the spectacular Oribi Gorge Nature Reserve. It’s about 22km inland from Port Shepstone and a popular weekend getaway or day-excursion destination. Self-guided trails reveal an array of antelope and birds. High sandstone cliffs dominate the 24km long gorge carved out by the Umzimkulwana River.

Some other impressions of the trip follow.

Sebence Paradise Garden

Hluhluwe / Imfolozi Park

View from our Muntulu Bush Lodge

HDR Views from Palfries (1715m)

Heading towards the Palfries Berggasthaus I took this shot at about 1715m above sea level. The valley is still covered with thick fog. Click on the picture for a larger version.

The next picture shows the back side of the Alvier which was the goal of one of our last hiking tours.

The Palfries Berggasthaus is a nice place to take a rest and they serve great food! It’s not really cheap but the view and quality is well worth it.

Diano Marina – Nice – Monaco – San Remo (Part 2)

The second stop on our 4 day trip was Nice, a city in southern France between Marseille and Genoa. It’s the leading resort on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur) and one of europe’s most fashionable winter retreats. We visited the famous Promenade des Anglais, the flower market and had a relaxing time at the beach.

 Nice / Nizza

On the following picture you can see the Port of Nice with the speed ferry to Corsica and in the back the Monument aux morts and the famous La Prom. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Although I’m not that history interested I think it is still good to know some cornerstones when you travel. It helps to build a better understanding of the culture, the food, the architecture and of course the language. For example was Nice founded by the Greeks of Massilia (Marseille) about 350 BC and has it’s name in honor of a victory over the neighbouring Ligurians (Nike is the Greek goddess of vicory). 200 years later the Romans took control. The popularity of the city grew during the Victorian period when the Englishmen made it their main winter retreat.

The La Promenade des Anglais (“Walk of the English”) was proposed by rich Englishmen in the 18th century. At that time the coast was just borded by a deserted band of beach covered by large pebbles. Houses were well away from the sea. The promenade was first called the Camin dei Anglès (the English Way) by the Niçois in their native dialect Nissart. After the annexation of Nice by France in 1860 it was rechristened La Promenade des Anglais, replacing it’s former Nissart name with it’s french translation (source: Wikipedia).

Nice Trip Details

Steve Ballmer live in Zurich

Today I attended the “The global designer conference – Expression around the Clock” which takes place in 10 major cities worldwide (Auckland, Bangalore, Kairo, Mailand, Mexico City, Moskau, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Toronto) and luckily also in Zurich in the Swissotel. One can say that the event in Zurich was special compared to the other cities because the keynote speaker was Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.

I didn’t know that Steve has swiss roots because his father actually hails from Biel and in the morning he got a honorary citizenship from Lausen

The keynote speech of Steve Ballmer started at 2:30 pm and was about 1 hour long. There was a live stream of the event available at the expression website and I hope there will be soon the recorded version of the speeches.

Steve focused on the user interface and the optimal combination of great design and great code. With the new technology “Silverlight”, Microsoft tries to combine the rich user experience of desktop applications with the broad accessibility of the internet. I like the comparison of the two “worlds” Internet vs. Desktop with the two words Reach vs. Rich. Unfortunately they go contrarily. The richer your application should be, the more you are dependent on local hardware and software installations and therefore you have a smaller reach.

After the keynote Sascha P. Corti and Stefano Mallè talked about “Next Generation Internet Website’s and Applications” and Sascha showed some Silverlight Demos in combination with Expression Blend. The key thing is that the design world and the developer world should work more together and Expression Blend is one tool which supports this in a great way.

Check out some amazing examples of Silverlight website’s (for a few examples you need the .net Framework 3.0 installed):

• British Library (Turning Pages 2.0)
• The New York Times Reader
• Popfly Overview
• Media Preview TV
• HSN Shopping TV

Steve Ballmer’s speaking style was very enthusiastic and entertaining and personally I think he was the best speaker this afternoon. The event was well organized by the internet-briefing club and I’m looking forward to the next interesting presentations.

Diano Marina – Nice – Monaco – San Remo (Part 1)

During the last short trip or – as Tim Ferris would call it – mini retirement we visited the famous Côte d’Azur and Riviera of Flowers. The first stop was Diano Marina where we stayed 3 nights at the Piccolo hotel.

Diano Marina

The Gulf of Diana is one of the most important tourist areas in the Riviera of Flowers and Liguria. The name Diano Marina derives from the ancient devotion to the Roman Goddess Diana. The small town has a 3.5 km long sand beach with lots of bars, restaurants, night clubs, shops and hotels. It is located 90 km southwest of Genoa and it’s population is about 7’000. It borders the following comunes: Diano Castello, Imperia and San Bartolomeo al Mare. For a better overview check out the KMZ file I’ve created.

During these months (September, October) it is not so packed with tourists and the beaches are almost empty. Probably the best time to book a relaxing Riviera trip. On sunny days it’s still warm enough to enjoy a swim.

As you can see on the next picture the first day was a bit cloudy but – to see the positive aspect – I think cloudy skies are more interesting on pictures than just clear blue ones. With some experimentation you can get all the details of the sky without overexposure. In such situations I always use the spot metering to get the right exposure.

Diano Marina, HDR

A storm was coming but the lightning at the horizon was still far away so we took a couple of pictures this afternoon.

Diano Marina Beach, HDR

The next morning most of the clouds were gone and the sunrise beneath the thick cloud wall was amazing.

Ocean, HDR

If you are interested you can download the following KMZ File to watch some of the GPS tracks I recorded in Diano Marina.

Diano Marina Trip Details

There will be also some more pictures in the gallery (the next days).