Day 2551 (Sunday) 2nd June 2024
This is Antibes
There were two cruise ships in the bay this morning and the forecast wasn’t great.
We planned on going to the Jardin Botanique de Nice and the Orthodox Russian cemetery and the cemetery only opens at 2pm on a Sunday so we decided to wait a while to see what the weather was going to do. By 1pm the weather was good enough and we decided to go. We stopped for a kebab in Nice and chose a different kebab shop very close to the one we usually use. I went in to look at the menu while Huw parked and locked the scooter. I was amazed to see there was no menu just some machines.
Huw joined me and was as surprised as I was and the lady behind the counter came to explain how the system worked. It was all touch screen choices, and she went through it all with us. We chose our options and waited for the receipt.
When we got the receipt I asked what was going to happen next and she walked to a nearby kitchen and gave the receipt to the chef and we waited for the kebab. Surely just going to the counter and saying ‘one kebab menu please’ is a lot quicker.
We ate the kebab in the park and it was really good, there is one more kebab shop in the area so next time we’ll try that and see which is the winner.
The next stop was the botanical gardens on the outskirts of Nice.
Jardin botanique de Nice
The Jardin botanique de la Ville de Nice (3.5 hectares), also known as the Jardin botanique de Nice, is a municipal botanical garden located at 78 Avenue de la Corniche Fleurie, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. It is open daily without charge.
History
The garden was begun in 1983 with an initial planting of 100 species from the city's Musée
d'Histoire Naturelle (Museum of Natural History). It opened to the public in 1991.
Contents
Today the garden contains more than 3,500 plant species, mainly Mediterranean, including collections of trees (300 taxa), herbaceous plants (800 taxa), medicinal plants (150 spp.), Cistaceae, Rhamnaceae, Lamiaceae, Genista, Acacia, Salvia, Phlomis, Rosa, Dianthus, Yucca, Iris, Pelargonium, Opuntia, Stipa, Teucrium, Astragalus, and Cistus. It is organised into areas representing zones of Mediterranean climate from around the world, including South Africa, South Australia, Mexico, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, the Near East, and the Canary Islands, as well as Central Asia, China, and Japan.
Of particular note are its collections of agaves, Cupressaceae, and sages. Protected plants include Allium chamaemoly, Allium trifoliatum, Ampelodesmos mauritanicus, Anagallis tenella, Anemone coronaria, Carex grioletii, Centaurea pseudocaerulescens, Ceratonia siliqua, Chamaerops humilis, Cneorum tricoccon, Coronilla valentina, Cyrtomium fortunei, Drimia maritima, Heteropogon contortum, Lavatera maritima, Leucojum nicaeense, Limonium cordatum, Lotus tetragonolobus, Ophrys bertolonii, Papaver pinnatifidum, Picris altissima, Polystichum setiferum, Posidonia oceanica, Pteris cretica, Romulea columnae, Scilla hyacinthoides, Stipa capensis, Symphytum bulbosum, Tulipa clusiana, and Vitex agnus-castus.
The garden also contains a herbarium of some 6,000 species, with particular strength in phanerogams of the Mediterranean region and other Mediterranean climates, including Salvia, Phlomis, Astragalus, Cistaceae, and species cultivated in the garden.
These names really don’t mean much to me but if you know your flowers you should understand them. It was really peaceful up there with no traffic or people noises but I must admit that everything looked the same to us despite all the different places they’d come from.
Our next stop was the Orthodox cemetery which was really close by but it took us a while to find it. We visited the Commonwealth war cemetery by accident first and all the names were British or American. Next door we found the Orthodox one and saw that there was quite a lot of private homes around them, what a depressing place to live surrounded by graveyards.
This is the Commonwealth cemetery.
and this is the Orthodox one...
Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Nice
The Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Nice (French: Cimetière orthodoxe de Caucade) also known as the Orthodox cemetery in Caucade, is a cemetery located southwest of Nice, France.
History and description
The cemetery was established on a plot bought by Russia in 1867 on the hill of Caucade, at a time when the Russian colony had an important role in the French Riviera.
3,000 Russians, including the descendants of Russian immigrants and refugees after the October Revolution and the members of royal families, are buried at the cemetery. This includes Galitzine, Naryshkin, Obolensky, Volkonsky, Tsereteli and Gagarin families.
The cemetery chapel is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, in honour of the patron Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia who died of tuberculosis in Nice.
The cemetery is open on Thursday and Saturday from 9:00 to 12:00 and on Friday and Sunday from 14:00 to 17:00.).
I looked up why there is an extra beam on an orthodox cross and found this…
‘The lower beam represents the footrest upon which our Lord's feet were nailed. Several traditions exist which explain the slanting. In the sixth century, the slanted beam symbolised the agony and struggle of our Lord during His suffering on the cross.’
Notables buried
Princess Catherine Dolgorukaya-Yurievskaya (1847–1922)
Vladimir Golenishchev (1856–1947), Russian Egyptologist
Princess Helen of Serbia (1884–1962)
Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), German physician, sexologist and LGBT rights activist
Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich Romanov (1902–1978)
General Dmitry Shcherbachev, (1857–1932)
General Nikolai Yudenich (1862–1933)
We were very lucky with the weather and it didn’t rain, we’ve got to stop listening to the weather forecasts.
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