Mimes

The figure on the far left, with his hand to his hat, is actually a mime. The other figures are bronze. One would think there would be more to do in a city like Antwerp, but maybe not.

The Big Cat is in Antwerp:

"That's the train station right next to the hotel (view from my room, 802).
stopped in a small grocery in the train station . Lots of shops in the train station - mainly diamond jewelers. Lots of hasidic jews wondering around."

Really big boats

Much bigger than they look. Oddly, measured in feet, not meters.

What?

There was a small (very small) boat regatta going on, and along came this.

Cannonballs

This is what a cannonball foundry looks like. Much easier to make the cannonballs near the cannons.

Antibes Harbor

Is, I think, the largest in Europe. The big boat is more typical than smaller ones. Antibes is interesting; much of it caters to English-speaking men looking for crew gigs.

Antibes

From atop the wall in Old Antibes - sandy beaches are not common, not much by waves, or tides, either.

Pizza

Not much variation among the menus here, but all of it is good - when the wind shifts, the garlic is pretty strong. All the pizza has crust as thin as crackers - like motzoh, or lavash. Other menu standards are beef tartar, lots of squid. You can get cheap, delicious sandwiches on baguettes everywhere. The baguettes are smaller, and less brittle than the ones you buy here.

Guys on the Beach

You get used to the topless women on the beach quite quickly, at least I did. Old women too, the color of brown shoe polish. Boy was chagrined that no young women seemed to go topless - mostly the twenty-or-thirty somethings.

Serious yachtage

Most boats makes the ones you see in NC look like rowboats.

Petanque

Similar to bocci; played mostly by old men; pastis is part of the scheme.

Restaurant Owner

It's true what they say about dogs in French restaurants, except this one - possibly the biggest dog I've ever seen - owns the kitchen, too.

But the Water's Really Cold

Guy on the beach

Boy, Island of St. Marguerite - where the Man in the Iron Mask was jailed.