Nice Side-Trips

SIDE-TRIPS: Nice should be made your headquarters for forays along the Riviera. That way, you'll be able to dart to high-priced Monaco or Cannes in the day, but return to a budget-priced pad in low-cost Nice at night. The train takes exactly 26 minutes to make the trip to Monaco, leaves every half-hour. The trip to Cannes takes 47 minutes, and also leaves at half hour intervals. . . . You'll want to make at least one run to Monaco by bus, along the incredibly beautiful Moyenne Corniche. Buses depart from the Gare d'Autobus; and every half-hour from 2:00 p.m. Monaco features: the Casino at Monte Carlo (passport essential; sober dress -tie and jacket-usually required), the palace of our own Princess Grace, a yacht basin of ten filled with the pleasure craft of Greek millionaires, and the famous "Musee Oceanographique," world's largest marine museum. You may have no present liking for the subject of sea-life, but you'll soon pick it up at this place; a fascinating, weird series of exhibits. . . . Whatever you do, don't stay overnight in Cannes, the most expensive city on the Riviera, totally lacking the hordes of prix fixe restaurants and budget hotels found in Nice. . . . On a day excursion to Cannes, however, try to get to Ste. Marguerite, a mile away, to view the fort built by Richelieu, where you can still see the cell where the Man in the Iran Mask was held prisoner for 11 years by Louis XIV. . . .