Ah the French Riviera. The weather is certainly a lot better.

With this town, I've worked out my New Town routine. Three nights is long enough to 1) recover from travel, and wander the city a bit the first evening 2) play tourist/scout the next day, and busk if I want to test out a spot 3) put in a full day of busking 4) check out and hit the trains for the next town or decide to stay longer.

Nice allows busking, the locals know what a street show is, and all you need to gather a crowd is to set up a show. But for some reason, and this is supported by general reputation, complaints of a French busker, and my own experience, the French are quite stingy about the hat.There is probably a way to fix that, but it likely involves being fluent in French....

After a couple shows in the central square, and watching a French juggler/acrobat command a 250 person audience, and only get a pittance for his show, I was told that the good places are in Old Nice where there are American tourists.

I tried there next, and was able to gather a small crowd, smaller than in town, and they paid better per person, but it wasn't the hat described by my juggler friend, who was nonetheless performing for the French instead, in the face of being warned by police that they would confiscate his equipment. (They didn't bother me. I think the issue was noise level.)

Nice might be nicer later in the tourist season, but for right now there just aren't the necessary crowds of tourists. I spent day three in the hotel instead of the street, studying and practicing a less verbal, more visual trick to replace my mindreading routine for non-English audiences.

After that it was onto the train and east to Italy, because Nice just wasn't all that nice. I may be back to try again, but for now I want to see some more places.