Bonjour Cote d’Azur

With the impulsive planning of this trip, I still can’t quite believe that I’m in France right now. It doesn’t help that it is so, so french, almost seems over the top!

Rob and I left San Francisco Tuesday night, flew to London, spent a few hours waiting for our delayed flight at chaotic Heathrow and landed in Nice at 8:30pm. One short bus ride and we met our apartment host who gave us the keys and a quick tour of our flat. Grabbed snacks from a nearby market for dinner. Uneventful night except for a visit from two cats who spied on us from the red tile roof.

Our time in Nice officially began the next morning. The apartment is on the top floor of a building that borders the old town (Vieille Ville) and provides a view of those tiny streets and the sea to the left, and a busy park, mountains and school to the right.

This is the bedroom with absurdly french linens and ancient wood beams. You can just see the famous Nice waterfall from the window:

We set out pretty early and walked down to the flower market. Had a touristy breakfast sitting at a table in the plaza: cafe creme, croissants, juice and baguettes.  The vendors were just setting up and fun to watch working.

Having broken the language barrier with breakfast and feeling brave – we bought produce at the market.  To start, these massive grapes:

Then, these amazing red figs, carefully wrapped in brown tissue paper before being bagged:

I wanted to, but didn’t, buy these tiny olive trees:

Walked down to the beach for a bit. Don’t these men fishing in an old boat look straight out of a Monet painting? Are you kidding me with that tiny French flag, guys?

Back to the apartment to drop off the supplies and have a quick snack of fruit and wine on the patio. The grapes were unbelievably tasty, with almost a rose flavor. Our apartment is at the top of the skinny yellow building in the middle with light green shutters. The traditional midday canon blast took us by surprise:

After the break, we walked to the castle hill. Lots of fancy cobblestones on the way up:

Here’s Rob at the famous waterfall:

And me in an old stone archway. It is starting to get hot out at this point and I am doubting that  I brought clothes appropriate for the warm weather. In San Francisco, a high of 70 degrees is still brisk. Here, it is downright balmy.

From the top of the hill, we had an amazing view of the beach and the back of our tiny apartment.

Walked back through the old town and had turkish kebabs for lunch. Rob got to work and I packed up to go to the beach. Swam in the water – not too cold and very salty – and read on the rocks. Back at the apartment, a quick bath and reading before going out for the evening’s shopping. This new park in the center of the city just opened a week ago and is pretty spectacular. Tourists and locals alike were having a great time watching this choreographed fountain as the sun began to set.

I just managed to catch sunset at the beach. Like Santa Barbara, the sun sets over the hills instead of the water here.

Then stopped at the local market and back home.  Rob is on a video conference with his co-workers and my laptop is going to run out of battery any minute! Off to make dinner, before Rob gets impatient and lights the fuse on a canon.