It's nice in Nice

Yesterday we got a sleep in – as in an actual sleep in. We didn't have anything official scheduled before 1pm so it was up to us when we got up. We prized ourselves out of bed at 8am and headed down to a pretty simple breakfast of coffee and croissants. Kimilla and I headed out together to explore the City of Nice – it’s nice in Nice.

It was really a good time of year to visit because the weather is still sunny and still warm but the summer crowds have gone (well and it was a Tuesday), so everything was pretty quiet. We went for a walk along the promenade down to the flower market (The Marche aux fleurs). From there we trailed back through the Older Town looking through some of knick-knack shops to the Massena Square and through some of the Newer town, where they had cafes, clothes shops and other things – Including a cute we pet shop complete with little dogs. It’s a good thing there is decent supply of little dogs, because Nice is known to be occupied largely by older widows of rich men, who had died under suspicious circumstances. Apparently the women deal with their grief by leathering their skin on the beach (topless!) occupied by their little dogs.

We stopped for a light baguette for lunch – making sure that we only got one’s made from the end pieces, as we had been warned that the middle sections may have been in Pierre’s armpit (bad joke but we laughed).

At 1pm we caught up with some of the group members and went for a tour around some of the other areas just outside of Nice. We started first by going up to an amazing little perched village at St Paul de Vance. The village there was originally built as a Roman battlement but now is mainly used by artists and other creative types. It was really interesting just to walk around the cobble stone paths and take photos. Interestingly, one of the cafés on the edge of the town was once frequented by many little known artists who were able to pay for the meals by donating a painting to the owner. The owner stored the paintings in the attic, which was later discovered by his grandchildren. The collection was found to contain priceless pieces by Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse, Leger, Calder, Chagall and many others, which now are used as decorations around the café. Unfortunately, we were told that you need to book an appointment several months in advance to actually get inside, so we didn’t get in to see it – but there’s an interesting piece of history for you.

From there we went for a drive around the Scenic Moyenne Corniche enjoying views of the most expensive properties in the world (literally on property recently sold for over 172 million euros). While we were there we stopped off at the Fragonard Perfumery for a demonstration of how they make their perfumes, soaps and other beauty products. It was pretty interesting and in my humble opinion rather similar to what I had seen going on in some of the breweries and distilleries that I have visited. It was also interesting to see a place in the process of making complicated and very manual products by hand.

From there John took us to an amazing family owned French Restaurant for dinner. So far this is the best food that we have all trip – in my opinion. All the courses were wonderful but in particular for the entrée we had a fish soup – which was kind of like a chowder but without the white sauce, rather it was served with croutons, a paprika and garlic mayonnaise and cheese. The deal was that you put the mayonnaise on the croutons and placed it in the empty bowl, then ladelled the soup on top before adding a sprinkling of cheese. If that constituted the entire meal I would have been happy, but we had two other courses after that and a sampling of the local wines.

Today we had a normal start and were on the road at about 7.45. Today was one of the bigger driving days as we had to go from Nice through to Lyon. We drove a fairly scenic route past Cannes (where they have the film festival) and stopped off for a few scenic hours in the small town of Avignon. Avignon borders the Rhône River and is interesting due to the medieval parts of the old town Centre. It used to be a papal city in the 1300’s – and the Popes created quite the abode aptly named “the Palace of Popes”.

We did a little exploring around the old town and took a small walk along part of the city wall up to the botanical gardens. It was a good chance to get out and stretch the legs and nice to be outside of the coach – as we have spent quite a bit of time on it over the last few weeks. For lunch we had some baguettes in a small café with some macaroons and a Café Latte.

We arrived in Lyon at about 5.30 and had a nice dinner included dinner at the hotel restaurant. Tomorrow will be our final bus travelling day on the Road to Paris.