Finally, Time to Talk About France

sorry...busy week!

ok, so we left rome in the early hours of the morning so that we could get to the french riviera, making Nice our home base. it has been 20 years since being there, and it was like going for the first time (aside from the promenade with the glorious blue sea on one side, and the crazy hotels on the other.)

we took the bus from the airport to the bus station (which was near our flat that we had rented). it cost one euro. let me say this once because if i don't make a big deal about this now, i will repeatedly throughout this post. you could go ANYWHERE in the french riviera. so every day trip i discuss below, it literally took 2 euros. one each way. frigging nuts.

the first thing we did was unpack and throw in a load of laundry, but wow, our flat was amazing. having just lived in a hotel room the size of my bedroom in wimbledon, it was nice to get to a proper 600 square foot flat with kitchen, COUCHES, our own room, a wc, a shower room and the blessed washer and dryer. i love that i came home with a suitcase of clean clothes.

right after, we head out 'there' for lunch, which ended up being the bakery downstairs, i feasted on tomate chevre salad and a tomate chevre tart (can you sense a theme?). i absolutely love french food. we then head straight to the promenade des anglais (that's us english) and stared at the open blue spaces. it was so warm and moist and blue, i almost cried. we made our way down the promenade into the old city where the streets are tiny and full of shops, restaurants and a tourists paradise. as you walk you run into flower markets, cafes (mmmm, had a cafe frappe that reminded me of greece 09), and we meandered. we didn't want to commit to too many things that first night because we wanted our last full day in france to be a nice extravaganza. inevitably we made our way back to our flat on giofreddo in the middle of it all, and bought some groceries,  and made our way down to the pedestrian walk for dinner. moules frites. mmmmmmmmm, although remarkably, nice was more expensive than rome.

our first full day in france we hopped on the bus and made our way to monaco where we walked the sh*t out of that town. we made friends on the way over (from toronto of course) and they told us about the monaco boat show at the harbour where you can go aboard all these luxury boats (essentially the booths at a tradeshow) and see what you and your millions can do to your water home. the yachts there were amazing...sitting out there in the deep blue sea. they head to the harbour and we walked up up up to the palace where prince albert ii now resides with his fiance. looks like the bachelor (thought to be gay) has given up his singledom. maybe george clooney will too (btw - saw him in ads for nespresso and for a watch company....he's a barrista and a clock maker amazing). when we were at the palace we happened upon the changing of the guard. afterward, we head around the exotic gardens and across to the aquarium where they were having a body worlds-esque show and had random statues of human beings half with skin and half not. we saw a large pregnant woman sitting on one of the docks. she must have been 50 feet high! half skin, the other half muscle with her babe in utero. bizarre. plastic, but bizarre.

we made our way down to the boat show and promptly changed our mind about attending since it would cost us 60 euro to go. i mean, yes, once in a lifetime opportunity, but to go on a bunch of yachts like that isn't worth that much in my lifetime. :) we lunched, we meandered, we saw everything we possibly could of monaco (aside from the casino - but we were hot, tired and couldn't be bothered). dinner that night was in our room. turns out we've become addicted to the food in our lovely bakery downstairs. we go for an walk and it is at this time we start to notice something....and it becomes clearer the next day.

our next day trip is to eze, a beautiful medieval town between nice and monaco that is rumoured to have beautiful beaches...but we didn't go there because we went to the upper part of town. if you saw the bus system, you'd see you really only have once choice, unless you fancy a 90 minute walk up a 45 degree angle from the new town (the beach) to the old town. so we got off the bus, and began our (smaller) climb to the old town and ran into fragonnard. we were in there for what felt like an hour sampling all of their perfumes before buying. of course, because they bottle without the labels, we're not sure exactly who we're buying, but when i went to the fragonnard factory in grasse so many years ago, i know they bottled for some major brands, with joy being one of their most expensive.

we then walked up to the old town, wandered through the tiny tiny streets, and hiked up to the top of the town where the exotic garden sits atop. this is when i realise i've been here before with my school group in 1990. yowza. i don't remember the town much but i do remember that garden. the views up there are stunning, and we found the place of contemplation, where we contemplated why we live in freezing canada, and made a decision to retire there as soon as possible. we made our way back down the town, past he church, the old cemetary and to le cactus for crepes. i had me some ham, onion, mushroom and rochefort cheese. ah-may-zen. and for dessert, i had crepe with nutella. and gailbaxter ordered un crepe avec sucre et citroen. the server looks at me and i say 'sucre et citroen' and he says 'ah, oui'.

gail looks at me and the realisation dawns on her face. she realises she speaks joey tribiani french. oh what laughter ensued.

after having spent many hours meandering through eze, and checking out the tourist shops from the bus stop (literally by leaning over and peeking in), we made our way back to nice and to the cafe we had found a few days back where we had the cafe frappes. they had transformed themselves into a dining extravaganza, and considering they were across the street from the tourist mecca of ridiculously overpriced restaurants, for a fraction of the price, we feasted! i had my roasted rabbit stuffed with mushrooms, over a bed of tagliatelle and roasted veg, tossed in truffle oil. ah. may. zen. dessert was a lovely tarte pommes and gail indulged in a lemon meringue. they do meringue very nicely.

the next day was our only rainy day, and the day we had earmarked for cannes. it took 2 hours to get there on a crowded bus (we stood the whole way). when we got there, the heavens opened, we didn't have umbrellas and i was wearing a white shirt. so we ducked into a small bakery and had tomate chevre tart (mmmmmm) and some macaroons, and a fanta. love fanta. we popped into another shop for a pashmina (100% viscose...how do they call themselves pashmina?) and a 5 euro umbrella. we wrapped up, covered up and within an hour of being there, made our way back to the bus stop. a rough ride in and the bad weather pissed us off enough and we said 5 thumbs down to cannes! ha ha

that night we went for a drink at the hotel westminster and sat outside. an english hotel, we were treated to creature comforts on the patio overlooking the beaches. we sat under palm trees drinking beer, eating our free snacks of olives and cheezie crackers, and gail got pinged on the head with the nuts falling off the palms. we checked out the negresso, sat and watched the sunset on the sea, then made our way to another great find off the beaten path. gail was tempted by the moules frites (after she ordered, the server had to turn to me to ask what she wanted for dinner - oh joey tribiani. she must have been the valedictorian of that language school), and i had half a chicken in herbs en provence with fries and salad. again, what a feast. we topped that off with french 'gelato' but it was still all good.

our last day in nice was fantastic. the blue sky was back with abandon. we made our way through the old town to pick up some last minute gifts. i can't list anything i bought otherwise christmas might be spoiled for a few key family  members. sorry! we meandered through an amazing flower and vegetable market, and of course we found a small cafe tucked away in the streets and scored some croque madame and croque monsieur sandwiches with salad (um 3 euros!) and they were so yum. we went back to the flat to get our beach stuff and spent some time on the beach that afternoon. i forgot my suit! idiot that i am, but went in and got my shorts wet anyway. perhaps it was a good thing though. although there were lots of swimmers, its not the warm mediterranean at that time of year. it was quite cool.

all that was left was to decide what to eat for our last meal. and so we went forth and secured some paella, and gelato of course!

what a beautiful town, nice is. i always knew i'd retire in the mediterranean but didn't know exactly where. i had thought tropea, but its so seasonal there, but nice....its year round. it felt like home.

speaking of...only 7 weeks to go. i have a few day trips planned to cambridge, oxford and bath. in 2 weeks i'm off to prague for a long weekend, and hopefully to amsterdam at the end of october. i can't believe this time is winding down so fast. i'm getting a touch emotional. this trip in france...it felt like the beginning of the end. it wasn't a long time away, it is only heartbeats away now. i'm conflicted, but i know i've made the right choice.

i can always come back. xoxo