The coast of dreams

It’s hard to imagine that 3 weeks ago we were on a plane headed to Europe to start our adventure.  Three weeks have already passed and it feels like we have seen and done more things than we ever thought we would see.  In only two countries we have seen thousands of years of history and beauty.  We have walked a million miles it seems in markets, along famous streets, and in cities’ hidden jewels.  Hitting the coast of Marseille and Nice and seeing the sun everyday since we have been here has been a wonderful experience and both Heather and I have fallen in love with this place in the world.  We have only explored a little of nice so far, but we already love this city. 

It’s Sunday and our first full day in Nice.  After having a great sleep in our Murphy bed, we decided we would continue to explore the old side of Nice.  Our apartment is right on the beach with the Promenade Des Anglais street stretching along the entire coast line of Nice.  This apartment is quite a bit different than our past apartments, but we did splurge a little bit on the price.  We are still paying significantly less than you would for a dive hotel in Canada.  First you take a motion sensored escalator to the second floor, then a human sized elevator to our sixth floor.  Once inside the apartment you have a full bathroom with bidet in the shower (still find those things weird).  We are still a bit confused on how the thing actually works.  I think it makes a great foot cleaner . . . anyway, the apartment has a queen size Murphy bed, kitchen table, tiny kitchen with half fridge and washing machine, and balcony looking out into the courtyard.  The balcony wall is three sliding glass doors that give an unhindered view of outside.  We have been sleeping with the doors open as the temperature outside is perfect and we love the feeling.  This of course would not be possible in Canada because of all our bugs, but here there are very few bugs and fewer still that bite.  We really do love the apartment and it is definitely our best location yet.

So heading out to explore Vieux Nice is only about 3 or 4 blocks to the east of us.  Nice is situated very close to Italy and until the mid 19^th century was part of the kingdom of Savoy, so there are several architectural influences that differ from traditional French buildings.  In fact, the whole old city reminds me a lot of Venice.  Pedestrians own the street and the few cars and motorbikes that try and pass through the streets are either lost tourists or locals that live in a nearby building.  Many of the streets are even too narrow for cars so the shops line the sides of the street with their goods to sell.  Once we got into that part of town we didn’t have to go far before we found the famous flower and produce market.  Imagine 4 or 5 city blocks in length with two and sometimes three rows of vendors selling the most fragrant flowers and delicious looking fruit.  We got there at the end of the market so we didn’t get the full effect, but we are planning on returning again see and smell everything.  The market goes on everyday except Mondays, where it is replaced by an antique market.  Well needless to say we will be going to that tomorrow!

After the market we continue through the tiny streets, trying to get lost in all the wonders of an ancient city made modern.  We saw several shops selling salt.  Now that doesn’t sound very exciting, especially when we think of sea salt as being exotic.  Well these vendors had dozens of salts from all over the world in every colour imaginable with spices and smells you need to experience to fully appreciate.  We were both breath taken and are will be collecting some salt to bring back.  Other shops had dozens of flavours of ice cream and gelato, with your favorite chocolate bar mixed right into the ice cream.  Heather found a Moroccan dress shop that was selling what I call “Genie pants”.  They are apparently quite comfortable, and since Heather was wearing my shorts that weren’t fitting well, we decided it was good timing for her to get a pair.  She has worn them everyday since;)   We travelled through Vieux Nice and returned to a sushi place I had seen that had a good deal.  I love sushi and little by little I am getting Heather to try more and more variety.  What I didn’t see the first time is that they had all you can eat sushi for cheaper than a typical meal would be.  So needless to say we plopped ourselves down and 72 pieces of sushi later we were both full.  Nothing compares to Sushi Miso in Medicine Hat, but this was a close second for great sushi. 

Right about the time we were finishing our meal we noticed some rain clouds beginning to creep their way towards us.  We made it to Massena square, a large square like St. Marks square in Venice with many naked statues and shops lining the perimeter.  We went into this one shop we had seen all over Europe that had the neatest things.  It’s a sort of designer line of everyday items made neat.  For Instance, a cheese grater in a cone shape with a figure on top so it looks like a dress, or a calculator that looks like a chocolate bar, or large screw that is a pen at the end (which I bought).  The store is called Pylones and if they have a website you should check it out!  While we were in there it started to downpour like nobody’s business.  We decided to wait it out since we had left the umbrella at home.  We were entertained by little kids running in and out of the rain, and a Michael Jackson impressionist that looked like Freddy Krueger.  We have seen several street performers already, from Brazilian Capoiera to an opera singer to musicians of all kinds.  My favorites are the spray can artists that do paintings right in front of you. 

Thought I would add this picture for laughs, for those of you who understand French and know what Lush is.

Since it was wet out still, we headed back to the apartment and played some rook while we waited for things to dry up.  Heather beat me, grrrr.  We then got ready for supper and headed back to the streets.  The area right next to us and Vieux Nice has several restaurants and you really only need to walk a few blocks before you will have found something you like.  This time we were delighted to find someone selling original paintings of Nice.  Since we were unable to find a painting in Marseille, we picked up a panoramic post card in case we couldn’t find anything else.  The man selling these paintings had a great painting that kept with our water theme and had a harbour as the main focus.  Since that is what we most remember about Marseille and what defines a lot of the cities on the Mediterranean, we decided we would buy the painting as our Marseille, Nice, and Monaco painting.  We are amassing quite a collection of artwork, but are so excited to show them off.

Our supper destination ended up being one of the local restaurants that didn’t seem too busy, but ended up being completely full by the time we got our food.  We both had lamb with ratatouille and grated dolphin.  Ya, not sure why we ordered grated dolphin, but were hoping it wasn’t what it sounded like.  It ended up being scalloped potatoes, and some of the best I have ever had I might add.  We both agree it was either the best or second best lamb we have had in Europe.  We enjoyed chocolate mousse for dessert together.

While we were waiting for our chocolate mousse, an older couple was seated next to us and we eventually could tell they were English speaking.  I think they struck up a conversation and it lasted for nearly an hour over dessert and throughout their meal (which made waiting the typical 20 minutes for the bill much more pleasant).  We learned that he was from Toronto and she was from Hollywood, Florida.   When we started talking about travels this couple blew my mind with where they had been and what they had done in their lifetimes.  Everywhere we are planning on going they have been and many places they have been and done several times.  This trip they decided they would take a month in Nice because they hadn’t been here before.  They saw the grand prix in Monaco and numerous other little adventures we had heard about doing while here.  My favourite story was their plans to stay 3 weeks in Amsterdam, which turned into 9 weeks.  Not sure what they did for work, but we should have asked!  They really were a great couple and made our night really special.  So with the end of our lovely meal we headed back home and watched some captivating French TV until we both fell asleep.

Monday morning was an early one as we had planned to check out the antique market that replaces the flower market only on Monday.  Once again we were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people and stalls selling their goods.  There were even more stalls than the flower market as stalls spilled over to the side roads and any free space was taken up by antiques of all sorts.  Our first impression was that it was sort of a mix of antique market and yard sale.  There were some old items and you would collect mixed in among books and trinkets and other pieces of art.  My feeling towards art has always been “just because it’s old, doesn’t make it good art”.  Well there were a lot of old pieces but nothing I would have purchased.  As we got further into the heart of the market, we started to see that huge variety of things for sale.  There were vintage toys, old posters, marine antiques, old keys, silverware, porcelain, china sets, coins, military badges, crystal glasses, clocks and watches, original paintings, sculptures, clothes, old tools, and the list is nearly infinite.  We were both amazed by how every vendor seemed to have a set of silver cutlery.  There was so much silver in the market you would think something was going on with the price of silver.  It will come as quite a shock to some that we didn’t purchase anything, not even an old key.  Not sure why, but the experience was what we had come for.

After nearly 2 hours of walking the market, we had some paninis for lunch and then headed out to the beach.  From our side of the street all you can see is the traffic lanes and pedestrian promenade of equal width as 4 lanes of traffic before the walkway drops and all you see is the sea.  If you go right against the edge of the walkway you will see rocky beach along the entire coast about the width of 6 lanes of traffic.  You have to walk down stairs to get to the beach which is full of people enjoying the sun.  Everyway set of stairs down to the beach has a public section of beach with just rocks and an outdoor shower area, and a restaurant with lounge chairs and umbrellas right up to the shoreline.  You have to pay to rent the lounge chairs, so Heather and I headed down with our towels to the rocks.  I also brought a pillow for extra comfort;)  I absolutely love the idea of palm sized rocks as a beach.  There is no worry about getting sand everywhere or having to wash off if you don’t go in the water.  Lying on the rocks is like a free massage for me and since the rocks are smooth, a few wiggles and you’ve got a custom bed to lie on.  Despite what Heather says, rocks are way better than sand.haha  I think that debate will continue on for a few years at least.  Until then, I will enjoy my beach.

Heather can literally spend hour upon hours basking in the sun, where as I can last about 30 minutes with sunscreen before I’m afraid of getting a sun burn.  While we were there we were somewhat entertained by a group of Portuguese vacationers all gathering around a guitar and singing songs.  It was pretty neat to see the group grow as anyone who could speak Portuguese seemed to know the songs and join in on the party.  We both decided they were professional beach people because the girls had perfect bodies and tans and you could see the guys’ six packs from 50 feet away.  We just sat and enjoyed the sun.

After our beach we showered and I napped while Heather blogged and uploaded it in the foyer with our one bar Wi-Fi signal.  I won’t start ranting again about WI-FI, I’m sure everyone gets the point by now.  We headed out for supper to another local restaurant nearby by.  We both had pasta tonight with Heather having ravioli in a cream sauce and me having spaghetti with seafood.  Both dishes were very well done and a good cheap meal to keep us going.  We had a few hours before it got dark, so we decided to take a walk along the coast towards the old harbour.  We scouted out a few places to do some snorkelling.  We saw a gigantic war memorial carved into the mountain side.  At about that time we got our first glimpse of the harbour and the colossal ships that are moored there.  There are several multi-million dollar ships there that just make your jaw drop.  We did some research afterwards and found out several of them are charter yachts that go for 250 000 Euros a week.  And since some sleep about 12, that’s only about 20 000 Euros each.haha  There were yachts with swimming pools aboard, some with 3 or 4 storeys, and some one that was meant for insane speed.  We walked around the whole harbour and fantasized about living on a boat for a year as we sailed around the world.  Maybe one day . . . so we headed back home through the streets of Vieux Nice and turned in for the night.

And there you have it, another blog from yours truly.  I just have to say, I have never been able to keep a journal for longer than a week, and between Heather an I we have 3 weeks with none stop commentary.  I think that’s pretty cool.