Monday May 20th, Firenze, Italy to Nice, France- Day 7
We got up early and headed out from our very nice apartment in Florence and headed to the series of 3 trains were taking from Florence to Nice. The train system in Italy seems to be very widespread and works pretty well as far as we can see. We are now riding somewhere North of Milan on our way to Ventimilia for the last train (a French train) to Nice. No word on if the tracks have a different gauge like they had between certain countries in Europe to "prevent" invasion by their neighboring country. Interestingly the tracks between Florence and Milan were 90% in tunnels because of the low rolling hills that they go across.
The (partially) topless beaches of Nice. Wind chill could be an issue here.
Arrived in Nice and was shocked by how pretty the coastline and water is. The water is aquamarine blue and the buildings are various different colors. Very pretty and they are French here so Lynne speaks the language. We just walked around for a few hours and checked things out. It's a nice town and the place we are staying in is small but livable. Going to bed early since we got up particularly early to get here. Our only excitement was finding a couple french cockroaches on the wall above the bed. The apartment here is the smallest one yet and neither Lynne or I can stand up straight in the upper bed area.
Tuesday May 21, Nice, France - Day 8
Woke up a bit late and went out and walked up to go to the Marc Chagal museum but it ended up being closed as were both that museum and the Matisse museum - what luck! Better planning next time I guess. But instead we again stumbled upon a festival called "Lu Festin De Nissa" which is a very old festival celebrated since the roman times greeting the return of spring and summer. We did manage to find some nice Pan Bagnat sandwiches which we had been looking for shown below.
Pan Bagnat sandwich |
| Pan Bagnat sandwich in Nice |
The festival consisted of hundreds of French children performing dances to old music on a small stage. The children all had different sort of uniforms for example maybe a red sash, or a red striped pants things like that. It was pretty cool. We looked it up later and saw what it was about. It was probably the highlight of the day. The first day was another french bank holiday and the second day all the museums were closed. We normally have better luck than this. We then walked around the town away from tourists areas more so where the locals lived and hang out. Lynne wanted to see the Russian Orthodox Church so we walked over there to see that. It was built in 1865 and was quite elaborate. It was another case where we couldn't take any photos inside for who knows what reason. It almost seems like someone flips a coin and decides whether you can take photos inside or not.
We also came across a strange looking church that I thought looked like a spaceship. I'm not sure what the deal was with this. It looked like a Ukrainian church or something but I'm not sure. Maybe it was associated with the cult that tried to catch that comet a few years ago? Or a Buck Rogers cult?
 We returned back to our cockroach apartment and Lynne found the chair to be broken which was my fault because I didn't tell her it was broken. It turned out we texted the owner and he said he knew about it so it was OK. We've never had bug issues before. Hopefully they don't hitch a ride home to America where they can meet their American cousins. (The food's better here in France.. haaa) We went out for dinner and wandered around in the local area and wandered for about 30 minutes not finding anything that caught our attention. We finally went back to a place where the owner charmed us in the door promising really good food and claiming to be the best food in the area. (I was incredulous about that just for the obvious reasons.) We ended up eating there and loving it. The owner said he had worked in a restaurant in NYC. The food ended up being great and we really loved it. We had a Niçoise salad and some fish and vegetables which was really good. I guess it's good to have low expectations sometimes! |
| Take off will be in 10 minutes! |
Now we're debating what kind of feedback to give the apartment owner as we begin our last day in Nice. (Wishing we had more time to spend here because we're just scratching the surface of all the great things to see.) Plus we'll plan on staying in a better place next time as well.
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