Nice

Yesterday we took the TGV to Nice from Gare de Lyon in Paris.  From past experience we've learned that when you're hauling luggage, the bus is easier to use than the Métro because of all the stairways in the subway.  So we took the bus to the train station.

The train ride was uneventful until we got to Antibes, about 10 minutes away from our destination.  The train was delayed for nearly an hour and a half due to some sort of accident between there and Nice.  The train company made frequent announcements about what was going on, but the announcer spoke so quickly I was able to understand only the general gist of what he said.  I provided a translation for the two American women seated across from us.

Our apartment is located a couple blocks away from the touristy area and we chose this location purposely because we wanted a quiet neighborhood.  The apartment is well over twice as large as our Paris apartment for the same price.  It's clean, which is the most important concern, but it's also shabby and I'm not a fan of shabby.

It has two (!) tiny balconies, one in the front looking over the street and one in the back looking over the courtyard and the clotheslines.  










I think the apartment was carved out of a larger apartment or perhaps combined two smaller apartments because the room layout is kind of bizarre.  The cabine is ridiculously long, maybe 15 feet, and except for storing the clothes drying rack, the only space that is used is the toilet at the end.    There are two bedrooms.  One of them has a door leading to the hall and another door leading to the living room.  There's a little alcove off the living room which has a couch in it.  It has an archway connecting it to the living room and a door connecting it to the hallway.











































Nice has a very different look than Paris.  The buildings tend to be pastel colors rather than grey.  There are lots of huge palm trees.   It's a semi-tropical look.  Here are a couple of the buildings we saw last night and the building across the street from our apartment.

















































Oh, and did I mention the weather?  Instead of the gray skies and rain showers we had in Paris, the sky is cloudless and the temperatures are in the mid-70's.

We had snacked but not eaten lunch on the train, so were very hungry once we got settled in the apartment.  We walked over to the Mediterranean and then walked to the Old Town, one of the touristy areas.   It was one restaurant after another.  Nice is very close to Italy, so many of the restaurants offered Italian food as well as seafood.  There were lots of places offering mussels.

We had a very nice meal from the menu, a plan where you choose one appetizer, one main dish, and one dessert for 20 euros (about $24, I think). Bill had lamb terrine for his appetizer and roast rabbit stuffed with green olives for his main dish.  I had grilled red peppers for my appetizers and beef daube (beef in a red wine sauce) and gnocchi for my meal.  We were given a small dish of olives before our meal and my appetizer and Bill's rabbit both had olives as well.  Fortunately, we both like olives.