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.

Final Day of Heritage Days

For the second day of Heritage Days we saw the Regarde de la Lanterne up in Belleville.  It's part of the city's water system, and again, the tour involved going underground to see how fresh water flows into the city.  We had seen this in 2013.










For lunch we went to an Alsatian restaurant near Les Halles where I had flamenkuchen (a German version of pizza with cheese and bacon) and Bill had choucroute (sauerkraut with sausages and ham).















Our final visit of Heritage Days was to the Brasserie Julien, in the 10th Arrondissement, not too far from our apartment.  It's lavishly decorated in Art Nouveau style, with stained glass in the ceiling - very fancy.

































Tomorrow we leave for Nice via the TGV (high-speed train).  It will probably do us good to have a chunk of time when we're not walking or standing since right now both of us are close to exhaustion.

Heritage Days

Every year at this time there's a 2-day event that has a very long, difficult to pronounce name that basically means "Heritage Days," so that's what I'm going to call it.  For these two days people can visit historically significant sites throughout Paris, and indeed, throughout Europe.  Many of these places are normally closed to the public or normally charge a fee for visits.

Today we visited L'Hotel de Matignon, the residence and office of the prime minister of France.  It's very ornately decorated and has a large attractive garden in the back.  It is not normally open to visits from the public, and there were lots of people who waited in line with us to see it.

After that visit we went on the sewer tour, which normally costs 4.5 euros.  This tour explains the water and sewerage system in Paris.  It's not a topic I'm hugely interested in, but at least it was free.  The picture on the right is looking up from the bottom of a manhole (personhole?).





















On our way to lunch today we saw a fruit market with an attractive display.  We bought some of the yellow mirabelle plums toward the back of the picture because we know they'll be going out of season soon.

Our late lunch today had appetizers of a heritage tomato salad for me and a charcuterie plate for Bill. His main dish was rotisserie chicken while I had rotisserie leg of lamb.  It was a very pleasant lunch.

Southwest Food Festival and Delicious Chocolate Truffles.

We've been to the Southwest Food Festival, held on the left bank of the Seine near Nôtre Dame, twice before, but it's so much fun we went back again this year.  They had a 10-piece band playing very lively local music.  There were samples of some of the local foods, such as prunes, spice cake, cheeses, and wine.  We bought sausage sandwiches and cantaloupe in Floc (a vin de liqueur fortified with armagnac, the local brandy) for lunch.  Unfortunately they don't really have enough seating at this festival, and I didn't think photos of us eating sandwiches standing up would be very interesting.  So the only photo is of the poster advertising this event.











One of my readers has suggested we buy some chocolates, so today we bought a small box of truffles and a dark chocolate bar with pistachios.  The truffles were wonderful, and I'm having a problem controlling myself with them.  That was a great suggestion, Barb!  Because it was raining, we cut it short today and were back in our apartment by around 4:00 pm.

Lunch Inside a Yarn Shop and the Countryside of Paris

Yesterday it rained most of the day and we ended up going to the Museum of Modern Art, another museum with free admission (except for special exhibits).  The museum has a nice collection of modern art and I recommend it.  Here's a photograph of a Marc Chagall painting that caught my eye.





Today's lunch was at L'Oisivethé, a combination tea salon and yarn shop.  What could be better?  We both got a salad with smoked salmon and thought it was delicious.  They have opened a second location where they sell only yarn, so we walked over to that location.   I ended up buying two skeins of a yarn that they are dying themselves.   One of them is for me and one is for my knitting friend who will be picking us up at the airport (Thanks, Mary!).















From there we went to our scenic location of the day, a neighborhood called la Campagne  à Paris (the Countryside of Paris), on the east side of the city.  This is another of those neighborhoods built for working class people during the 1920's.  We had to climb 80 steps to get to this neighborhood, but were rewarded with another charming group of stone and brick houses, attractively landscaped.  I seem to be suffering from house envy on this trip.







































We walked home and that was a good idea because Bill bought a delicious Camembert and two other cheeses at a shop near Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Duck for Lunch and Villa Léandre

You may be wondering what we do with our leftover baguettes.  The next day we slice them lengthwise and toast them.  I like to eat them with chestnut yogurt.  I wish I could find it in the United States.






We went to one of our favorite Paris restaurants for lunch today, Le Petit Canard in Montmartre.  We remembered the waitress and she claimed to remember us from two years ago.  Bill had an omelette with duck and potatoes and I had duck breast in a tarragon sauce, mashed potatoes with hazelnuts, and green beans.  It was delicious.  The waitress snapped a photo of Bill and me standing in front of the chalkboard menu.























The scenic area for today was Villa Léandre in Montmartre, a street of attractive three and four story brick houses.  Most of these small scenic neighborhoods were built early in the 20th century for working class people who could not afford housing elsewhere in Paris.  I suspect that they're quite expensive today.























We stopped at the market street Rue Lepic to buy cheese and a delicious nougat candy, a specialty of the Montélimar area.

We also took care of a few small errands today.  Bill made a haircut appointment, we picked up a bus map, and stopped on a sleazy street in Montmartre to buy inexpensive postcards.

A Former Prison Site and Two Art Nouveau Buildings

Today was a bit disappointing on the photography front.  Yesterday I got an e-mail from my dear friend Steve suggesting that we visit the  Rue Cherche-Midi Prison.  One of his heroes, Etta Shiber had been incarcerated there by the Nazis during World War II.  She was an American who had helped British soldiers who found themselves in German occupied France.  A Google search told me that the prison had been razed in the 1960's to make room for a school of Social Sciences.  I knew we wouldn't be able to see the prison, but figured we would at least see an interesting historical marker.  However, when we arrived at the corner of rue Cherche-Midi and Boulevard Raspail,  there were temporary walls in the middle of the sidewalk to make space for a renovation that was going on.  Through the fencing we could see a stone marker in the ground, but it was so far away and so overgrown with grass and weeds that we couldn't see what it said.  We also saw three old pillars that were not part of the school.  I assume they had been all that was saved of the prison.  We'll have to remember this site the next time we're here and, with luck, the construction will be finished.

Today was Art Nouveau Day for us.  We went to see a private home, Maison des Arums, near the Eiffel Tower.  It was a beautiful building, but very difficult to photograph due to a large truck and a number of cars parked directly in front of it.






























The last attraction for today was Céramic Hôtel on Avenue de Wagram, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.  It's another beautiful building designed by architect Jules Lavirotte, the architect who designed the building with the most ornate door in Paris.  The Céramic Hôtel is not as fancy as that building, but it's still a striking example of Art Nouveau architecture.  It was very difficult to photograph because I was too close to the building when I was on the same side of the street and would have been too far away if I had crossed the street.  I'm sorry the photographs aren't better.