A few weeks ago, Eric was told he was going to Cannes, France for a week on a business trip. All the rooms in Cannes were booked, so he would be staying in Nice. We absolutely loved France, so Christi decided to tag along.

Nice is on the Mediterranean coast in an area called Cote d’Azur (AKA the French Riviera). On our world circumnavigation, we made four stops in Cote d’Azur: Monaco,  Saint Tropez , Le Lavandou, and  Isle de Porquerrolles, so we were excited to be able to visit some of the places we had missed.

On Saturday morning, we left the boat at 0800. When we got to the airport, we were shocked to see it was shut down, with a fire truck and police cars outside the baggage claim area. We were told the building had been evacuated a half hour ago due to a fire. Whatever the problem was, it was clearly at the opposite end of the terminal from our gate. We were terrified our plane would leave late and we’d miss our connecting flight. After another half hour, everyone was allowed back in. Fortunately, things returned to normal quickly and our flight left on time.

Leg one was uneventful. During the first layover, we found out that on Friday, a Southwest plane had a small piece of the roof come off mid-flight and the cabin de-pressurized. They had to make an emergency landing. Not everyone could get their oxygen masks on in time and some suffered injuries as a result. 10% of the Southwest flights scheduled for Saturday had been cancelled for further plane inspections. Oy vey. We were relieved we were on a different airline.

Fortunately, both the second and third legs were also totally uneventful for us. We arrived at the Nice airport, where we rented a car. Our hotel was just a few thousand yards from the airport as the bird flies, but for the life of us, we couldn’t find the right road to get there. After being seriously lost for about fifteen minutes, we eventually found the hotel, the Holiday Inn. Our initial impression of Nice was that it looks like a typical Mediterranean town, with many 4 10 story blocky concrete apartment houses. Most are painted a pastel color and either have flat roofs or red tiled pitched roofs. Most of the buildings we saw look like they were from the 20th century, though we did pass an area that looked like it may have been more historic.

Our hotel is located right on the L’Atoll beach. Our room is charming and has a lovely view of the ocean.

By the time we checked in, it was Sunday at 1730 (5:30 pm) local time. We had been traveling for 23.5 hours. We were exhausted and hungry. Our first task was to get food. We went down to the boardwalk and headed west. Tons of people were out, taking advantage of the sunny, warm evening. The beach to our left was pebbly and uninviting, but people were laying out nonetheless. The water was a beautiful azure blue. Several small islands had been constructed in the little bay to create a calm swimming area near the shore. (The photos below were taken the next day when it was cloudy and few people were out).

To our right was an endless row of restaurants.

We passed a couple restaurants that were either closed or only serving beverages. We suddenly remembered our biggest pet peeve about both France and Italy: it is hard to find food outside of standard lunch and dinner hours. And dinner hours didn’t start until 2000 (8:00 pm)!

We continued down the boardwalk. After passing at least a dozen more closed restaurants, we stumbled upon a Snack, which as the name implies, serves light food, usually at all hours. For some unknown reason, we hadn’t bothered to brush up on our French before arriving here, and we had trouble asking if they were serving food or only beverages. Christi finally managed “I hungry.” Fortunately, the man behind the counter handed us a menu and pointed to crepes and sandwiches. Yes!

We both got a savory crepe. Christi got the Indienne (Indian), with chicken, cheese and onions in a curry sauce. Eric got a tuna and tomato with emmenthal cheese. They were both large, filling and tasty.

Satiated, we strolled back towards the hotel, enjoying the lovely scenery. From this direction, we could clearly see the airport’s run way and we saw a couple of planes take off. The minute we got back to our room, we crashed for the night.