Friday April 29th - Monday May 2 Our Last Week-end in Nice

Friday  April 29 

Very late, lazy morning after our Sanremo trip.  

Walked into town this afternoon  to try and find a glass coffee carafe to replace one that broke when washing it  but it's not a common item.  

We know our hosts would replace it immediately but we wanted to save them the effort.  They're busy people.  We're seeing them tonight with their girls for socca, so we'll tell them then. 

We found a spot for a simple lunch of French fries, looking out across the tram street to the competition, McDonalds  

Normally the planes fly over the water to the airport, this afternoon they were coming in over the town. One every two or three minutes, it's the weekend, and a May Day holiday weekend at that  

Neat architecture, i think we'd call this a flat iron building in North America 

Views from our lunch table.  This is the first visit that we've seen all these trees in leaf. We're always here in winter. 

My first beer in France in, well,  I don't know how long...wine replaced beer in my life a while ago.  I only drink it now in pubs, in England or Canada. 

And we went out for supper with our hosts Dave, Marj, Liv and Ivy, to a socca restaurant they introduced us to last visit.  The girls are now 3 years older.  We ended up spending 3 hours together.  

Outside our front door after supper 

They now have a rescued dog, from Italy. It was used to being in the country and is nervous around people and cars so they are slowly getting him used to the city.  He lay down behind us, and never moved or made a noise the whole time.

This was the crowd of people waiting for a table later on. No reservations are taken. 

Lynda had brought the girls a gift of matching infinity necklaces, which they clearly loved

The restaurant is called Chez Pipo, there was this old van outside their building. 

Saturday April 30

While I remember, in a recent post I talked about cooking duck breast using frozen Lac Brome duck from Quebec in Canada. Our friend Gloria in ontario wrote to say that the farm in Quebec that raised the ducks, has now been hit with avian flu and the breeding stock has been culled. 300 employees out of work and the stock may not recover for 2 years. Very sad for the small company and workers.  

I went out for croissants for breakfast. Saturday morning line up of people ....and cars. The police car and the black car behind are double parked, the officer was in the line up.  

Rotisserie chickens are à thing here. On our block there are two butchers shops, with their spits turning. Line ups here too, since all stores will be closed tomorrow for the holiday.

Not like Cosco BBQ, the chickens were a good size

And walking to the market, butchers stores packed.

Line up for fresh pasta from the store we bought ours from the other day 

Line ups for socca!

Beautiful looking garlic

What's the collective name for a group of Segways? An interjection of Segways? 

Creative parking 

Revisited the crepe restaurant  in old Nice.  Actually rained a bit, so we ate inside, and walked home through wet streets, but they were still crowded. 

Sunday May 1

Everything was supposed to be closed today for the labour day holiday.  The trams and buses were not running. But I did find a tiny food mart shop on our street that was open so I could  buy a bottle of wine for supper tonight. 

Our only plan for today  was to walk along the promenade in the sun, and come back to the park as the Nice symphony was having its first outdoor concert of the season and we wanted to experience  the difference from their concerts in the old church in the port.  Different crowd, and maybe it was the outdoor  holiday spirit but they performed popular jazz and movie music instead of their classical fare.

The prom was very busy, and also too hot, so we came back via the quiet shady side streets and stopped for a glass. 

We were concerned about sitting in the sun for the concert but just as it started, clouds came over us and it was very pleasant. 

Our apartment  appears to be in the high rent embassy district. This was a couple of houses down from the mini-mart 

The tram tunnel was closed off at the port since the trans weren't running. 

One of the ways to climb castle hill 

There was some kind of walk or run happening 

The Corsica  ferry heading off on the horizon 

Look at the top, the ferry has almost disappeared off the horizon

The large park that you've seen many times in my photos,  is actually a river that they covered over to join the old medieval nice to the newer part.  The river runs under it and comes  out on the beach here. It's almost a trickle but in winter it would be much more violent.

I liked this art exhibit, photos of the arch structures, hung in the structures themselves, and reflecting the view you would see from the bench below it. 

Drink in the shade 

And some clips from the concert

Mancini clip

https://youtu.be/yuVnmO6SfAU

Charleston clip

https://youtu.be/yJwNUfnvK5c

Birds discussing the music 

https://youtu.be/sk4v9e74EwE

When you're performing  under a flight path 

https://youtu.be/BnIAoA8NZFU

Monday May 2 

We took the bus up the hill to Cimiez, a fairly exclusive district, which also has a beautiful park, and an old  monastery, we like to picnic in its gardens.  Strolled around, them a glass of wine and a walk back down the hill to look at the beautiful turn of the 19th century architecture

But first. A skipping rope for 42 euros in the shop at the bottom of our building. Its Art apparently. 

The park holds Roman ruins including an amphitheatre. Romans always liked the high ground for their fortifications.  

The Matisse museum, which we've visited a few times. 

Olive groves in the park. They offer nice shade for family picnics.

All the path signs are named after American jazz artists. 

The monastery gardens begin.  Here's a wild butterfly garden. 

 

The quiet courtyard we like to lunch in 

Views from the top

View down towards castle hill and the port. 

Magpie came for a bath

Shady cafe . 

Pétanque the national pastime

Amphithéâtre intérieur

The Regina. Built for Queen Victoria who would winter over in nice with her retinue. Was the reason the prom was called  The promenade d"anglais. If you have $2,000,000 Cdn there are a couple of apartments for sale. 

The entire large front garden is private. 

Beautiful palaces on the hill, many built by Russian nobility who wintered in Nice as well.  All apartments now 

The Chagall museum, (nice to remember where the free toilets are after afternoon drinks!)

Still going strong! 

And for our last meal in Nice, we decided to go to Socca D'or in the next block, but as we got closer, there was a lot of activity on the street with a fire truck, hoses, fire fighters.  Turns out there must have been a fire in the kitchen, well, socca is cooked in wood fire ovens like pizza.   

So, we walked a block to our second choice, a friendly burger place we frequented last trip, only to find they are closed for their annual official 2 week vacation.  Remember, restaurants are family affairs, so they all take their vacation at the same time, no backup managers, cooks, servers around to keep the restaurant going. 

So we walked into the old town and found a substitute socca restaurant.

By the rime we came by, the fire was out and they were blowing out the smoke. 

There are two socca d'or, the kitchen and patio on the left, then the restaurant and another patio two doors down.  They bring the food along the street to the restaurant.  Something that would be rare where we live, but it's normal, we often encounter wait staff bringing food across busy streets to a patio on the other side,  Also,  we often sit and watch as restaurants in France and Italy taking food supplies and even cooked food into other neighbouring restaurants, there is no competition here. No big corporate rules, they're all family.  

The two owners of the restaurant on the left. They practically live on the street all day in front of their restaurant, they  know everyone walking by and on our last two visits they made our experience enjoyable. This will be a minor setback we hope, they might even have opened up later.    

Here was our backup socca and farci