Monday, July 30, 2012

Nice is nice

A big day in Nice today. I started with a lite breakfast and then a swim in the ocean at the Castle Beach in front of the hotel. After meeting up back at the hotel and a little relaxing in the sun we headed out to the Monday morning antique market. Some amazing, odd, and strange things up for sale all along the ocean-front promenade.

We then headed up the hillside to the musse Marc Chagall, which was incredible. While some of my favorites of his are not included in the collection, the museum includes the entire biblical collection. As much as I thought I knew about his work, we decided to get the audio tour, and I learned so much about the symbolism he was using. Really genius.

After a little lunch of salad a cold rose, it was back to walking up the hill to the musee Henri Matisse. Honestly, you could skip this one if you are ever in Nice. None of his work from Tahiti, only two sculptures. A lot of photos of him sitting in his room in Nice, and paper cut-outs he never used. And, I was scolded for trying to take a photo. So I snuck a photo of one sketch. I'm such a rebel!

But the Roman ruins sitting next to the museum and the olive garden (not the restaurant, literally an olive garden) were worth the long walk. B and Gunther went gladiator style in the amphitheater.

A quick bus ride all the way back down to the water, a quick dip in the ocean for B and me, a sip of wine on B's terrace, then a great dinner together along the pedestrian mall where the antique fair was in the morning .... seemed most of Nice joined us .... before we call it a night. Yummy pizza for me, fish for B and Mark.

Maybe Monte Carlo tomorrow.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

From Home to Here

Ok, using an iPad app for all posts this year, so no captions or narrative around the photos. Instead, I'll be dumping photos in fairly random order with an update for the day.

The flight was wonderful, of course. The perk of flying through London was that we made the connection to Nice with the newly crowned Gold Medalist in the Road Race, Vino himself.

You know we are back in a cycling country as well since the airport had a space set aside for bicycle assembly and repair. After a nice little car ride through town, we arrived at our hotel right on the beach. While we are exhausted, we couldn't pass up a nice dinner of fresh fish from the Med and a little wine from up the road. Of course, dinner was on a terrace with a canopy of lemon trees above us and the uniquely blue ocean rolling in below us.

Tomorrow is exploring the old city and swimming in the ocean. Love to all at home. Wish you were here! Night, night.