#mediterranean sea
If you’ve been to Nice, France before quick, close your eyes and think about what you remember about your time in Nice. Probably if I were to guess, you would be thinking of La Promenade des Anglais with its pebbly shoreline and those iconic blue and white striped beach umbrellas, with the beautiful people sunbathing in the hot Mediterranean sun
Opera Plage, Nice, France
Now that you have that visual, you are NOT going to see me and Richard sunbathing under a beach umbrella in any photos today, but we did go to the beach for a noontime respite under one of those iconic blue and white umbrellas!
But first….we shopped! And I was successful in my shopping adventure and got exactly what I was looking for! Comfortable shoes!
New Birkenstock, shearling sandals! I love the shearling Birkenstocks because they are softer on the feet and they absorb the sweat from sweaty, hot feet! The price was very comparable to buying the same shoes in Canada including tax. In Canada these shoes would have been 13% more with HST! If you look closely you can see my heels are all bandaged up from the blisters I got yesterday in my pretty, not very functional Vivaia ballet flats.
Cute shoes. And washable too! And waterproof! All recycled material. Not good for long walks…what was I thinking wearing them on a day trip to Antibes?
Anyway, back to our blue and white umbrellas on the Plage in Nice….
Squinting looking right into the sun.
Richard was eyeing these tables below me and thinking its noon now, so why not go and have a drink?
So that is exactly what we did. You can see how rocky the beach is and when you go to sit down on the chair, it shifts and sinks into the rocks.
I like the reflection of the blue and white umbrellas and the sea in Richard’s Raybans. Very cool photography trick that I don’t think he realized he was doing at the time!
The pause that refreshes! A cold beer and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice!
It was difficult to get a shot of the empty chairs on the beach because most of them were taken today on this 22C or 72F day.
I keep telling Richard it makes a better photo if I don’t look into the camera. He’s learning.
We really enjoyed sitting by the Sea watching the people and just luxuriating in the beautiful sunshine in Nice. We talked about how much we like travelling in October so we don’t miss out on any end of the year golf closing tournaments that normally happen in September. We are missing our Member’s Closing though in Fort Erie at our club, but oh well, I’m enjoying the one month break from golf after having posted 106 rounds of golf so far this year!
While sitting by the sea we made plans for our next adventure. It is nice to be with someone like Richard who doesn’t need the entire day’s agenda laid out for him before we leave the condo in the morning. Having to set a full day’s agenda is too much like work for me and after having my day scheduled from 8am til 6pm or later for 37.5 years when I worked at Scotiabank, I’m pretty happy we are ‘winging it’ while on vacation.
With our bus passes in hand we walked through Place Messina looking for the street behind Galeries Lafayette where we knew the #5 bus would arrive. We didn’t have to wait very long and the #5 bus came and we boarded for our next adventure.
The entrance to the Arena
It sure is a great day when there aren’t lots of people crowding my photos!
Wow! What an amazing feat of engineering to think that this structure has been around since the 2nd century!
I liked the bokeh effect from the sun in this photo
Arenas de Cimiez! A Roman amphitheatre in Nice, France!
Arenas de Cimiez was built in the 2nd century to serve as a training ground for cohorts stationed at Cemenelum, the arena was enlarged in the 3rd century with the addition of rows of stone seats for the population of the city and meant for games. The arena had a capacity for 5,000 spectators and an amphitheatre was built just next to the Roman Baths.
Matisse Museum. The outside is all painted in Tromp L’oeil. Unfortunately the museum is closed while we are here as they are installing a new collection of paintings.
In the same area as the Roman amphitheatre was a park, The Matisse Museum, The Museum of Archaeology, a Monastery and its garden and a vast olive grove with trees more than 100 years old. We saw quite a few school children with their teachers having lessons in the park and lots of old French men playing and arguing while playing pétanque.
Old Olive grove in Cimiez Park. I tried a black olive that had fallen off an olive tree. It tasted awful. Then I picked a green olive and it tasted just as bad. I learned that olives must be cured in either brine, water or dry cured and rubbed with salt. Once they are cured then they are not bitter. Interesting! I won’t try that again!
Steps up to the Cimiez monastery
We looked at the Roman ruins of the amphitheatre and then decided to walk to the Cimiez monastery which was built in the 9th century by the brothers of the Saint-Pons Abbey. In 1546 the Benedictine brotherhood ceded the monastery to the Franciscans whose convent had been razed during the siege of Nice three years earlier. The monastery was transformed into barracks for the military and then into a hospital after the French Revolution. It became a monastery again under the Sardinian Restoration and its architecture was completely redesigned in the 19th century with the addition of Gothic Revival facades and a porch.
We saw something going on in the courtyard of the monastery called a ‘Brocante’ so we decided to have a look. It was basically a church bazaar with various vendors selling Christmas decorations, children’s toys, jewellery, glassware, appliances, records, books, clothing, shoes and purses. Nothing really appealed to me but it was nice to have a look, just in case.
The monks of the monastery had their own table set up and were selling slices of pizza and some sweet treats.
The real gem of the monastery was the monastery gardens which are built in the style of an Italian garden. The garden has citrus fruits of oranges, lemons and tangerines along the flower bed bordering the paths, which also have olive or cypress trees.
The lower gardens
The smaller terrace below with a fountain and pools gave us an amazing view of the Paillon valley below and of the Mediterranean Sea.
I loved these stone steps up the this door.
Gorgeous views all over the monastery garden
We had a dreamy time meandering through the gardens. There were so many gorgeous angles for photography and so many beautiful flowers and trees juxtaposed against old doors and stone walls. No wonder I love photography in Europe so much! It is so easy to find beautiful things to shoot!
Again it was getting on 3pm and we had not had lunch. We would have loved to sit in the gardens and enjoy the views, but our stomachs were saying we had to eat. We saw that in Cimiez park there was a little restaurant so we decided to see what they had on offer for lunch.
How civilized to be able to get a glass of wine sharing a pressed ham and cheese sandwich and eat outdoors on a picnic table enjoying the beautiful Cimiez Park in Nice!
After we had eaten we put our dishes in the appropriate spot (which everyone else was doing too - no plastic or throw away dishes) and we headed back to wait for the #5 bus to bring us down the steep hill to the more touristy shopping district of Nice along Jean Medecin.
The bus arrived just as we got to the bus stop and we took the bus to the shopping mall on Jean Medecin. I had a few things I wanted to pick up at the french pharmacy which I had seen on Instagram and Richard wanted to get the free wifi at the mall so he could stay up to date on some things he's taking care of with our house in Florida.
We walked home to our condo after a lovely day exploring Nice feeling very satisfied that we didn't have an agenda when we left for the day, but we took in some very iconic historic, beautiful and interesting picture postcard sights in Nice.
When we were still in Canada I was doing research for this trip using Instagram and it was amazing what some influencers were promoting in Nice. You can pretty much find out all the highlights of a town just by searching for them in Instagram and probably a local influencer has already posted exactly what you are looking for. In this case I had searched for the best restaurants in Nice and this one restaurant kept coming up.
Le Plongeoir…..or "The Diving Board" in English. When I saw this restaurant I asked Richard to make a reservation for our first Friday night in Nice, figuring that by now we would have got our bearings in Nice and would be ready for a nice Friday evening out on the town.
Since my feet are still a mess and the restaurant is 2.2 km or a 14 minute drive a. way, we called an UBER to get to the restaurant for our 7pm reservation. A nice Tesla model Y showed up and we headed over to the restaurant which is located right beside the Nice Yacht Club.
Le Plongeoir!
The waves were crashing against the rocks in the sea
The sun was just setting when we arrived at Le Plongeoir and the restaurant looked amazing against the golden sky in the background. What an amazing architectural feat to put a restaurant on two rock outcroppings and make it all work!
We had the most amazing meal at Le Plongeoir. The food, service and views were simply out of this world! WOW!
Zucchini flower fritters with spicy crushed tomatoes. We shared this appetizer.
Pan-fried beef fillet, gratinated zucchini, roast tomato, Pont Neuf potatoes and chimichurri sauce
Roasted sea bass fillet, barigoule artichokes, sauce vierge, creamy polenta, chickpea panisse
Dessert was a Tarte Au Citron Meringuee or lemon meringue tart.
Richard enjoyed a couple of glasses of wonderful Domaine Ott - Chateau de Selle Cotes de Provence Rose and I had bubbly water
We noticed that the tables turned very quickly at this restaurant so if you ever go, book well in advance and know that your meal will be about 1.15 hours in total. Usually I would prefer to linger a bit longer, but we were sitting outside and was starting to cool down, so having a quick meal was fine by us.
I think this shot with the moon reflecting on the water is even better than the sunset shot!
I ordered us an UBER after we had taken a few more pictures of Le Plongeoir and the UBER was actually across the street from us dropping off guests who were going to dinner at Le Plongeoir. Apparently the restaurant books up fully every day for lunch and in the evening for dinner. Some people book a table a year in advance if they want to be on the lower level closer to the sea!
Wow! What a day of amazing sights! We’ve got many more places we want to go to in the French Riviera so we hope to combine a few places tomorrow and see if we can manage to do it with my poor feet and with French public transit! Stay tuned for more amazing coastal photos of France tomorrow!
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