My future home.
Nice is nice.So this morning we woke up after a riotous night before of participating in the Carnival activities. We had almost the whole day Sunday to spend in Nice before we had to take a flight home. So we started it off with a breakfast of cherios and milk... what could be better.
After breakfast we checkout of our hotel, but left our luggage there in their "luggage room"-- basically the corner of their little reception room. Meh, None of us had anything of value anyway. We decided it would be nice to walk along the beach so that's where we headed. I guess Sunday is the "get out" day for the Cote A'zur folk because the streets and cafes were packed with families. It was quite the sight to see. We walked along the beach up on the boulevard and watched the sun shining over the Mediterranean. We walked around to this lookout point where we could look back and see all of Nice and the French Alps. Again, I can't even hope to describe it to you so please visit my shutterfly website. We climbed an endless staircase up to a point above Nice, which again was unbelievably beautiful. We sat up there for awhile just soaking up the sun and sitting in completely beautiful unadulterated silence. It was glorious.
As a side note-- one of the things that I have discovered about myself while I've been over here is my liking to silence. I know for some of you that is hard to believe because as a child you could not get me to shut up, but as I've grown up I've become a much more introverted person and now take particular joy in silence. So we sat up there in silence for awhile. While we were up there we could see down into Nice and we saw what looked like a market street so we decided to descend from our own little heaven and check it out. It was indeed a true French market flanked by cafes and brasseries on either side. There was fresh produce and pizza and wine and plants; jewelry and postcards, and olives and scarves. Anything and everything that a habitant of sunny southern France might need. We looked around for awhile and decided that we should find a little cafe to eat lunch in. We ended up walking out of this market area to find the cafe we ended up in, but it was still lovely. We got a table outside the cafe in the Sunday sun. We all had sandwiches of various types and spent a good long while there. We soon discovered that the cafe we were in was on the parade route for that day. Before we knew it there were people scuttling around shooting each other with silly string. The people sitting at the table next to us were in a fierce battle of this one little girl probably 6 or 7 versus 3 adults. She was dressed as a princess and was there with her parents and I assume some other relative of hers. It was adorable and hysterical. People around us were getting shot and continued on with their meals as if nothing had happened. My table, on the other hand, were constantly ducking and covering in hopes of not getting hit with silly string. Shortly there after the parade started going by, literally 10 feet from where we were sitting. It contained the same floats we had seen at the night parade except they weren't lit up because it was day time.
Eventually we left the cafe some time in the afternoon and walked back to our hotel to pick up our bags. We were supposed to catch a bus right at the end of our street to take us back to the airport, but that didn't work out so well. Part of that street was closed down for the parade and so when we finally left the bus stop and went the tourist office they told us that we would have to go to a different bus stop further in the heart of the city. I wasn't in charge of the map on this trip and so Dani and Brelyn led the way to this supposed other bus stop. We got there and there tons and tons of people there waiting for various other buses. Time was ticking along now and even though we still had plenty of time to get to the airport we were unsure of exactly how it was all going to work. We waited and watched as most of the people disappeared onto various buses that came round. Finally we saw a bus coming that had our number on it. We walked to the edge of the curb to get on it and it looked like it was going to slow down and stop but the doors never opened and it went on past the stop. We looked around in bewilderment and then took off running down the street after the bus. Undoubtedly we looked ridiculous. We ran and ran, but we couldn't keep up with the bus and it disappeared out of sight. Now we had no idea where we really were and how we were going to find a way to get to the airport. We could have probably walked there, but again we didn't know the way. We started looking for another bus that might take us close to the airport. We found one that would take us to the wrong terminal but we figured if we atleast got there we could figure it out from that point. So now all we had to do was find a bus stop where that bus stopped. Ha Ha We found one, but we were on the wrong side of the road and so we would have gotten on a bus taking us in the opposite direction that we wanted to go. We crossed the road and waited for the bus. Fortunately it showed up about 15 minutes later and we hopped on. We had no idea how much a bus fare was and the driver spoke no English so I'm pretty sure we way over-payed him. Oh well. It was a pretty uneventful ride to the airport and once there we just hopped on their free shuttle that would take us to the international terminal. We went through check in and security just fine and an hour or two later were flying back home to England.
So far it has been my favorite place I have visited and I think it will be hard for any other trip to trump this one. We didn't go see any museums or anything particularly historical, but we spent time enjoying ourselves and indulging with the locals over a common value of happiness and good life. Far too often with all these trips I take, and life in general, we rush through it all trying to get everything done. We forget to experience and live in the 'now' of life. We want all the things on the list to be checked off; but really at the end of your life are you going to look back and say "Wow! I'm glad I went to 24 places in Paris in 28 hours." No, you aren't. You might, however, say "Wow! I'm glad I went to Nice and walked along the boulevard with people from all walks of life; and I'm glad I just took the time and sat on a bench and watched the sun set over the Mediterranean with my best friends. I'm glad I shared that with them and nothing that happens in the future can ever replace that experience." That for me is nice.
Cheers!
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