Day 1, July 6

Day 1, Saturday, July 6

Nous sommes ici!  All in all our air travel went smoothly.  Despite flight delays in  Boston and Paris, we arrived in Nice at 3 pm, only 30 minutes behind schedule.  

Our excitement to be in France kicked in immediately as we walked off the plane and looked to the right, where we could see palm trees, the Nice coastline, and the surrounding hills dotted with beautiful homes.  

The taxi ride to the Hotel Vendome was a quick one, and we were actually in our room 30 minutes after our plane landed!  The desk clerk informed us that they had upgraded our room, giving us one of their best rooms on the first floor which mean 20 foot high ceilings and a private balcony with a table.  We attributed the special treatment to the fact that we were being rewarded for staying here four or five times before, or that we were friends of Madame Anne Toole from Barnstable..but it was probably just dumb luck.

 Despite a lack of sleep on the plane, we unpacked quickly, watched the last 30 minutes of stage 8 of the Tour on TV, and headed to the beach, stopping at the Orange phone store, where I had my iPhone, upgraded for use in France.  We grabbed a quick lunch along Rue Massena, a couple of ice cream cones, on our way to the beach.   

The beach was as crowded as usual even though it was now after 5 pm and the skies had clouded up.  I took a quick, refreshing dip in the Mediterranean, immediately washing away the dirt and sweat of over 24 hours of travel.  We returned to the hotel and called our credit card companies in the US to inform them that we were in France.  We forgot to do this before leaving and one of our cards was denied when I tried to use it in the telephone store.  This was Joni's first lapse in travel planning over the past six years, so I can forgive her. 

We took a brief nap, showered, and walked to old Nice for our 8:30 pm dinner reservation at L'Oliviera.  We've been looking forward to eating at this place for over a year since we couldn't get in last year on one night, and the other night that we tried, they were closed.  The restaurant's name is based on the fact that they serve a different type of olive oil with every course.  As we overheard the owner tell another table, there are two reasons this is the best olive oil in the world:  1-it is from Nice, and 2-he makes it himself.  The food exceeded our expectations, and for our first meal in France, we could have flown home after dinner and been satisfied.  Our appetizers were unworldly:  Joni had a puree of egg plant with red peppers, and I had a "anti-guacamole", a salad with greens and avocado on an apple.  Our main courses were beef tartare for me and mushroom cannelloni for Joni; followed by a small plate of cheeses.  We were too stuffed for either coffee or dessert.  Hopefully we didn't insult the owner by not having a full dinner.  We walked through the busy night life of old NIce on the way back to the hotel, stopping for two boules of ice cream which we shared..we couldn't resist.

Upon returning to our hotel room, we were so tired, we didn't even turn on the lights, quickly changing into our falling into bed as fast as we could.