Day 2, July 7

Nice, Day 2, July 7

Woke up at 8 AM, which is late for us, but clearly a result of the time change.  Had a great breakfast of coffee, croisants, tartines, & fruit at the hotel and headed to Old Nice and explored some of the narrow streets and alleys before arriving at the flower market along the Cours Saleya. This area hosts a different type of market every day, antiques one day, clothes another, but our favorite is the flowers which includes lots of local farm products too:  vegetables, cheeses, fruits, & breads. It was really hot, so half way through our market touring, we stopped for a cold drink at one of our favorite cafes for people watching.  

After our break we continue to tour the market and then headed toward the restaurant Joni had picked out for lunch.  We arrived there at noon, and at first we were the only customers, but the place soon filled it; obviously it had a good reputation.  We had a heavy lunch; Joni had veal and I had tagliatelli with prawns, accompanied by a carafe of rose wine.  As we later discovered eating a lot and drinking a lot of wine at noon, really takes it out of you for the rest of the afternoon.

We walked along the Promenade des Anglais, Nice's answer to the boardwalk in Atlantic City, heading to the Andrea de Massena Museum, despite it's "open every day" advertisement has  been closed for four other times we've attempted to see it.  Joni's dad visited this museum 30+ years ago when he visited Monte Carlo, and he's always insisted we see it, so it's become a sort of quest for us.  To our delight, it was open, but just like the "always open" claim, the "no charge for tickets" advertisement proved equally false.  They were asking 15 Euros for their entry fee, and including a ticket to the Matisse Museum as well.  We've seen the Matisse Museum, really enjoyed it, but didn't need to see it again, so we passed on buying the ticket, and bought a great book about the museum for Joni's dad.

The heat, heavy meal, and wine were now getting the best of us, so we took a taxi back to our hotel.  Joni was asleep within two minutes and I went in and out of consciousness as we watched stage 9 of the Tour on television.  As far as the Tour goes, it appears that Christopher Froome, has established himself as the likely winner, taking yesterday's mountain stage in the Pyrenees, and not giving up and time to his challengers during Sunday's second mountain stage.  But there are still a lot of miles left, so it's hardly over.

After our long naps, we showered, and walked back to Old Nice for dinner at La P'tetite Cocotte (the little casserole), a small out of the way restaurant that seats only 30, offers a fixed menu with just three choices of appetizers  and main courses.  Joni's research again paid off...strangely and American family from Virginia who we sat next to on Saturday night, was also in this one.  The mother of this family and Joni obviously do a lot of research from the same sources.  Our meal was fabulous, for an appetizer we both had a tomato salad with thin slices of ham and for our main course, Joni had tenderloin with polenta and I had veal with a mushroom sauce.  Dessert was included, so we really indulged; I had a chocolate fondant with pistachio ice cream (don't know what a fondant was but I loved it) and Joni had an apricot puff pastry with pecan ice cream.   Barely able to move, we burned off some of the dinner's calories and returned to our hotel.  No Nice nightlife for us.  Sleep came easy, although I woke up soon thereafter and had indigestion all night long.