France Day 12 - Nice

Saturday September 21

Breakfast on the 8th floor = rooftop! Splendid. It is a buffet and the automated coffee machine is a learning moment but it is fun. 

At 9 am we are meeting Sophie in the lobby for a walking tour of the Vieux Nice (Old Town). She gave us passes for the subway and of course we had our whispers. 

She points out that strangly enough the street signs are written here in two French ways. 

This plain facade is actually a church ... not plain inside at all.

I guess I need to say it here: I have a lot of photos of a lot of buildings and statues etc etc. I can't put them all into the blogs. There is nothing plain about France. One reason is probably that hardly anything was damaged during WWII. 

Saturday morning of course there is the market. Love the markets. Wished I could buy and cook with it. Really. And yes, there are Zwetschgen. 

Sophie surprises us with something to taste. It is Socca. I looked up the recipe. Chickpea flour, olive oil, salt and water. I think I need to try that at home. 

And then we are at the Place Masséna. 

At 11 am we have the choice of returning with her to the hotel or wandering around by ourselves. We are going straight to the Mediterranean Sea again. There is some preparation work going on. We learn that this is for the Ironman World Championship tomorrow. It will be crowded. 

One of James' rowing friends from univercity has a daughter who does ironman championships. We wonder whether she might be here. 

    

All this walking around without drinking anything is not good. We didn't bring our water bottles this morning. Well, there is always a solution.

On the way back to the hotel we decide to buy a sandwich to share. Our balcony is the perfect place but too windy to play cards again.  

At 1:45 pm we are meeting Sophie again in the lobby with the metro card again. This time we take the subway from Alsace-Lorraine Station to Port Lympia. This 1 hour cruise was an option she arranged for those who wanted it. 

The house in the middle of the photo on the very top is the Villa Rothchild we are going to visit on Monday. Stay tuned for that!

The weather had been perfect for the cruise and taking the metro and walking the city is just a lot of fun. 

This was the officially last day of the base trip. Most from the Rhone trip were going home the next day. Our itinarary said:

6pm : Farewell drink in the breakfast room on the upper floor.

Sophie showed us photos she had taken during the trip with the promise to email them to us (eventually). She also urged us to do the survey when we are home. Afterwards people were eager to get back to their rooms to pack I guess.

James and I decided to stay on the upper floor and just have a little something to eat. They highly recommended the entrecôte which we did order but it really was way too much. But of course we enjoyed the view there.

I wasn't sure what this was. It tasted like a caper but was so much larger than I knew them. Somebody called it a caper berry. The internet said that capers, the small, edible, unopened buds of the same plant, appear on the caper bush before the berries. Well, that explained that.

Since Sophie has to take care of those leaving, all those staying for the post-trip have a "free" day. Some have decided to go to Monaco but we have not made any arrangements. We are on vacation, ha-ha.