One of my close friends going all the way back to elementary school, Becky, moved to Israel several years ago. We've kept in touch thanks to her roughly annual trips back to the States and the wonders of modern technology, but when I came to France, we took advantage of living that much closer to each other to
squeeze in some quality time. She was able to take off a few days over my spring break in April, so we planned to explore southern France before heading back to Lyon for the weekend!
Our first day was all about discovering Nice. After croissants and coffee for breakfast, we spent the rest of the morning wandering through the streets of the old city, stopping in the museum at the Palais Lascaris, and browsing the wares at the giant weekly flea market in Cours Saleya.
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| Palais Lascaris ‒ totally worth it since we got in free with our student IDs! |
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| The palace has an impressive collection of ancient instruments! |
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| Flea market in Cours Saleya |
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| I left the flea market with a set of six of these plates. They all have types of cheese!! |
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| Live filming of the French version of Top Chef at Cours Saleya! |
After lunch on the beach, we strolled along the waterfront promenade, Le Promenade des Anglais,
so-named after the English vacationers who used to spend winters on the
southern coast of France.
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Lunch on the beach!
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Our next stop was the Marc Chagall museum. The whole museum was nicely put together, but my favorite part was the room containing five pink-hued paintings illustrating the "Song of Songs" in the Hebrew Bible. The audio guide segment for this room was great ‒ we were serenaded with Bach concertos while we admired the art!
From the museum, we continued our day of sightseeing with a walk up Castle Hill. We had timed it perfectly to get to the top as the sun was starting to set, so we were treated to some beautiful views from the top. It was a bit hazy while we were on the coast, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
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| Strolling to Castle Hill with some delicious smoothies |
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| View from Castle Hill |
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| View of the port from the other side of Castle Hill |
Finally, we ended our night with a great dinner at Acchiardo, a restaurant in the old city. Becky had some fantastic gnocchi in a gorgonzola sauce, while I had ravioli stuffed with meat and swiss chard (swiss chard is used a lot in Niçoise cooking) in a pesto sauce. I also tried a kir, an aperitif made with crème de cassis and white wine. YUM!
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| Delicious dinner in Nice! |
On Tuesday, we visited some nearby coastal towns.
Crowding onto a packed bus (our line went
through Monaco, where a big tennis match was taking place that day!) we headed to our first stop, Villefranche-sur-Mer. We spent a few hours there, walking around a fort down by
the water and then doing a short-but-steep hike up to a second fort with sweeping views of the coastline!
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| Picnic spot overlooking the water! |
From
Villefranche-sur-Mer, we caught another bus to continue on to Eze,
which markets itself as "a village of art and gastronomy." I can't speak to the food, but the art piece was definitely true! We spent about two hours
wandering in and out of artisan shops and taking photos of the quaint town.
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| Art workshops galore in Eze! |
It
was pretty late by the time we got back and showered, so we took it easy Tuesday evening. We picked up some fresh provençal tomatoes
and some other vegetables to eat with our leftover bread and cheese and
called it a night!
On Wednesday, we woke up
early to spend a bit more time in Nice and sample more of the local cuisine before catching our afternoon bus to
Castellane. Starting at Cours Saleya, we admired the gorgeous bouquets
bursting out of each stall at the famous flower market and browsed
the stands filled with artisanal soaps, lavender sachets, and other
lovely things nearby.
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| Soaps! |
Shopping complete, we rounded out our visit by tasting some regional specialties! I tried a
tarte au blette sucrée (a sweet swiss chard pastry
‒ it was...unusual),
socca (Niçoise-style crepes made from chickpea flour instead of wheat flour
‒ good, but apparently better hot off the griddle), and soupe de poisson (fish soup
‒ I couldn't leave the coast without some kind of seafood!). And just before catching our bus, we stopped for some gelato. It was legit. Nice was basically part of Italy until 1860, when
it
voted to join France, which explains the very Italian feel of the city
and the multitude of gelato shops!
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| Lunch at a cute restaurant before heading to the bus! |
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| Soupe de poisson |
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| Becky got a salade niçoise. How could we leave Nice without trying one? | |
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With that, it was time to bid goodbye to Nice and move on to the next part of our trip: Castellane and the Verdon Gorges!
