April 2010

Nine days in Nice

Arrive without incident but in rain which seems to be a pattern. The next day was gorgeous and sunny, everybody out and about enjoying the Easter weekend, on the beach and a few brave souls in the sea.

We are here to declutter and clean the apartment ready for the summer. It will be our 10th summer in Nice and we still need bits and pieces for the studio so we have booked a small van and are heading out to Ikea in Toulon.

Brasserie Flo for lunch:

Not all hard work - been to Brasserie Flo - love it there, reminds me of the Grosvenor Hotel in Chester - proper old fashioned service. Also a couple of drinks on Place Garibaldi - Le Danieli this time.

We are working our way around the the whole square. We had a meal in the long established Au Petit Gari last visit - great for lunch if you can get in quick and grab the plat du jour before the locals take over the place.

Yesterday we took the 750 bus to Isola 2000 and skied for the afternoon, returning home to Nice in the late afternoon. Fabulous hot and sunny day. The snow was very sticky, it felt like you were skiing and turning in slow motion, even at the top of the runs. We finally made to the far side to take in the view of the sea. This involves a really steep drag lift which I always fall off and have to ski through wilderness and forests to find a piste and then an ancient 2-seater chair lift which scoops you up and tries to throw you off, in fact it did throw my daughter off but we got there in the end. Anyway, although the weather was perfect in Isola, there was low cloud in Nice and no view of the sea. Ah well, next time maybe.

Terrible day today, Thursday 8th April.

Needed a trip to Ikea so we hired a small van from car-rentals on the Port and set off for Toulon, it's about 150 km away, about 1.5- 2 hours drive. If you think it's bad in the UK, Ikea in France is the absolute pits and wasn't even Saturday. We queued to park, queued at ask questions, queued for lunch, queued to pay, queued to collect, all one big nightmare and we still have more shopping to do, will have to get the rest from Fly, Carrefour and Maison du Monde (Nice Etoile, top floor) The only consolation was the weather, nondescript and cloudy with some rain, as good a day as any to housekeep.

I am keeping up my running a bit in Nice - using the app RunKeeper on my iPhone. This morning I ran up past the Chateau Anglais - the pink frilly-lookin residence on the Cap de Nice: Here's the route:-

I usually just trot along the Prom so it made a bit of a change to add in a hill.