Nice

Nice, Friday and Saturday August 5 and 6 

I finally found a seat on the train in another car from Cham because he was watching over the luggage.  I’ve started reading my birthday gift from Tray, Game of Thrones, and I’m not sure exactly when we first came to the Mediterrean Sea, but I had to gasp when I saw it; I had forgotten how beautiful it was.  I was unsure going to Nice was the right decision because anything less than a two night stay is a lot of hassle with all our luggage, but I knew it was going to be great as soon as I saw the water.  The ride along the coast was beautiful, especially through Cannes and Antibes.  We ended in Nice, a place that I thought for sure would have elevators in the train station but no such luck though there was an escalator that we missed.  So after two sets of steps, we start walking to the hotel which was only sshort distance from the train station.  Once again, we get lost.  We eventually arrived at our Holiday Inn, which was very nice, checked in and started going exploring. 

Neither of us had been to Nice since 2000. Wow, what a fantastic place.  From what we remembered, the buildings and squares had all been cleaned up.  There were two water parks in the huge Messina Plaza, where the horrible terroist truck attack happened on July 14.  Because we hadn’t had any lunch, we went to look for a snack before dinner.  We ended up at a bistro which was located right across from the Palais of Justice where a temporary memorial has been set up with the names of the people who died in the attack.  There was a long table behind us where they were celebrating the marriage of a couple.  A couple of the children had gotten restless and were basically playing tag using the fence as base.  I was a little miffed at first thinking they needed to show it more respect, but then realized, Thank God life goes on.  A couple has gotten married and children are playing in the midst of the memorial.  

We then walked to sea.  The promenade Anglais is about 20 feet wide and follows the sea.  You pass the public and private beaches as you walk.  It’s quite a sight to see all of these people sunning on rocks.  You can also witness the unaccustomed try to walk on the rocky beach to the water and more importantly try to get out of the water.  I decided to save my Mediterreanexperience until we had a sandy beach in Capri.  

There’s a huge square which is full of all kinds of food vendors.  We decided to eat an early dinner (6:45) at one of the fish places.  It was absolutely delicious.  We had frog legs as an appetizer. The best I’ve ever had.  They purposely put us near another restaurant which had an amazing American jazz band playing.  Truly, they were terrific and they made the evening.  After a pro longed dinner and the end of their night, we introduced ourselves to what we thought was a black American.  He sang several numbers including some James Brown.  He was a very interesting individual.  He was originally from Louisisanna but now had homes in LA, TX and Nice.  He had served as a sniper for 22 years in the U.S. Army  and was now singing jazz.  He is the half nephew of James Brown and had played with him as a child.  It was a fascinating conversation.He gave us his card and also wrote his father’s name down because his dad is still playing jazz as well.

The past several previous nights, Cham had tried, with no success, to get train tickets from Nice to our next destination, Florence, Italy. This did not make sense because, up to this time,it had been very easy making train reservations on the internet. It appeared the train was sold out.  The hotel had tried to help, but they weren’t having any success either.  We decided to go to the train station to see if we could sort things out in person.  At the train station Cham finally learned that the train’s internet website does not do trains crossing the borders of countries, in our case France to Italy. So we got our tickets from Nice, France to Florence, Italy at the train station itself.  He stood in one line to get a number, got a number because there are a lot of people who are trying to get tickets to even get to Monte Carlo, Monica for the day which evidently the internet doesn’t do since technically you are going from one country to another.