#Cafe

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Nice, Day 1

Wednesday, September 14th saw us leaving Paris early for a flight to Nice.

Our pilot told us it was a nice day in Nice and it was supposed to be sunny and 24 degrees. It was cloudy the entire flight so we didn’t see much until we broke out of the clouds near the sea. It was also raining quite heavily as we exited the airport looking for a taxi.

We’d arrived at 8:30 am and we couldn’t check into our Airbnb until 3:00 pm so I asked the cab driver to take us to a good place for breakfast.

He dropped up near 2 places and recommended Cafe Du Palais as the better of the two. So we trudged the block or so in the now pouring (but not hypothermia inducing rain like Alberta) rain. We decided on sitting inside as the umbrellas weren’t always winning the battle.

Took this to tease Curtis that we had Nutella come with breakfast (which we didn’t eat)

It was almost done raining when we left to find a place we could drop our small suitcase so we didn’t have to lug it around for a few hours.

Bag dropped and off to shop for an umbrella.

When we emerged from our successful quest, the rain seemed to have stopped. Or so we thought.

We walked around the shops and made our way over to Quai des États-Unis to look at the sea.

It still looked like rain would arrive but we strolled along without it happening.

It’s not a big hill at the end of the Promenade des Anglais but even though it was cloudy, it was still warm so we rested at the #ILoveNice sign. Trying to get a shot of just Lynda was a bit challenging.

We stayed at the top of the hill killing time before I had to go get our suitcase out of storage.

Lynda waited for me as she didn’t want to walk down and back up the hill. I was there and back in under half an hour. We strolled in the direction of our Airbnb and we walked right past it to our harbour tour that Lynda had booked for 3:00 pm. I had thought we could check in at 2:00 pm so we had an extra suitcase to bring along.

We got our tickets and sat on a bench in the shade waiting for boarding time.

We moved to line up with others standing, waiting and the rain came back. It was just a light drizzle but only moments ago the sun was beating down on us.

The boat has room for 46 passengers, 22 of which can be outside on the upper deck. Rain or no rain, Lynda and I headed up top. I had razzed Lynda about bringing her jacket along to such a warm place but it was nice to have it to set on the already wet bench as a blanket. The rain picked up in intensity and the wind started blowing before we even left the harbour. Luckily, we had ourselves a couple of umbrellas.

So, we sat in the rain, huddled under the umbrellas as person after person left to go down stairs to huddle inside.

The wind was even stronger after leaving the harbour so I didn’t even try to get my camera out and decided I’d make due with my cell phone.

We exited the harbour and headed north east along the coast and turned into the harbour at Villefranche-sur-Mer. There are plenty of impressive houses to look at along the way. The rain had started to slow down so some of the chickens came out to stand in the way of our view. I was inspired by my friend Canada Slim aka Adam Kerr and his lazy faire attitude when it comes to level horizons and I snapped a few shots willy-nilly. (It still feels weird)

The tour was almost over when the rain stopped but we were heading into some bigger waves and we were starting to accelerate on our way back to Nice so even the cell phone camera was put away.

The tour is an hour long and not terribly expensive so I think it was worth it. The rain put less of a damper on it than the 20 something year old girls that couldn’t sit their asses down once they ventured out on to our level. We weren’t too wet when we were done and we only had a 5 minute walk to our apartment.

More stairs were climbed and it took us a while to get our keys as the directions weren’t 100% clear. (It is said that things are lost in translation and in this case, it was true.) But finally we were in and dropped off our stuff so we could head back down to town for supper. We picked Mamma Mia and shared a Pizza Margherita. I tried an actual Marguarita (It seemed weird not having any ice in it but it would be the best one I had in Nice.) while Lynda had Sex on the Beach. (The drink. Not… What are you people thinking? Lol)

After a leisurely meal, we decided we were tired enough to just head back to the apartment instead of exploring the town. So we again walked along the Promenade.

Seemed a bit early to crash but it had been a long day getting up at 4:00 am and all and I’d gotten over 17k in steps. Tomorrow we have a morning tour and pickup is 8:30 am.

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Paris, 2022, Day 3

Woke up at 5 am and didn’t get back to sleep. Laid around in bed waiting for Curtis and Lucille to go to work/school so not to be in their way.

After breakfast we threw a load of laundry into the washer/dryer combo. I didn’t set it properly so it wasn’t drying.

We were going to venture out on our own but it kept raining on and off so it was already after noon when we got out the door all by ourselves.

We walked through the tail end of a sidewalk market. (Might have to look for them next week.)

We checked out a few Pâtisseries and Boulangeries as Lynda was looking for pastries and I was looking for real food. We settled on Entre Potes Cafe. We had the Plat du Jour which today was a salmon quiche with a side salad and a bit of baguette. It was really good.

I’m trying stuff outside my comfort zone while on holidays. I’ve had weird meat, cranberry juice and seafood (I do actually like salmon though).

We walked up the street some more and wandered through a small park. I liked the look of the building in behind it.

We walked back the way we came so Lynda could stop for pastries. (They were really good.)

We headed back to the apartment to wait till it was time to go out and get supper.

Lucille and Curtis were getting their hot water heater replaced so we were all waiting around for the new one to arrive. Even though someone had come and measured what they had, the crew showed up (3 hours later than scheduled) with one a foot too tall to fit the space. So, down to the truck for a smaller one. Of course, it’s smaller than what was there so new piping needs to be installed. By now it’s well past time to go out and get supper so we ordered tacos in on delivery. They were huge. We finished eating before the hot water tank was installed. Still didn’t have 10k in steps so we went to the store for some Ginger Ale. That was only about 400 steps there and back so still not there.

Not many photos today obviously. Hopefully I’ll get my steps yet tonight and maybe I’ll get more photos tomorrow.

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Paris 2022, Day 2

Woke up at 5 am. Fell back asleep at 6 am. Woke up again at 9:30 am and promptly fell back asleep until 11:00 am. Now my back was sore so I had to get up.

Lynda and I got showers and breakfast out of the way before Lucille got back from school. She says French classes are going slowly but she’s still got a whole lot more of a vocabulary than I do.

We headed out for a light lunch while we waited for Curtis to get off work.

We walked a few blocks to Le Bobillot Cafe.

We sat in the shade and ordered a meat and cheese charcuterie. I wanted coffee but it was pretty late for that so I went with a double décaféiné, Lynda ordered a glass of champagne and Lucille had vin chaud. The waitress confirmed she wanted hot mulled wine in the heat. (She did)

We sat and watched the people while looking.

Église Sainte-Anne de la Butte aux Cailles

We walked up towards a mall while we were waiting for Curtis to catch up to us. We ended up waiting at Place d’Italie across from the Town hall of the 13th arrondissement of Paris.

The important looking building that we have no idea what it is

We crossed the street(s) to Café Jules.

Lucille and Curtis ordered Crepes for supper with a Porn Star to drink while I shared a crispy chicken cesar salad with Lynda and I had Sexual Healing for a drink.

It was a pretty good meal and the drink had a bite.

We stopped at the grocery store for some ice cream for dessert to save some money and the vanilla bean Lynda picked was very good.

We again got our 10k steps in.

We visited for a while and were up well after Lucille and Curtis went to bed. It was after 11:00 pm before we got to bed. (Lynda was half asleep by the time I was a little bit tired.)