Goodbye Nice

As our last day dawned, we knew we didn't want to do anything new, just wander and enjoy the last rays of sunshine and the last of the peace being away from everything brought us. Throughout the holiday I realised Nice is a place with many sharp contrasts, but somehow it all fits together beautifully. There's cheap and cheerful shops and restaurants (we ended up in Quick Burger when we arrived desperate for food and super late on the first night. Just so you know, it was one of the worst things I've ever eaten).

There's high end fashion boutiques and five star restaurants.

And shops that, well, quite frankly, are indescribable. Never have I seen a more eclectic collection.

There's beautiful palm trees, pebbly beaches, museums and galleries and fantastic (seriously) ice cream.

There's something interesting to look at wherever you turn. I still don't know what these ribbons were about.

Eventually, it was time to head back to our apartment to pack the bags, and just in time too, because, for the first time all holiday, the heavens opened to an enormous storm. It made it slightly easier to come home. Very slightly. Usually, I love a holiday, but I'm ready to go home at the end. But this time, I could have happily stayed for another week at least.

I'll leave you with my favourite two pictures from the holiday - both taken on my phone! It goes to show it's the moment that makes the photograph, not the camera. Now I've finally wrapped up my summer posts, you can look forward to being introduced to some recipes, and finding out what a day in the life of a fourth year honours student is like...

"The sea was too blue to be wet"

Nice train station is lovely to look at. Much nicer than our destination train station, Monaco - Monte Carlo!

But Monaco itself is just as lovely as Nice, and has even better boats. If I could, I'd get one of these beauties and just sail around the world for the rest of my life.

If I had my eye on a boat, then someone else had their eye on a car we found - maybe your next birthday...

The discovery of a beautiful and blissfully quiet beach with sparkling blue sea left us wishing we'd brought our swimming stuff. In the end we had to make do with a quick paddle, before a lunch baguette at a beach café
.

Apparently this a quite a famous bend? I don't know, racing isn't my thing. But Ben was very excited. Seeing a bit of where Casino Royale was set, however, got me very excited!

After a good wander it was time to head back to the train station. These steps were not a welcome sight!

 After battling the steps, we made it back to Nice and soaked up the last of the days sun on the beach there.

Nice beach isn't really very nice at all, to your bum at least. It's pebbles, not sand. But you can have great fun  with tower building competitions!

...and knocking them down again once you've built them!

As much as it's a little uncomfortable, it's a very nice place to sit for a little while and relax. If you could be on any beach in the world just now, which would it be?

Culture Vultures

On our second full day in Nice we had a culture day. We visited the Chagall museum, which had a temporary exhibition up focusing on his self portraits. Although the museum itself is not beautiful, the exhibition, along with the rest of the museum, was a joy to wander round. It was intelligently laid out and there was just enough that you could take it all in and not be overwhelmed. 

We had peace and quiet for most of our visit, which was relatively early in the morning,but a tour group turned up right at the end so we made a hasty exit! I wholeheartedly recommend you visit if you're ever in the area. It's a bit of a trek up hill from the centre of town, but there is a bus you can get, and if you go first thing you'll almost have the exhibitions to yourself.

We then continued up the hill to a park where there are two museums, one dedicated to Matisse, and the archaeology museum.

The Matisse museum is in a lovely building, but it's not quite so well laid out as Chagall, and it was a lot busier by the time we got there, so I didn't enjoy it quite as much. A lot of the museums in Nice had a section linked to Matisse (however tenuously... looking at you Archaeology museum...) as part of the Matisse 2013 celebrations, and some of their small exhibitions were more interesting than the main museum.

The archaeology museum has some interesting ruins outside, but there's no English translation of any of the labels inside the museum. I speak a little French, I can order my dinner and ask where the train station is, but the museum text was way beyond what I could manage.

We walked back to the centre of Nice for lunch, and had one of the best meals we had over the whole holiday. There was a chicken kebab with a delicious fresh salad and feta cheese balls.

And salmon with a poached egg and salad, along with a side of wedges to share.

We carried on to the Contemporary Art museum, where I left my camera in the locker, which annoys me more than I can say. I'm not a huge fan of modern art, in general I don't really "get" it. But we had a good laugh wandering round, and from the very top there are fantastic views of Nice. There was a particularly good exhibition focusing on artists who had been inspired by Matisse, as part of the Matisse 2013 series.

We also went to a photography museum, where the display was dedicated to female muses.