We spent the morning at the Cours Selaya market in the old town. Several websites described it as a combination of a flower market and flea market, and maybe we were in the wrong place or something, but we only saw the flea market. I’m not sure what people find enticing about a flea market because to me it’s as if the stuff that people are selling at the market is old antiques they’ve kept in their basement for decades. Occasionally, there were vendors selling art, but it was mostly antiques.

The vegetation here is very Mediterranean. It’s not temperate at all. There are palm trees everywhere, olive trees, and green spiny heat resistance shrubs.

For lunch, we visited a local Michelin star restaurant, L’eau de Vie. I’d say it was good, but not Michelin star good…

Later in the day, we visited the Marc Chagall Museum. Marc Chagall was an artist who live in Nice for some time. I’m not huge on art, but visited the museum upon the insistence of my travel partner. While the work was beautiful, it was difficult for me to appreciate it in more depth due to my lack of literacy in the fine arts. On top of that, the main theme of the art in the museum seemed to be scenes from the bible, which I’m not too familiar with either.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the city seeing other landmarks like the Hotel Negresco, and the Saint Nicholas Cathedral. The Hotel Negresco is considered a landmark in the city and appears on many postcards. It’s essentially a really fancy hotel with its own private beach for its guests. The interesting part of the Saint Nicholas Cathedral is that it’s Russian Orthodox. This raises the question of why there’s a Russian Orthodox cathedral so far away from Russia. By the end of the 19th century, there was a sizable Russian diaspora living in Nice, partly owing to the good relations built up by the Russian nobility. Another cool fact is that the cathedral belongs to the Russian Federation.

An unfortunate consequence of all the time spent outside resulted in many mosquito bites. I was honestly surprised and how relentless they were considering it was the middle of the day. I’ve only remembered them showing up at dusk.

Eventually we made it back to Place Garibaldi, the main city square in Nice. The great thing about European cities is the massive public spaces that are pedestrian only. It reduces the amount of car exhaust so much and gives ample space for restaurant patios. It’s nice to just sit at the patio and enjoy the colour scenery all around, from the colours of the buildings, the windows, the balconies, or just simply people watch.

We ended the day with a fantastic lobster dinner. It was even topped up with a flambé of Jack Daniel’s. It’s not the best whiskey in the world, but a flambé is cool, especially on a lobster. I wish I could remember what the sauce was made of…

That’s it for day 2 of our trip! Our packed itinerary only allowed us to have a short two day stay in Nice. Tomorrow we head elsewhere!

More photos of Nice here

Initially when I turned on the car, I couldn’t even figure out how to drive it. The car turned on, but I didn’t hear any engine noises, not even the noise of the engine starting. I was so confused and we had to ask one of the attendants, who told me that the car was actually a hybrid, and if the electric engine was being used, there’d be no engine noises. I’d never driven a hybrid car before, and certainly didn’t know a Renault Clio had a hybrid version, but now I know.

Since it was our first day and we needed to adjust for the jetlag, we took the day easy by walking along the beach, and the windy cobblestone streets of the old town.

We met our AirBnB host who showed us into the underground parking garage of the building. I mean underground parking garage very loosely. The spot itself had maybe about 30 cm of clearance on either side, and barely any space to setup. I knew driving in Europe would be more challenging than in North America, but this isn’t what I expected. I was more so expecting narrow streets and parallel parking, but not this. I’d say this was the toughest parking spot I’ve had to navigate in recent memory. Luckily I had help from the backup cam and people standing outside to guide me.

Our AirBnB host was super nice, asked us where we’re from and told about how she used to live in Montreal, but moved back to France because it was too cold there. As a greeting gift she gave us a bar of artisanal soap from Fragonard, a local perfumerie. After dropping off our bags, we took a brief nap to get over the jetlag, and then walked around town. For lunch at Le Bistrot de Jennifer, we had a giant bucket of grilled/smoked oysters, an octopus salad, and a truffle pizza with a panaché to drink. We walked along the beachfront and then up to the top of Château de Nice.

Walking through the old town of Nice, there are colours everywhere. There’s blue from the water, the green from the trees, and the buildings have all sorts of assorted colours. Even the street signs have colour – the signs aren’t always even in French – sometimes they’re in the local dialect called Niçard.

It’s a pretty big city and very very hot even when visiting in September. The sun is relentless, yet people sunbathe on the beach. People here refer to it as “bronzette” in French. Surprisingly, the beach itself is rocky instead of sandy – not what I expected.

The annoying part in Nice, like many cities in Europe, is how much people like smoking in public. We have this imagery in our minds of visiting the Mediterranean and feeling a nice breeze of fresh sea air, but this isn’t what happens. The heat is filled with cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and the occasional whiff of urine and it can be quite suffocating. At times, we just want to dunk heads in the water for some relief. However, the people have been very nice to us (they don’t have the stereotypical snobbiness of Parisians) and there is lots of things to see.

Along the beachfront, there are blue metal chairs (so called les chaises bleues) for people to sit in and soak in the sun. They’d be nice to sit on if there was a breeze to cool us down.

The blue chairs are so iconic, to the point that they’ve become part of its identity – to the point that there’s a monument dedicated to it.

That’s about it for the first day.

More photos of Nice here