All of Nice in one post.

Our host in Nice was a spunky woman who had lived pretty much everywhere, speaks at least Italian, French, English and Spanish, and baked the most delicious fresh bread for breakfast each day. She sat with us and other guests at breakfast each day so we learned her story a bit and also got expert advice on the city. The first day, upon Josephine's advisement, we went to the main market in Nice in the morning and then visited one of the fanciest hotels I've ever seen. The market was a few city blocks of tables filled with fresh fruit, dried fruit, fresh fish, meat, cheese, flowers, paintings, ect. We also found an Italian market on the promenade near the water, so we bought a canoli and some cheese and a sandwich and ate while sitting on the beach. One thing that really surprised me was how many people were laying out in bikinis (or less) at 10 ish in the morning.  I though it was still as bit chilly for that but it was good sun, I suppose. I just trout that'd be more of an afternoon activity but apparently not. And it turned out to be smart of them, given that a storm rolled in that afternoon, while we were riding bikes that we had rented. Thankfully we rode away from it so we only got a little wet.  Nice, as Josephine told us, is sunny 300 days a year because there are mountains/hills surrounding it and so the clouds rarely come all the way to the city. They did come in a little that day. We had to abandon the bikes a little early and take refuge in various souvenir shops and one very expensive candy shop while we waited for the restaurant we wanted to eat at to open. Michael and I have a habit of getting candy whenever we get in a tiny argument or something semi-unfortunate happens. It's similar to my "get hurt, get froyo" motto. Because of the rain, we ended up with some rather expensive biscuits, chocolate covered almonds, caramels and fruit flavored chewy candies, basically just fancy starbursts. Fun fact, in Denmark and many other European counties, food coloring is illegal so all of their candies are flavored naturally, which keeps them white, rather than the bright colors our candy is.
Anyway we finally had some pasta and afterward, again upon Josephine's recommendation, visited what she claimed was the best gelato place. She swears by it. And I see why. It had the best pistachio gelato I've ever had and every other flavor we tried (which was a lot - the worker was very generous with samples) tasted exactly of its fruit/candy. Pistachio, dark chocolate, peach, white chocolate, chocolate raspberry, cinnamon, mango, strawberry, dark chocolate baobab, salted caramel...I'm hungry just thinking about it.

Our second day was our most adventurous. We walked up a big hill full of fancy mansions and hotels to the Matisse museum and roman archeological ruins, which was pretty cool to see. I kind of didn't realize that Romans had lived there but it is very close to Italy so it makes sense. They had excavated public baths and a neighborhood in an area surrounded by modern city, so it's likely there are even more ruins underground in the surrounding area. The Matisse museum was fun because t was small enough we could really read through everything and tent lot know Henri Matisse's life and work. I had no idea he designed a church and he considered it his life's main piece of work. It was no La Sagrada Familia (more on that to come) but it was pretty neat.

We walked back to the city to catch a train to a beach town about 10 minutes away. Have I mentioned how beautiful the water near Nice was? It was the best blue. So clear, and when it foams from the waves it basically sparkles. We spent the afternoon beach-ing, which I loved. It wasn't super warm but laying in the sun was nice and we both got brave enough around 5 pm to swim in the sea enough to make us completely numb from the cold.

When we got back to Nice, we walked through Old Town to a hill called chateau hill, where a castle used to stand. Now it is a park with a cemetery, a waterfall, great lookout points and a tower at the very top. We got there  a few minutes before 8 and watched the sunset from a lookout point and then visited the waterfall. We were surprised there weren't more people enjoying the same view. Wen we got to the bottom of the hill and realized one of the main gates was closed and locked, we realized why we had been so alone. It was closed. And there was a wall we could have scaled...except it dropped at least 30 feet to the busy road below. No thank you. Some French girls on the other side of the gate laughed at us and repeatedly told us "it's closed". Thank you, we know that now. We speed-walked toward another exit and assed some delinquent 14-year old French boys who also told us, "hey! Is closed!" And had only laughs in response to my "yes, but how do we get out?" Just as Michael and I were near panic state (where are both excellent, calm travelers but when you think you are going to be sleeping in a French park all night, you tend to get a little worried) we found the other locked car gate, which was next to a little pedestrian door that was unlocked. Phew! And so we went to a little restaurant that Josephine suggested for a lovely, very late dinner. When almost locked in a park, buy yourselves a nice meal of veal and pasta and some pannacotta for desert.

Because our meal had ended around 1130, we ditched the getting up early tradition. W slept in a little, packed our stuff, walked to a nearby market, got a final gelato from that amazing place, and then walked to the station for our bus to the airport. That was it for nice and it was soon Hola Barcelona!