Everything Nice in Nice

Cheesiest blog title ever. I couldn't help myself.  I feel like we have been gone for so long, and we still have another full week of vacation left.  I think it's because on our past trips, we have always had an agenda to follow.  When we were in Paris, Rome, London, even Dublin, we always had a checklist of things we wanted to see and do that kept our days busy.  On this trip, we've done a whole lot of wandering and roaming the streets and back alleys.  It's our favorite thing to do in Europe, and it's made this trip really relaxing.  We slept in this morning, proceeded directly to a cafe for espresso, and then headed to the market down by the water in Nice. (Eric said I should tell you that except before that, we stopped at McDonalds for a second (double) espresso.)
 
Nice is absolutely beautiful, even though it was overcast today.  The weather has been so much warmer than what we have had in our past Euro-trips. All I can say is that Europeans sure do know how to put on a market.  I would LOVE to have the produce selection at home that I have here.  I stocked up on lots of fruit for the next day or so - I'm "breaded" out at the moment.  Didn't think that was possible? Me either.

Next, we headed to an amazing little antique market.  If it wouldn't have cost us an arm and a leg to ship items home, we would have spent a significant amount of money today.  There were some incredible pieces that we were drooling over - hello chippy paint, come to mama. After that, we wandered around and shopped for a bit, and then headed up to the top of Castle Hill for some AMAZING views of the city and of the coastline.

I honestly never realized what a large city Nice is before we got here!  After we got our fill of views from above, we headed down to the beach to enjoy the scenery, salt water, and fresh air for a bit while we rested our legs.

There were tons of rocks on the beach that people had written on and left behind as a momento.  I happened to have a Sharpie in my bag (is that not normal?), so we wrote a little message of our own and tossed it into the sea before we left. Eric even dipped his toes in for a moment, although the water is still pretty chilly.

You can sort of see our rock that I wrote on near the middle of the photo, at the very bottom.

We had dinner tonight at a restaurant called Oliviera, which is one of the best in Nice and came highly recommended. It's interesting because each dish is paired with a different olive oil, infused by the owner himself, even down to dessert.  The food was fantastic, but the service was lacking, honestly.  We had a reservation and still waited over 20 minutes to even get a bottle of wine to the table.  Someone described a restaurant recently as "a victim of its own success," and that describes this place perfectly.  I would still recommend going, but the owner needs more staff to be able to handle the reputation that they have built.   We must have watched him turn away at least 30 people tonight, no joke, because he was booked solid. If you're interested, he puts up some of the recipes from the restaurant online so you can make them at home. I had the Aubergine Oliviera, as well as the Tartare Mediteranne. (Aubergine is just eggplant, simple as that.)

Pierre Update: As most of you know, Pierre sleeps in his own bed in his own little room (i.e. laundry room or guest bathroom) at our house at night.  Well, Eric's mom has informed us that this week he decided he wanted to sleep outside in their garage with Stormy (their little basset mix). He has been barking incessantly if they bring him inside until they let him back out to sleep in the garage. He knows exactly what he can get away with at Grandma's, and I bet we won't hear a peep out of him when we get home. Little stinker! At least he's happy and having fun with a pup playmate:)

Anywho, we must have walked at least 30 miles today, and my legs are aching, so I'm off to bed.  If you try either of the above recipes, let me know! They were delicious, and we're excited to try them at home too.