Exploring Nice in Two Days

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After a day of travel (flying from Manchester to Nice via Dublin…with several delays) we got into Nice at 10pm.

Day Zero in Nice

Ryan and I took a bus from the airport into the city. Our hostel have us directions and told us which bus to take, but that bus stopped running at 9pm. After missing our stop and backtracking a bit on foot, we arrived at our hostel, where we have a private room, an ensuite bathroom, and a Juliet balcony overlooking Rue Thiers. It was late so we just went right to sleep.

Day One in Nice

We woke up bright and early and headed down to breakfast. Our hostel was really just a hotel with a kitchen and lounge access, but I’m not complaining! We ate a breakfast of fresh baguette, butter, jam, soft cheese, and tea. It was better quality bread than in Manchester, but the breakfast itself was nothing special. After we ate, we looked up some possible sights, got a map from reception, and we were off!

That first morning, we woke up to the sounds of an accordion playing music outside. What a stereotypically French sound!

Ryan and I didn’t get 100m until we were sidetracked – first by a nearby patisserie with several delectable delights on offer.

Look at those billowy meringues!

And everything was so affordable.

The Fontaine du Soleil, on the way to the Vieux Nice.

On our walk to see the market in Vieux Nice, we were stopped by people who asked us to write a word of sympathy/encouragement for the residents of Baghdad, who had just experienced another bombing. In return, they gave Ryan a white rose that he could lay at the memorial in Nice. We were there exactly one week after the Nice Bastille Day attack.

Silly tourists.

The memorial was huge; piles of flowers, stuffed animals, cards, letters, candles, and other mementos lined the Promenade des Anglais.

People were there, somber-looking; some were crying as they embraced their families. We added our rose to the pile and left.

Meanwhile, life returned to normal for others, and the stony beach had its fair share of swimmers and sun worshipers.

Ryan and I then headed towards the Cours Saleya, home to the daily flower and food market (which is closed on Mondays, when the antique market is on). We browsed the stalls, tempted to buy everything. There was dried lavender (€2 per hefty sachet), dried herbs, flavoured salts, olive oils and tapenades, potted pâtés and onion confits, fig confitures, sausages, cheeses, and breads. We passed the pissaladière and got a plain baguette for just €0.95; a truffle brie from a cheesemonger who said he didn’t like truffles but sells a lot of that cheese; a saucisson sec made with pork and cèpes; two sweet and juicy tomatoes from a man who wanted to explain each tomato type to us, whether they were for cooking or for salad, or if they were Provencal or not; two sweet and perfect peaches; and a handful of dark, juicy cherries. Just as we had collected our lunch supplies, the noon cannon went off in the distance – amazing!

I’m not sure what to do with these dried eggplant slices. Unfortunately the market closed before I could go back to buy them!

Ryan and I took our lunch to a bench by the Quai des Etats-Unis and sliced our baguette, cheese, and sausage. Everything was delicious! The fruits were perfectly ripe and the sausage had tasty morsels of cèpes studded throughout. The weather was also perfect: sunny and warm with a slight breeze, but not too hot nor humid. Even by the end of our trip, this was one of our favourite meals. We packed up and continued to wander the old town, ducking into perfume shops, soap shops, shops selling olive oils and olive wood, and shops selling cotton and linen tablecloths and aprons.

This cheese store was giving out samples of their delicious comté. We bought a big slab of that plus a piece of stinky Tomme with truffles. The lurid green cheese is flavoured with pesto; the red flavoured with sun-dried tomato; and the blue was flavoured with lavender.

That offensively blue ice cream is ‘Smurf’ flavour.

We found our way to the Place near Rue du Collet where we bought a plate of hot and tasty socca for only €2.80. We sprinkled it with pepper and devoured it while watching the people go by.

After that brief rest, we visited three or four music shops before eventually returning to the hostel where we put our cheeses in the fridge. After a short rest, we set off looking for dinner and happy hour. The residential neighbourhoods didn’t have the seafood I was looking for, so we eventually made our way back to Cours Saleya.

After the morning market closes around 1pm, the restaurants lining the Cours expand their patios, and art and jewellery stalls move in. We found an outdoor table by the restaurant La Marché, which had a Nicoise prix fixe menu for just €20. After ordering a pastis and a glass of red wine, our food came: a bowl of rich and flavourful fish broth with a shot glass of grated nutty cheese, crouton toasts, and rouille (a mayonnaise of chilis and garlic). My second course was the loup de mer (sea bass) in a lemon cream sauce and saffron rice. Ryan had the daube, a beef stew served with tender little gnocchis. Lastly, our charming waiter served Ryan the rich chocolate mousse while I had the tare aux pommes. By now, we were full and I couldn’t even finish my dessert! For some reason, the restaurant was a bit emptier than the others, but we had a grand time leisurely working our way throug hour meal and watching the people, from tourist families to teenagers coming back from Nice’s stony beaches, to the quartet of armed soldiers patrolling the Cours.

Some of the ice cream parlours had quite interesting flavours; above are jasmine, orange blossom, olive, tomato basil, beer, rosemary, and thyme.

After dinner, it was now 8pm and we set out among the winding streets of Vieux Nice once more, stopping to buy a set of olive wood salad serving set and looking at the golden and grassy olive oils.

Unfortunately the two music/jazz venues we found had odd set times – we were too early for the first, and had just missed the second. The Nice Jazz Fest was also cancelled due to the attack the week before. Nevertheless, I was satisfied with the accordion player from that morning.

Day Two in Nice

We didn’t really get to spend another whole day in Nice. On the day after our one full day, we rented a car and went off to Aix-en-Provence and the Camargue. We returned to Nice after a few days away and dropped the car off at 5:30pm, and checked back into our hostel. We were too tired to go far, so Ryan and I went for dinner just around the corner at Restaurant Saetone. It seemed to be a local joint, full of French-speakers and with classic dishes at good prices. I had the delicious and filling Salade Niçoise, which was made of lettuce, ripe tomato, boiled eggs with orange yolks, canned tuna, salty anchovies, celery, olives, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Ryan had the beef tagliata, basically a steak salad served with fries. To top it off, he had a rhum baba for while I had a light and not-too-sweet chocolate mousse. Delicious! While we were sitting at our table on the small patio, we saw several people do wheelies on bikes as they passed. It seems to be a thing here – guys doing wheelies on bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles…anything with two wheels!

The next morning we ate our breakfast of baguette, duck sausage, melon, white peach, comté cheese, and tea. Our fruits were so fragrant that I’m sure their aroma filled the room and made the other guests jealous. Then we returned to our room and waited for our friend to meet us from Switzerland. He remarked on the helicopter ‘taxis’ waiting at the airport, and probably brought us 2kg of Swiss and German chocolate, while we gave him gifts from North America, including two kinds of beef jerky, salmon jerky, and an abomination of crunchy, freeze-dried 100% cheese.

We left our bags in our room and set out for lunch around noon. We found a neighbourhood cafe opposite Restaurante Saetone, where we had crepes and omelets served by a funny waiter and his wife. 

France is famous for its Puy lentils, yet here are two bags from Canada!

These puffy ghost faces are ham and cheese flavoured!

One of my favourite things to do while travelling is to visit local grocery stores. Our hostel was right next to a supermarket, and here were readymade buckwheat galettes and regular crepes, you know, for crepe emergencies.

Now that we were all fed and watered, we got our bags and went off to our next adventure.