I wake up early, again, it’s a pattern. But it’s also our first morning in Nice, and I am super excited to head out to the closest bakery, they have been open for a couple of hours already! They open at 4am, I’m practically late waking up at 6.30am. Maylin came in to our bedroom at some point in the night, so I leave her and Joe sleeping. As I step out into the hallway, Téa pokes her head up from the blankets and wants to come with. So I wait for her, and we head out together.
It takes a full two minutes to walk from our front door to the bakery, and we are welcomed by a smiling lady who patiently helps me with my French as we choose our foods. We ask for a yogurt something with raspberries on top, and are told it’s a berry tiramisu. I ask if it’s appropriate for breakfast, and the lady smiles big saying “Oui, bien sur!”. We also grab a baguette, a croissant for Joe, an almond croissant for a treat, and Téa wants a slice of a pizza looking thing (we later discovered that it is a pissaladiere, a soft fluffy flatbread with various toppings, a speciality from Nice).
Half way home, right around the corner from both the bakery and the AirBnb, we found a butcher, and I pop my head in. They have all sorts of meat and patés, along with a cheese section and all the rest of what a butcher shop has. I learn the French word for Guinea Fowl this morning (pintade), and contemplate buying an entire rabbit, but not really. I do buy a giant slab of brie and a duck paté terrine for Joe.
After breakfast, we get ready and head out to explore the city of Nice. There’s a view point by the beach we’d like to get to, and there’s a market down by the waterfront. When we round the corner, Maylin says “Look Mom, there’s a Ferris wheel!”. This is what she was looking at:
We walk down through the Old Town, it’s a bit chilly in the early hours, but we get a good look around. We discover that there are some beautiful buildings hidden between the narrow alleys, and are shocked that we didn’t see this one yesterday:
When we a few steps later discover a tiny coffee roaster and tea shop, we head in for a warm beverage. Téa wanted her chocolate iced, Joe got an americano, and I had a smoky Lapsang Souchong tea. This tea is a rare find, and I’m so glad they had it here!
We make it back down towards the waterfront, where the restaurants have retreated and there are vendor booths filling the streets. There’s fruits, fish, vegetables and honey, nuts, flowers, more flowers, pasta, dried mushrooms, sundried and grilled eggplant slices (for rehydration and cooking, they say), and so much more.
Socca is a pancake made from chickpeas, salt and oil. That’s it! It’s fried flat in enormous cast iron pans, and only on one side. This lady’s colleague had a heated storage cart, so whenever she ran out of socca, he would take away the empty tray and replace it with a new one. The pancake is then cut into large slices, then cut into squares for easier eating on the go. I don’t think we’ll get another portion, it wasn’t mind blowingly good, and there are so many delicious things to eat here!
We have walked through the entire market, so now we head down to the beach. It’s very windy. A couple of people are swimming, and our girls are practicing throwing rocks into the ocean. I think the goal is to learn how to skip stones, but as you can see from her throwing technique, Maylin also just loved the big splashes of throwing rocks into the water.
I stand and watch as an older gentleman is trying to get out of the water. There’s a steep little hill of pebbles he has to climb up, and he eventually gets down on hands and knees just to get back up onto the beach. I don’t think we’ll be testing these waters, this time.
We walk all the way over towards the Nice sign, this is the start of the beach area in Nice. There are lots of tourists milling about, and we wait our turn to take our picture by the sign. In the meanwhile, might as well do a family photo with the beach in the background.
Back down from our view climb, we are now on the hunt for lunch. We decide to walk back into Old Town, to see what we can find.
On our way back to the AirBnb from lunch, we took a different route, and found this pretty overhang:
We headed home to relax for a bit, Joe and the girls watched a movie while I blogged. Then, we went back out for an evening walk, for a little bit of sightseeing before dinner. We were aiming for the harbour with the yachts, having read about both the pier and the start of the walking path to the next town over.
We headed back into the heart of Old Town for dinner, and found a charming restaurant called Restaurant La Claire Fontaine, right in front of the fountain at Place Rosetti.
And just like that, our first full day in Nice was over. Tomorrow will be very different, we’re hopping on a train in the morning!
The sea walk reminded me of the malecón in Puerto Vallarta. Even the type of seashore is similar.
Was that pebbles as well?