I have jumped from Monday to Thursday, as Ken spent exploring Nice, Villafranche and just wandering the wonderful area. By the time I got here he had had an average of 20k steps per day! I was going to have a nice dinner with Ken once I arrived at 9p on Thursday, but due to delays due to air traffic, so by the time I exited it was 1020p, so it was a bit of a slow start to my part of the trip.
On Friday, we woke to the daily church bells at 8a from next door, no way to sleep through those! The day was sunny and beautiful but Ken said it was the least nice day he had since arriving. We grabbed a coffee at the small caf next door, and plotted out the day. We had wanted to do the Rothschilds estate and neither of us had thought about getting the tix in advance. Oops. No tix available for it or the Chagall museum, so bad on our part for poor planning.
We started out heading to the great outdoor market, which runs every day except Monday and Tuesday. Flowers, cheeses, art, bakery
items, fruits/vegis, and any other type of food you can imagine across several blocks was fun to wander through. Locals were picking up their needed supplies for the day, while us tourists were enjoying the overall scene. We passed a food cart that had some yummy looking bakery looking things, one of which is a classic in Cote dAzur called Pissaladiere with a kind of pizza crust with caramelized onions, a little cheese and an olive. Of course we got one, found a caf for some coffee and enjoyed the market action and our snack.
Based on Kens wandering in the previous days, we knew we needed reservations for dinner and wandered into Old Nice to see what was available. We stopped by two, one was closed, the other totally booked and the last who focused on foods with local olive oils only did lunch. Strike three. At that point the quest was over and we decided to head over to where Ken had explored yesterday. On the way to the train station we passed the Nice marina with some of the most massive yachts we have seen. One had no flag or country designation, which made us
Villafranche is on the Mediterranean and has a charming beach village feel. We are not talking the Jersey Shore! Pretty marina with reasonably sized yachts, beach cafes and shops/restaurants up the small alleys above the town. Ken had discovered a bistro on his exploration yesterday and reported that food was great, friendly owners and a nice view of the beautiful harbor. And all of those things were spot on. We had a goat cheese terrine with seriously fresh tomatoes, salad with slides of baguette toasted with goat cheese, that I couldnt stop saying yummmmm at every bite and an octopus salad the was light, with fresh ginger, grated carrots and truly a wonderful taste. With two glasses of rose...we were both in a happy place.
We wandered back to the train station and took a much less crowded train back to Nice (10 mins) and took some down time at the hotel before dinner. I had made a reservation at a Rick Steves bistro, and it was certainly quite a local scene. We ordered a steak with frites (french fries) and the order got lost in translation as
we got a massive hunk of beef, which ended up being 2x the price we expected. With some great red wine, It was extremely good, and of the frites were amazing. As healthy as we ate for lunch, this was at the totally different end of the spectrum!
