Nice is ...

Sunny. Alive. Busy. Gastronomically awesome. Friendly. Slightly cheaper than Monaco. An interesting mix of old and new. Home to an amazing flower market.

We left Monaco just before noon today for the brief journey to Nice. It was really only a twenty minute drive further down the coast and once we cleared Monaco it was no problem at all. We found our hotel right on the Promenade des Anglais looking out over the beach. While our room was being prepped we took a stroll down the promenade, admiring the hardy Nice-eans (what would you call them - Nicoise?) laid out on their "beach" - which consists of fist-sized and smaller smooth stones. Not a grain of sand to be seen. The promenade was busy, with a lot of hustle and bustle. We found a brasserie where we had a nice quiet lunch. Fiona had possibly one of her favorite salads ever - a large shrimp and citrus combination with a slightly Asian dressing.

After lunch we dropped the bags in the hotel room and set off down the Promenade in the other direction, towards the harbour. It really was a beautiful sight - all the people out enjoying the surroundings. We saw a few statues and a beautiful war memorial, walked the Cours Selaya where Fiona bought me a couple of nifty hats, and wandered into the plaza in front of the old Justice building, where we purchased a little painting of some lavender and enjoyed a couple of scoops of the world's greatest profiterole flavoured ice cream.

We're having a little bit of a cool down before dinner tonight. Tomorrow looks like we'll be doing some significant walking, going through the Old Town and towards some Roman ruins and art museums. They also have a large old Russian church here that we'd like to take a look at. The next day sounds like it might be spent pool-side again.