Saturday, October 23, 2010

Day 3 Nice

Slept late again. This is working out well; instead of waking up at 5 every morning and crashing at 9, now I'm sleeping until 8 and still semi alert at midnight. Hooray for the old guy (that's me). After the morning expresso we headed up to the Marc Chagall Museum hoping to get some culture. The walk through some interesting neighborhoods was worth the walk and the museum was impressive. I sort of liked it, but artistic interpretation is not something my simple mind can comprehend. A little farther up was the Matisse Museum but that was way beyond my capabilities. I had seen enough of Matisse at the National Gallery. After the Chagall we walked through a middle eastern neighbood (falafels everywhere) on our way to the Russian Cathedrale (don't do this at night). This Russian Orthodox church  is reputed to be the finest outside Russia. It almost makes me want to go to Russia. It's a "Probably Should See" if you're in town. A walk back to the hotel to get reoriented was followed by a long walk on the Promanade around to the Port. Once there we had a few drinks at an English pub prior to looking for someplace for dinner. We had hoped for something rather light, but instead we landed in a restaurant called La Cambuse in the Old City. We started with a Petites Farcis Nicois - a traditional dish of meat stuffed vegetables of roasted pepper, onion, and eggplant. What was interesting was that the stuffing in each veggie was the same, but what made each one taste significantly different from the other was the vegetable. Sylvia followed that with a fish and a five vegetable dish and I had roasted Lamb rib chops...both were good. Dessert was an excellent Nougat Glace and was unlike anything I ever had. I was glad for the excessive walking today. Again walking back to the hotel, we were amazed at the number of people out and about. Tomorrow it's checkout time and off to a little village town in Provence called Lourmarin. Nice is a fabulous city and I can understand why people like Sean Connery and Elton John have homes here--well maybe not Elton.

3 comments:

bro said...

A bit less food and wine, a bit more of nude women on smooth slabs of rocks!

Bro said...

Just thought of it - If you get a chance, I would suggest stopping by at L'Amphitryon at 2-4 Rue Paul Doumer in Aix-en-Provence. They have memborable raffine' and scrumptious creations as the portobello mushrooms stuffed with king crab and clove creme. ( A newer-than-now nouvelle spin). As I remember, however, they are closed on Sundays and Mondays

Fitz said...

Agree with bro's first comment. And a beach pic would have been greatly appreciated.