Nice, France —

Finishing up a week of walking in Provence is always a melancholy experience. First, we’re saying goodbye to a great group of friends and travelers. Also, we are leaving France and returning home to Italy. This means facing a nine hour drive, 60% of which is comprised of Mad Max style highway, popping into pitch black tunnels and then back out into blazing sunshine all the way down the Mediterranean coastline.

A few years ago, Donna came up with a simple and elegant solution. Don’t leave France. Break up the trip with a stopover in Nice. I was hesitant. Nice is an enormous, bustling labyrinth, thick with traffic and its beaches are packed with the baking, sweaty bodies of countless nationalities. Yet, this has become one of our favorite afternoons of the year, right up there with Thanksgiving. Here’s how we do it.

Exit the Autoroute at the Nice Airport and join the parade of scooters, Citroens and roller bladers down the Promenade des Anglais. In 10 minutes hang a left towards Old Nice and drop the van and the luggage at the hotel (The Hotel Albert le Premier if you’re on a budget, The Boscolo Plaza, on the fifth floor, with a terrace if you’re not.)

The view from the fifth floor rooms at the Boscolo Plaza. The Albert le Premier is the hotel across the park on the left.

It’s now about 2:00 pm and we’ve been driving since 9:00 so we’re tres hungry. We stroll the four blocks into the heart of Old Nice and the Marche des Fleurs and take a shady seat at our beloved Restaurant Le Quai. Le Quai has delicious, straightforward bisto fare at reasonable prices with friendly service and an exquisite house rose.

Now, in the early afternoon, the luncheon rush has passed and most folks are down at the beach. To spend a couple of hours over a late lunch (moules marinieres for Donna, steak tartare for me), watching the activity of the flower market seems to be one of the most civilized experiences imaginable. I took all of the photos below without leaving my seat.

It is a hard table to give up but Old Nice beckons. In these narrow, cool and cavernous alleyways we wander aimlessly and stock up on all of the items we sometimes miss in Italy; fleur de sel, moutard d’estragon and an array of exotic spices from the Far East.

It is now late, late afternoon, the best time to hit the beach. Most folks have retired back to their hotels and only a few families whose kids cannot be coaxed from the water remain. The sound of the surf and the squeals of the children are EXACTLY like the background to the Elton John track “Love Song” on Tumbleweed Connection. It is a nostalgic moment.

After a nap back at the hotel, we head off in search of dinner and the choices are all tantalizing. Indian, Moroccan, Vietnamese, these are all cuisines that we have not tasted since New York. We’ll be happy to be back home in Italy tomorrow but in the mean time, the spicier the better!

After dinner, we revisit our steps from earlier in the day. At the Marche des Fleurs, the market is gone and the cafes and restaurants have claimed the entire space. It is swirling with life and makes for extraordinary people watching.

Finally, we stroll back over to the sea, black with white horizontal slashes as the gentle waves crest. We’ll be back on the road in the morning but Donna’s simple and elegant idea has given us an intense half a day of pure pleasure on the Cote d’Azur.

P.S. I’m writing about these fond memories because this evening we are off to France again, this time to unfamiliar territory in Corsica. I’ll be blogging there about Donna’s new, simple and elegant ideas as they come to her.