Nice is so nice

Marina in Nice

BEAUTIFUL Russian Church.

My studs for the weekend Fabio (left) and Florian (right).

The Beach! At last!

There really is nothing better than a cozy restaurant with classic French cuisine, which is exactly the situation I found myself in on a weekend visit to Nice a few weeks back. From the outside, the restaurant didn't look like much and resembled a hole in the wall type of place. But once we entered and went downstairs, we found ourselves in an old wine cellar with around 15 tables cozily surrounded by racks of different types of wine from which our waiter plucked a bottle for our table. The exposed brick and coolness radiating from the walls had me wondering how old this little place was. The menu consisted of many French plates and a lot that were specialties from the region. (One thing I love about France is that each region has a few specific dishes that are the specialty of that area. So fun to try them all!) I ended up ordering the Camembert, which is a specific type of cheese that is round, and they melt it leaving you with your own little personal fondue. With it I had a salad and an assortment of potatoes and an apple/onion sauce to dip in it. YUM. I felt a warm comfort spread over me as the aftermath of cheese, three glasses of wine, and conversations in French rested with me at the table. Again the lingering feeling of wanting to stay here crept into my thoughts.

I think I mentioned him in another post but one of my best French friends and one of my favorite people in the whole world (also my future green card husband), Mr. Florian, has moved from France to Miami. Florian is from Nice and since our other mutual friend (Fabio) from the U of A was coming into town I decided to meet them in Nice as well for a final France visit before Flo moved. This break, in the midst of two weeks of watching the boys who were on break, was just what I needed. I left the coldness from the nearby alps in my town to the warmth of Nice where I was rocking sunglasses and short sleeves! Nice is an absolutely beautiful beach town in the south of France that gives off a Venice Beach vibe but European style. In comparison to Paris, the people and the fashion seemed much more laid back and I was instantly in love. Although I was only there for 24 hours, I got a good taste of the town and it was so great to catch up with Flo and Fabio. One of the highlights (besides the restaurant visit mentioned above) was this amazing ice cream place that Flo took us to. (Obviously food plays an important role in my traveling experience.) For those of you that didn't know, Nice has a huge Italian influence, so they have a lot of these gelato places all over. (Cause who doesn't love a scoop of gelato after the beach?) This ice cream place was in the middle of a small square facing an old catholic church, and I kid you not: this place had somewhere around 50 different flavors! They ranged from sorbets to weird flavors, like beer flavor, but I regarded none of these as I got stuck in the chocolate section. We also saw a wonderful old Russian church that was quite breathtaking. All in all, it was a great weekend and a good preview as I am meeting my Mom and sister for a week in Nice this May.

À Bientôt!