As I mentioned in my recent email, I am already distracted and have gotten behind on my posts. I’ll catch you all up and try to keep up going forward. Also, this is my third attempt at saving this blog post…technical difficulties. Again, I am amazed at the internet service in established countries. If I were in Panama, I would be able to get right in…anyway, here we go!
We left for Los Angeles early on Tuesday morning to catch our flight to Nice. There are many things we love about San Luis Obispo, but international travel from there is not one of them. We have a small airport, a little bigger than the one in Johnstown, for those of you who are familiar with that, and flights are limited. It is very difficult to find a flight that is convenient and reasonably priced from there. Every now and again, we luck out, but not for this trip. So, we headed out for Los Angeles. Because we are adventurous….and frugal….we opted for the cheapest flight, which took us through Minneapolis and then Amsterdam. Quite a long day for us. It took until today, Friday, for me (and my back) to recover from all of the sitting and then the walking through the airports. But, I am limbered up now and ready to explore the cote d’Azur!
I have to mention this little incident about our movement through airport security because I am always amazed at the sound judgment of our TSA decision makers. You all probably know this, but I, as usual, was not paying attention to the news. Apparently, there are some new TSA rules. As you know, Mike just celebrated a milestone birthday. I still won’t mention which one, but you can probably guess as you are reading this. As we were in line at security, Mike said to me that he was now of age and didn’t need to take his shoes off as he went through security. Mike frequently makes jokes to lighten stressful situations, so I thought he was kidding. I told him he was nuts….everyone takes their shoes off as they go through security. Sure enough, when the TSA agent checked his passport and age, he informed Mike that he didn’t need to take his shoes off to go through security. The new rules say that when you hit the “golden” age you don’t need to take your shoes off. Interesting new benefit of aging….TSP no longer considers that you could be a subversive bringing a bomb or other such bad things through security in your shoes. I would be interested in knowing who the genius was who came up with that little gem and his rationale, although I’m sure I still wouldn’t understand it. We can all think about that one for awhile. HMMM…….Anyway, we made it through security and if Mike was carrying anything in his shoes, it wasn’t discovered. I’m glad. What a hassle!
We arrived in Nice on Wednesday afternoon at about 4:30 and took the bus in to town. We were told that that a taxi would cost us about 55 Euro, so we opted for the bus for 4 Euro. Quite a savings and quite an adventure. We really didn’t know where we were going. So, we engaged the tourist technique of tapping people on the shoulder to see if they spoke English and if they knew where we should get of. By some miracle, I looked out the window and saw a sign pointing to our hotel. What are the chances. So, we got off and moseyed on with our entourage of suitcases. Fun times!
We are staying at a 3 star hotel several blocks from the Promenade Anglais. The Promenade is a very lovely boardwalk-like path that runs along the Mediterranean in Nice. The Brits, who have been the primary visitors to Nice for years, built this to ensure that they would have a place to walk along the water and away from the riffraff. They were successful. No riffraff on the Promenade.
The hotel where we are staying was recommended by Rick Steves and his gang of travel writers. It doesn’t meet our usual level of sophistication, but is very clean and functional. It’s also centrally located between the train station and the Promenade. A good location for what we want to do while we are here. So, we are happy.
One of our rules when jet lag is a factor is that we try to stay awake on the first day until a reasonable bed time. Otherwise, you never get adjusted to the time difference. So, we decided to head out to dinner to kill some time until we went to bed. One of the hotel staff suggested that we go to the bistro at the Hotel Negresco. This is a 5 star hotel that we wanted to look at anyway. We considered staying there. But, at about $500 Euro a pop per night, we decided the 3 star would work just fine. Dinner would be a good compromise.
The hotel has a one star Michelin rated restaurant. But, this was a little more than we wanted to eat….or spend. So, we decided the bistro would be just fine. This was a unique place. The restaurant has a Carousel theme. You know the ones I’m talking about. All the ceramic horses in a circle that move up and down as the Carousel moves to a rinky dink kind of tune. This was the theme. There were ceramic horses that were arranged in the restaurant in a sort of circle in between the outer seating. Our booth, complete with pink velour seats, was fixed between two of the horses. IN fact, I took a picture of Mike and it looked like the horse was sitting on his head. Next to our table was a ceramic girl (who was missing a thumb, by the way) who was cranking a music box. The handle on the crank of the box was a bicycle pedal, which gave us a chuckle. At regular intervals, the girl would start to crank the box and a rinky dink tune would play. The horses would move up and down with the music. Then, the girl and the horses would stop and the regular musical programming would continue.
It reminded us of a hotel and restaurant called the Madonna Inn that is near our home in San Luis Obispo that is on our regular tour route for visitors. The restaurant in the Madonna has a similar theme. It’s not a carousel, but is filled with cherubs, dolls on swings and pink velour seats. It’s quite a site. The Madonna also has a waterfall in the men’s bathroom that serves as the urinal. Mike and I checked out the men’s bathroom of Negresco before we left, just to see. But, there was no waterfall. Just a cutout of a man on the door. He had a ceramic head. The women’s room had that, too….but, with a ceramic head of a woman of course. Those folks love their ceramics.
Anyway, the food was good and the hotel was interesting to look at. The hotel is a little bit above our price point, so I doubt that we would ever stay there. But, it was very nice, and I’m sure the rooms are lovely. One point about the place haunts me, though. You would think that a hotel of this stature could afford to fix the ceramic girl’s thumb. One could get nightmares from that!
We tumbled into bed late on Wednesday leaving a wake up call for 6:30 on Thursday. We were going on a tour of Provencal wine country. Don’t want to miss that!
Much to my surprise, we made it out of bed at the allotted time on Thursday. The wine tour is always a highlight for me. As many of you know, I work part time at a winery in Paso Robles near where we live. So, when I travel, I like to check out the wines that are in the area. You may remember that I did a tour while in Paris and had a great time. I had high hopes for another fun day! I wasn’t disappointed.
We went out with Raphael. Raphael, who looks to be about 12 hears old, owns and operates this small business. He is very knowledgable about wine, wine production and the area and kept us laughing with his anecdotes about the area and the people who live here. We traveled with 2 young women from Ireland and a young couple from Washington, DC. They were a lot of fun! We got a great education on rose wines, which are the principle wine of the area, about 90% of all wines produced. They were quite nice. Apparently, the ticket on the roses is to make them as complex as possible, while keeping them as light in color as possible. This is no small feat, as much of the complexity of the wine comes from the contact with the skin, which gives the wine color. We had some spectacular examples of award winning wines from 4 different vineyards.
We also had a very nice lunch in ChateauDouble, which is know for their goat cheese. According to Raphael, one of the common dishes at Easter is young goat. The restaurant happened to have this on the menu, so I tried it. I thought it was great! I’m not thinking about the baby goat that gave its life so I could eat it. I can’t dwell on it. The goat had a cream sauce with morel mushrooms. Mike says the secret to French cooking is the sauce. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t like the goat. He may be right, but it was tasty, no matter what the winning factor was. YUM! For dessert, I had a wedge of the local goat cheese that was drenched in 2 kinds local honey. What a treat! Great meal and very unique. One of the Irish women had escargot for the first time. She did quite well with the instrument that is used to hold the shell while the meat is picked out. I told her I would blog her success. Here’s to the Irish!
When doing these wine tours, I always mention that I work at a winery. Sometimes it gets me a little extra. On my tour out of Paris, I met the mayor of Sancerre because of my affiliation. Not this time, though. I think it just intimidated Raphael. But, he did a great job! In the end, he said it was nice to have someone who knows about wine. Keeps him from telling the group “rubbish” that isn’t true. HA!! Good man.
Again, we stumbled back to the hotel fairly late and went to bed. The jet lag is hard to overcome as you get older. But, we managed.
Today, Friday, we headed on the train to Juan les Pans, a pretty little coastal town on the Mediterranean. One of my friends at the winery who knows the area well sent me on a mission to find the restaurant where he had a great lunch about 15 years ago. We didn’t find it, but it was still a great day.
Tomorrow we are heading to Monaco to meet the prince. I’ll be sure to give him your regards. We are hoping for good weather. Today was beautiful, but Thursday was rainy and cold all day. The weather report is scattered. So, we are hoping for warm and sunny again tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
Au revoir!
Betsy
Travel With Betsy 
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