After finishing the work in Amsterdam, we headed to Nice France for a long weekend. It is tough to be out of town/country for this long, but there is a good thing coming with it, like this time.
We arrived in Nice pretty late - 90 minutes flight delay, but we started Saturday early by taking a train to Monaco, just 15 miles east of Nice. I was there more than 10 years ago, but I guess I saw only part of it. F1 race was just a few weeks away, and the town was blocked at many points and there were already many speculators.
I did not realize how beautiful this country/city is. Unbelievably blue ocean and so many buildings between the mountains and the ocean. It could be nice (not just nice but AMAZING) to live here if we had at least $10 million in my bank account.
After coming back to Nice, we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant recommended by the concierge at the hotel. It is located just a few blocks away from most touristy areas, but it was so quiet. Our table was facing outside - overseeing a beautiful garden and the church.
Starters with this asparagus soup. You need to feel that it is between summer and spring by seasonable vegetables.
My appetizer was foie gras - of course, right? Just lightly sauteed and sweet sauce balanced the richness.
Like a typical French restaurant, we had a sort of sweets - like chocolate pocky, but it had some "sensation" in the mouth (this white sprinkles).
On Sunday, we headed south west to Cannes by again taking a train. As you know Cannes is famous for its movie festival. You can see the red carpet in the center where I believe celebrities will gather in a few weeks. It is smaller than Nice, but you can see there are a lot of money in this city. Beautiful architectures and almost all the buildings have this Orange-ish roof, which reminds me more Spain or Italy.
I disparately needed some French sweets and this is what I fortunately found - macaroon at Paul, a famous/popular French pastry. It was chewy and sweet and this was what I needed.
After backing from a day trip to Cannes we walked around the city of Nice. There were a lot of tourists and the city was very lively. I saw only a few Japanese tourists but it is not the main destination for Japanese and I guess it was off-season for them.
I was able to capture this amazing picture right before night thunders arrived. It was right before the sunset so you can still see blue sky through the clouds.
Unique things about Nice is its beach. It is rocky not sandy. It is like a river in that sense and it makes very funny noise when waves come and go.
It stretches like a mile or so from our hotel to the airport. As it was Monday and still an off season, not so many people were on the beach. I can imagine that there will be tons of people next month through August.
This was our hotel - FIVE star, ha ha. Not too big and you feel "private" when you enter the building. There was a casino in the building, and of course we went there only for 20 minutes just LOOSE some money. It has been our tradition.
Every good thing has to come to end, and so as our trip. The airport was just 10 minutes away from the hotel and you can see the city from the airport.
It was a great long weekend. It is not too far from NY, so we might come back when we find a time - we just need Friday and Monday off.
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