We hope to meet up with several people while we are traveling! Our visit with Katie’s Italian family was so amazing and such a wonderful way to finish up Italy! So we were super excited to find out my friend Thyra was going to visit on Sunday! How lucky!
Mike and I had spent Saturday walking down by the Cote d’Azur, the beautiful coastline. It was blue as blue can be, with the sun sparkling on the water. They have covered the beach in millions of stones and as we sat there the waves would wash up and make a lovely clacking sound as each wave washed out.
We walked to the most beautiful farmers market. Many of the stands featured fresh flowers of all colors. It I lived there, I thought, I would buy a bouquet every week.
This time we passed the #I Love Nice sign and headed toward the quai, which I learned was another word for wharf, with water and boats. As we came around the bend, we realized there was a huuuuge monument pressed right into the side of the mountain.
It was, I’m sure you already guessed, a memorial for the people of Nice who died during WW1. It was stunning. It acknowledged all the branches of the military and posted dates for WW2 also.
We watched a huge ferry ship coming in, and I learned from my MarineTraffic app it was arriving from Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy. It looked so huge navigating that relatively small quai!
We kept walking to see the ferry come in and realized there was like a huge party going on. There was music and people dancing the Mocarina!
We noticed 4 soldiers walking by again–whatever was happening, security was high. We kept seeing signs for “Gazelles.” Then we noticed about 50 jeeps, or similar, obviously in line for a ferry boat. We noticed the word Maroc…..Morocco? We learned this was the 32rd Edition of the Rally of the European Gazelles. After more research that night we found out the Gazelles are women who off-road race through Morocco. The celebration we saw was the official departure of the vehicles who are participating leaving from Europe. The participants use non-electronic means to compete in a week’s worth of races. The winner is the person who completes the race in the shortest distance, not the fastest time. So they have to determine if they should go over a sand dune, or around. Should they try to make it up a mountain, of through a pass? Over 6,000 women ages 18 – 71 from over 70 different countries have competed.
We took a different route home and were like, what the heck? when we saw this building! And guess what it is–a library!
As we got closer to our street, there was obviously something going on, I realized there was a protest with people chanting over a megaphone. I followed them for a few minutes, but when Mike noticed USA on their signs, he hustled us out of there. From our balcony, I watched them and although it was a small group they were blocking the tram tracks a bit. I translated one of the handmade signs. They were protesting, at least in part, the relationship with McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm in the USA who it is alleged influenced their French presidential election of President Macron.
I enjoyed this lovely little chocolate treasure while watching the crowd. We had seen a “chocolatier” and finally made the stop. This was called “Intense” and it really was! The outside looks like dipped chocolate, but it was actually smooth light icing over half chocolate cake and half chocolate mousse. Wow!
So finally Sunday morning arrived and I headed to the airport to meet Thyra yayyyy! We spent a excellent afternoon showing her around our city 🙂 It is always fun to share things with others! Luckily our cathedral was open and WOW they were having a concert!!! We stood in the back and listened as a concert orchestra made such full sound it filled all of the stone church.
We walked through Old Nice and stopped in another beautiful church, quiet and lovely.
The water was absolutely glistening for Thyra and I was so glad to have another sunny day! After all our walking we ended up having a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant. We were a bit surprised by the whole fish, but it was sea bass and melt-in-your-mouth fresh.
There were so many things for us to do, but we had another whole day together in Nice so there was plenty of time.
So imagine my surprise when I came home from having dessert with Thyra and Mike said, “I think we have a problem.”
Turns our the trains in France are going on strike on Tuesday, the day we move to our next place. It was on the BBC news that Mike happened to catch in English and he realized that was our day. They were describing it was extensive and encouraging people to work from home. Oh good grief!
I went downstairs to talk to the front desk. Yes, we must leave Monday, Tuesday will be a mess! I messaged the AirBnb host. Yes, you can arrive on Monday instead of Tuesday.
We quickly looked at buses, car rentals–nothing. Would it be anotherrrrrrr craaaaaazy travel day!?!?!?
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