Nice

We stayed in Nice for two and a half days and arrived there mid afternoon on August 3rd. The train ride was took four hours but we had good books to read so it passed quickly. Nice was so hot and beautiful! All the houses and buildings were painted bright warm colors and the beach was lovely, but rocky - much rockier than the one at my family's beach cabin. After checking into our hotel, called Hotel Pastoral, we headed down to Old Town for an early dinner - well early that is for Europe.
Old Town is full of places to eat. I had no idea so many restaurants could stay so busy in such close proximity to each other! On the main street there must have been twenty sit down restaurants alone, not counting the many others that were scattered throughout the rest of old town in between the shops on the streets and alleyways. We ate at a place called Ma Nolan's which was recommended on a travel website we had relied on a lot for planning our trip. We had been craving a good hamburger of all things and a beer for days and were finally able to get our hands on some. The food was excellent and not to expensive terrible in price and we resolved to return there for lunch the next day. As we read our books and sipped our beers in the air conditioned Irish Pub I started to nod off on Tim's shoulder. We wandered back to the hotel and promptly passed out until mid morning the next day.
The next day we walked along the beach before catching some lunch at the same restaurant. After lunch we found Fennochio's - a place well known for it's ice cream and snacked on a few scoops before heading to the beach. We spent most of the afternoon on the beach. Tim tried to get me to play in the water, but just like other beaches and lakes I had been to the concept of being pushed around by the waves while you floated with sometimes nothing under your feet unnerved me. I'm not entirely sure where this need to always have my feet on the ground came from, but I've never liked swimming in open water. I walked along the shore were the waves broke and read my book and Tim drifted back and forth with the current with the thousands of other beach goers in the shallow part of the water. Not knowing how to swim, Tim didn't venture out very deep. I thought he was crazy for venturing out at all in the ocean barely knowing how to float and dog paddle but he said he did this in Fiji and Hawaii and was just fine. After the beach we went back to the hotel room and took a nap. We walked down to the beach at sunset and later ate a light dinner and dessert in town before walking the fifteen minutes back to our hotel.
The next day I decided to make an "attempt" to do laundry in our hotel sink since the washing place next door wanted more than five Euros a load. We went to the super market down the street with the intention of only buying a snack and some detergent. We got side tracked their for nearly an hour looking at all the different food and wine. We found some excellent salami, cheese and bread as well as some fruit for the train ride the next day. We also perused the wine selection and bought a few bottles.
I must admit, without a washing machine I am at a severe loss about what to do.
After our excellent lunch I tried to wash some of our clothes. I quickly realized the best I was going to be able to do was wash some of the sweat out and maybe scrub out a stain or two. How did people get buy without washing machines? My clothes would never be wonderful and clean if I had to wash them all the way this time!
After lunch we made our way down the beach. Tim swam in the ocean while I finished my book. Having received a decent sun burn on my butt and waist the previous day where I had inexpertly applied sun screen I didn't don my swim suit. We ate at an Italian place in town for dinner and drank a bottle of wine on the beach while the sun set.

---

---