Living the Èze life

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Geo: 43.7284, 7.36224

I musta' been tired, because I slept in until almost 8. That's pretty late for me anymore. Good thing we didn't have anything specific to do, early that morning.
We grabbed a quick pastry from the boulangerie, and ate it on our way back to the start area for the last day of the race.
There were still more riders that Gnorm wanted to meet, so we headed back to the buses.
We did manage to meet Wilco Kelderman and Luke Rowe, before they all headed to the start line.

Today, they were doing a circuit of sorts, starting in Nice, going through Èze, then looping around a pass and coming back through Èze, before finishing in Nice.
Dejo had decided we should head there, so we could see them come through twice.
It's a cute village right on the coast of the Mediterranean, and it's got a church and a garden set up on the rocks with a great view of the ocean.
It's about a 25 minute drive from Nice, and the boys were heading up into the surrounding mountains before going into Èze, so we had plenty of time.

We had a gorgeous day in front of us, and the drive went pretty well. We pulled into the first parking lot we saw, just to get our bearings, and it turned out to be the only parking lot, so that was a good choice.

Since the race wouldn't be through for at least an hour or more, we went up the hill to see what we could see.

It's a very twisty, narrow, cobbled pathway up -- so definitely not ADA friendly.
Toward the top, we found ourselves in front of the entrance for the botanic gardens, which was only €4 apiece to enter, so we handed over our card.
Turns out, their specialty is cacti and succulents, so it wasn't exactly what pops to mind when you think of "garden in the French Riviera." But it was a nice way to spend a little time.
We kept looking at the ominous clouds that were building not so far way, and were certain we were going to get drenched (umbrella? Yes, in the car, at the bottom)
But apparently the weather systems there don't work the way they do in Colorado, so all they did was drizzle on us a tiny bit, then shuffle off to look ominous somewhere else.

Since we were keeping tabs on the race via the CyclingNews.com text updates, we knew when it was time to head back down where we could get a good view of the road.
On the way up, we'd passed a little shop (boutique? extended shelf? It was teeny.) that had some small cans of olive oil on display, and I thought those might make it past TSA.
We popped in for some souvenirs for us as well as my book club. I ended up with a basil olive oil that paired nicely with the fig and the raspberry vinegar they had.
The proprietor insisted that the mango vinegar was also delightful, but I'm not a huge mango fan, so I said, no, thanks, this would do.

Insisted.

He tucked in a little bottle, gratuit. Turns out, he's right. It's delightful with the basil olive oil, as a vinaigrette.

We also had them make us a couple of sandwiches, and took some Cokes as well, and we headed back down to the level where the church is.
About halfway through the sandwiches, we heard the helicopter, and shortly thereafter, the peloton came whizzing through. We cheered from our perch, then ambled our way down to the street level for their next pass through.

Someone had left their little white car on the road, right in the middle of the turn where the boys were to be coming through in about half an hour. For about 20 minutes, we were thoroughly entertained by watching the gendarmes try to figure out whose car this was, while some of them tried to see if they could move it without the owner.
It's much more fun to watch cranky gendarmes, when they're not cranky at you.

They got the car sorted, and very shortly thereafter, here came the peloton, whooshing through the turn. They're done with those arrow signs, then, aren't they? Here, we'll help clean up. we're very.....um......helpful that way.
Since we learned yesterday that the wires might not give way with just bare fingers, I popped into the small grocery store in town, to see if they had anything I could buy that might help.

They didn't.

Dejo had found a sign which didn't have wires absolutely strangling it, and we were able to release it.
And then we helped its friend a few feet up the road release its bonds, as well. A souvenir for us, and one for our friends Andrew & Karen, who are among the few people we know, who actually understand our interest in cycling (because they watch it, too).

Back to Nice.
After successfully navigating around congested roads, and a Google maps voice guiding us down what we think was the wrong way on a one-way street, we made it back to the hotel.

We decided to go find a beer (still a little gun-shy on that) somewhere along the Promenade. We found a bistro with an available sidewalk table, and had a nice beer there, then moved down the road for another, before dinner.
There's a beach....bistro? with comfy chairs and coffee tables that looks appealing. We didn't know what the prices would look like, but hey, it looks kinda' romantic, and it IS our honeymoon, after all,so what the heck?
The prices actually were right in line with the other places. And though it was a little chilly, it sure was a pretty place to watch the sun set.

For dinner, we walked down the Promenade toward old town, and eventually settled on an Italian place that had decent reviews.
It was okay, but nothing that I'd rave about.

A bit of a long-ish walk back to the hotel left us good and ready for sleep.

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