We arrived safely today in Nice around noon local time (5 AM Central US). The flights were largely uneventful, save the need for a brief Public Service Announcement. The person in the seat in front of you on an airplane can, in fact, feel your knees digging into his/her spine through the back of the seat.

Aside from that, our flights went so smoothly that I worried we would not have anything interesting to write about in our blog post. Neither of us sleep well on airplanes (especially considering the angular nature our fellow travelers’ knees), so we are pretty tired at this point. We arrived at the airport, found our bus pretty easily, and made it to the meeting point to meet the agent from the rental company for our vacation rental. The agent gave us an almost achingly thorough orientation to our rental property before leaving (i.e. “This is how you use a washing machine…), at which time we had two priorities: a toothbrush and a shower. After the agent left, we quickly found out that neither option was immediately available – as there was no water. The Frenchies don’t want us to bathe… 

After a few calls, Charles got the water situation resolved. Fortunately, it appears that someone just shut off the water to the apartment while it was not in use and failed to tell the other staff members that it would need to be turned back on. After getting cleaned up (and cooled off – it would seem that air conditioning isn’t as prevalent here as in the US), we set out to stroll the Promenade de Anglais and surrounding area. The sun was pretty warm, but the scene picturesque. The Mediterranean Sea is a beautiful azure (as in Cote d’Azur) and the people-watching was just as good. We will likely take another stroll down the promenade later in the trip and provide better details when we are not so disoriented from our lack of sleep.

We ate a a restaurant in Old Town near where we are staying to try some Nicoise classics (including wine) and wrapped up with some gelato from the gelato shop beneath our apartment. The gelato shop has some 86 different flavors to try. I don’t know if we’ll make it through all 86 before we come home, but we plan to give it the ol’ college try.