After a lot of walking up and down yesterday, a little later sleeping in, we go with our decision to stay around Nice today. First load of laundry done, washers are so tiny. 5KG max, how much is 5 KG of clothes anyway? You have to keep on top of it, plus we want to see how long it takes to dry, no dryers here and no outside clothesline.
Headed out around 9AM and go to the Flower market, thinking we would find something for breakfast there. It is not a huge market, but still pretty, lots of Mimosa flowers are around now, will look to see if there is a vase at our apartment and pick some up this week. Also saw some daffodils which of course made me think of my sister Jill, her favourite. There are a few vendors for other things as well in the market, we picked up some croissants to take home for breakfast later. We also went to the fish market after the flower market, we were surprised that only 3 fish mongers and they were just setting up, it was after 10AM by then, no purchases made by us. Fish was very expensive compared to home. The butcher shop next to them was more reasonable. May pick up a rotisserie chicken later this week.
Back to the apartment, quick breakfast of our croissant that we purchased earlier, and off to the train station. Couldn't figure out how to purchase our tickets from the machine for Avignon next month from the machines, so got in line for the one real person that sells tickets. All settled now for our transfer to Avignon next month, we had bought a pass for 30 Euro that gets us 30% off train tickets in this region, it paid for itself today. Train tickets are not cheap here. Next off we go to the Liberation market, which is near the south train station. The market was closing down at this time, look like much better deals and nice produce, we will be back earlier next time.
Walk back to the apartment for lunch and a rest. Do some research and there is a free walking tour at 6PM of Nice, so sign up for that. We have had some great free walking tours of cities and bad free walking tours of cities, this one fell in the great side. Only 7 people, so it was basically a private walking tour, in the summer they have 50 people, not sure how they would ever keep track of 50 people. Some interesting facts learned.
-lots of painted windows, shutters, and decorations over balconies here, all painted. We thought they looked kind of tacky. Come to find out that you were once taxed on the number of windows, and decorations over the windows you had so people filled in their windows and painted them instead. Surprising how many of these you see around town
-At noon there is a cannon shot, this comes from a Scottish man that had a cannon shot go off every day at noon to tell his wife to come home from the market or wherever she was that he was ready for lunch. The priest at the cathedral changed the time at noon when the bell rings, it now rings at 12:05. The priest did not like him, he did it so that Scottish man was always wrong about the time. This tradition still goes on, the cannon shot at noon and the 12:05 ringing of Cathedral bells. We hadn't noticed this, but will now be listening closely at noon.
-there are 3 dishes from Nice that he recommended we try, Socca, which we already have tried and liked. Pissaladiere which we also already tried but did not know it. And Pain Bagnat, which we would have called a sandwich but were told not to call it a sandwich. It sounds like a Salad Nicoise in bread.
-very interesting to hear about how Nice became part of France only about 150 years ago instead of Italy. A vote was taken, but the question was very misleading for yes and no, 80% voted to go with France.
-Nissarde is the original dialect here. Some signs are in both French and Nissarde, but very very few people still speak it. The are introducing it a little bit in school again.
-we have lots of stories of monuments around town that we will share with Joey when she is here, we will be her real private tour guide and work for tips like this guy did
Back at home and leftovers from last night, stretched the pasta with a zucchini and garlic, salad and some leftover olive bread, will need to do some restocking tomorrow.
Our stay at home day to rest turned in to 18,500 steps, off on a new adventure tomorrow.
Church just outside our AirBnB
On our way to our free walking tour that started at 6PM
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