I grew up near the ocean, I love to swim, my dad sailed my whole life on the ocean, and I learned to scuba dive in New England. I love love LOVE being near a large open body of water, specifically the ocean or sea. But I live in Colorado now - no ocean or sea to be found. So being in Nice, France has been great for me to be able to walk to the sea every day and hear the surf crash against the rocky beach, to be able to run next to the blue-green water, and to smell the salty air. However, I knew I needed my beach time, and today was the day!
I packed up my stuff (book, sunglasses, iPhone, wallet, beach towel) and headed to Lido Plage. Today I dubbed the Day of Decadence, and I was going to relax and enjoy, and there will be no "should" (as in, I should do this, I should not do that). (in retrospect there was one "should" I SHOULD have followed, but I'll get to that later).
In Nice, the beaches are rocks. Not rocky. Rocks. There is no sand, just small river rocks that you walk on and lie down on. Frequent beach goers either get used to it, or bring a pad to put between the beach towel and the rocks. They also wear special water shoes that help them walk on the rocks as well. There are also private beach clubs, that you can pay so much money to spend the day on a comfortable lounge chair with a sun umbrella above you, and get drinks and food delivered to your chair (of course for an extra, exorbitant price). There are several rows of chaise lounges that have thick padding, but if you want an unobstructed view of the sea, the front row costs a little more than the other rows.
Guess what I did? Yeah, remember, it's the "Day of Decadence" (my credit card company is going to LOVE this day). So by 10:30am, I am settled into a front row lounge chair on a private beach after drinking one of their 6 euro cups of coffee. Somehow I convinced Joe to join me (he typically does not like beach time). He brought his laptop with him to actually get some work done, but I eschewed doing anything except staring out at the sea. 
We ordered a bottle of prosecco to indulge in our day, then had lunch delivered to our chairs. At first I thought we should get lunch from a sandwich place off the beach to save money - WHOA! Day of Decadence? Hello? Fine, no "should's".
Every now and then I would go swimming in the Mediterranean to cool off - it was deliciously refreshing! I think there's more salt in this water than the Atlantic off New England, because it was hard for me to stay underwater, bouyancy-wise. Off course this made it easy to float, which I did for a long time. Out of the water, I occasionally read my book, but people watching, chatting with Joe, an
d staring at the water ended up being my activities of choice. The weather was gorgeous - sunny, warm, but not too hot, with a nice cooling breeze, just enough to forget the sun is beating down on you, and the umbrella is not really shading you all that much (hint hint).
Joe woke me out of my slight doze in the sun to say he needed to get back to the apartment for a conference call. I considered staying but I (wisely) decided to head back with him and get ready for our last dinner in Nice.
He worked, I showered, and holy crap! my skin is red!!!! Yeah, blonde headed, white skinned girl here SHOULD HAVE put on sun block at the beginning of the day. Y'know, after years of getting burned at the beach, I SHOULD HAVE this burned into my brain by now. In my defense, I've been living in Colorado for 15 years, and the sun is so strong, that after 10 minutes it reminds me how hot it is and I put on sunblock. At the beach with the cool breeze, I forgot how sneaky the sun can be on my skin, and I didn't put on the sunblock until an hour or so after we were hanging out. Sooooo, ouch. I'm paying the price.
Moving on to our final phase of "Day of Decadence", we met up with Fathi at a wine bar, then went to Cote Marais restaurant (couldn't find a website for it) in Old Town Nice (Nice Vieux, or Ville Nice). Everything was delicious!! The owner and server were very nice, and we struck up a conversation with them both about the foods and where they were sourced. At one point I thought the owner said he caught the fish himself that morning, but it turned out he picked it up from the boat that morning. Still, pretty fresh!
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| Fathi, me (badly sunburned) and Joe |
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