As the Sun Goes Down

After our very exhausting morning of strolling and luxuriating in Nice, we decided to put in a bit of effort to climb the nearby hill.

We had to have a moment to mourn for yet another person with a disabled bike.

If all hill climbs were this picturesque, I'd be doing it every day. The little streets of Nice's old town are BEAUTIFUL!

Warning: lots of photos of oh-so-pretty buildings to come

Tom made a fairly questionable friend along the way...

And then we got sidetracked by food again. We stumbled across a tiny little crazily busy square that appeared to be full of locals. So we of course investigated further, and discovered that the food coming out of this little hole in the wall looked fantastic! And did not cost a fortune!

So Tom lined up with the local ladies and got us some grub (sorry about the blurry photo)!

While I minded a seat and admired washing lines. Yes, I think we all know by now that I'm a little bit crazy.

We were super excited about our food.

And it was good!!!

Amazingly enough, we did manage to convince ourselves to continue our climb up the hill...

Tom got pretty excited when we finally found the right street to take us up.

The stairs.

And the view from half way up the stairs. Just gorgeous.

There was even a pretty door half way up the stairs!

And even climbing hundreds of stairs is nice (Nice, get it??) when they look this good.

Tom had a little celebratory game of pinecone soccer with himself at the top of the stairs.

The breathtaking view...

And here's Tom admiring the interesting plumbing system.

And scratching a couple of mosaic animals...

As it turned out, we arrived at the gardens at the summit just in time for closing time. So we pleaded with the poor guard to let us just snap a couple of pics from the lookout...

And then tested his patience all the way down the hill again as he followed us while we kept pausing to take photos, collecting other tourists along the way.

The sun was just setting as we descended, so we decided to park ourselves on this wall and enjoy.

A couple of local musicians provided mood music.

Young crazy people jumped off rocks...

The sun made the water all glittery...

The waves splashed against the rocks...

Birds and planes shared the sky...

And it was essentially perfect.

Aaah... this really is the life.

We made our move finally, but didn't get very far before Tom found yet another bike to admire.

It had a few pretty cute upgrades.

We slowly made our way back down the Promenade...

Stopped to say a quick goodnight to the beach...

We admired (and tipped) the very beautiful street performers...

And we farewelled the lights of big city Nice at night. We're such oldies aren't we, heading for bed right after sunset!

So Nice in a nutshell? Beautifully beachy, although we still haven't really come across a beach that rivals our good old Gold Coast. Glamorous, and a haven for those whose travel budgets include expensive handbags and jewelery (which unfortunately doesn't include us). Large and easy to navigate, but full of tourists.

All in all? Very enjoyable.