Nice Chateau and Harbor

We started out yesterday morning to try to figure out how to mail a package to the states.  I had spotted a UPS/Mailboxes Etc just a block from our apartment.  I also had a letter and 2 postcards which I needed to mail.  I have a large carton of stuff I want to mail home, but I thought I should start small trying to just mail a couple things to a friend and see how it goes.

Good thing!  At Mailboxes the woman very nicely informed me that it was very expensive to send packaes via UPS to the states - $130 for the first kilo (2.2 pounds).  Outrageous!  I couldn't even afford to mail the small package there.  She said a few disparaging things about the French postal service but off we went to try them anyway.

A very nice man there helped me figure out the postage.  The small package  (I didn't notice the weight but I would guess it was just under a pound) costs just shy of $15 - so I went for it.  Now we will have to see how long it takes (and if it gets there at all).  The postcards and small letter were  $1.13 each - not bad.

However, my plan to ship stuff back to the Cape has fallen by the wayside.  We now plan to purchase another bag of some kind that we can check at the airport and pay for that instead.  Whatever it costs, it has to be cheaper than postal service and anything is cheaper than UPS.   Interesting experience.

Then we bought a one week pass for the buses -  $19.50 for the week.  We can ride unlimited and I expect that we will make good use of it once we start heading out of Nice to other places nearby.   You can get pretty much any where around here by bus. 

We took the tram down to the old town, wondered through the outdoor market.  On Mondays, it is antiques so we didn't spend too much time there but we will go back again.  It is normally a fantastic flower market and a produce market.  The guide book we are using advised us about a flight of stairs that we could climb up to get a birds eye view of the market.  It worked well. ===>

See the yellow building all the way at the end of the market?  Matisse lived there for the last 17 years of his life.  This area is just crazy with artist stuff - Chagall, Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, etc.

Then we took the elevator up to the castle on top of the huge rock over looking the city.  It has Greek ruins, Roman ruins, and has been used for thousands of years.  The views from the top are magnificent.   From one side you see the beaches and the old town.

And from the other side of the mountain you look down on the port.  This port has some really serious yachts in it but it isn't deep enough for cruise ships to come in - they have to disembark up the coast a bit in one of the most beautiful spots on earth - Villefranche-sur-Mer (picures soon).

(I am going to have to get a real panaramic camera so I can stop piecing these together.)

We walked down from the mountain to the port side and had lunch in the porch - the fixed price menus are really good deals if they have something you want on the list of main courses (plats).

Around 4:30 pm we walked to the beach - it is about a 10 minute walk but it took us about 30 because we stopped to buy beach shoes (the beach and bottom of the sea here are rocks and pebbles - smooth, but still hard to walk on barefoot).  We also bought straw beach mats ($4.00 for 2) and I bought a sun hat.  Eventually we made it to the very crowded beach, found a spot and plunged into the wonderful water.  It was over our heads almost immediately.  The water is so clean and just the right temperature - a little hard to get into but delightfully cool while you are in it. 

We dined at home last night and then walked back to the beach to see if we could see the full moon rising over the sea.  Unfortunately there were too many clouds but we did see it later in the night from our apartment window. 

It was forecast to rain here today but we awoke this morning to another gloriously sunny day.  There is no rain in the forecast for the next 10 days.  We have not seen a single drop of rain the entire 3 1/2 weeks we have been here. We have barely seen any clouds.  Amazing.

Our pace is definitely slower here - perhaps partly because hanging around our apartment is so pleasant.