barbara pletz blog: Sybil and Barbara's Excellent Adventure

Then on to Cassis. The wind was still very, very strong. I had planned to drive over the mountain on the water between Casss and Ciotat but the scenic road was closed due to the high winds.

We stayed the night in Ciotat and working port with fishing boats and a few very large yachts. The hotel was very stark and impersonal with sort of compartment type rooms. The reception desk wasn’t staffed and we had to retrieve our room keys from a locked box. We ate dinner at a little café which had the special of zarzuela a seafood stew popular in Catalonia. I can remember tasting several years ago in Cadaquez and thinking it might be the best thing I had ever tasted. Unfortunately the version at this café couldn’t come close – it had quite a bit of what seemed like “trash fish” with little bones and it was barely warm. We did have a nice conversation with four young German fellows who explained that they were wood workers for yachts and they travel the world doing this. Hmmm – nice job if you can get it.

The hotel definitely had bad “juju”. There were strange noises during the night. How bad was it? Well Angel is definitely not a guard dog, in fact, I’ve only heard her bark a couple of times in all the time I’ve had her and then it has always been at animals on TV. However, this night she suddenly jumped from a lying positions facing the door and barked like an actual real dog!!

Monday morning when we ventured outside miraculously the wind was gone and it was a bright blue day without a cloud in the sky. We drove to Cassis and took the 1 ½ boat ride to the “Calanques”. It was even more beautiful than the other times I’ve done this as the sea was really calm and with bright sunshine. We also saw quite a few climbers on the faces of some of the steepest cliffs – awesome.

Boat ride along the Calanques

Ciotat Harbor

Cliff face while on the boatride. There are several climbers on it.

Sailboat lesson

Amazing clear blue water.

Next stop - Nice. Nice is definitely very nice!
Then on to Nice. We ended up taking the freeway most of the way. Arrived at our hotel – the Negresco – a 5-star that was not very expensive this time of year. It is a beautiful old fashioned luxury hote.l, owned by an elderly lady now in a wheelchair who lives at the hotel. It was recently renovated for $100,000,000. The beach was right across the street. We went walk along the water and also to a camera store for a new camera . We had a nice dinner of gourmet paella on the pedestrian street not far from the hotel.

Tuesday the weather was perfect. I wanted to make sure Sybil had an opportunity to swim in the Mediterranean (my favorite thing to do here)but I was afraid that in mid-October the water would be too cold. We rented comfortable chaises lounges and an umbrella. The beach in nice is all stone, no sand, and after taking about 5 steps in the water you are over your head. Although painful on your feet the stone bottom makes the water look a sort of grey-blue and with great clarity. The water temp was slightly on the cool side but once in – paradise. All Sybil could say was Ooooo LaLa, Ooooo LaLa. We stayed at the beach and went back to swim repeatedly and had a nice lunch right there on the beach. It was DELIGHTFUL.

Tuesday night we went to a tiny restaurant in the “old town” that is recommended by Mark Bittman of the New York Times. It was wonderful and quite inexpensive. I’d never been in the old town before and wish we had gone there in the daytime. Very narrow pedestrian streets, tiny shops, shadows. I want to go back.

Le Negresco - Our Hotel in Nice

Me on the beach

Sybil - A very happy lady on the beach

Oooh lala

No better place to have Salad Nicoise than right on the beach at Nice

Angel in her chair at Le Negresco

Sculpture in the Hotel - how very Nice-like!

Chestnuts for sale outside the Matisse Museum

After 3 nights away we returned to our village of Abeilhan. We were only there from from Wednesday night through Saturday morning when we caught the train for Paris. I'm not going to provide details here but you can jump to your own conclusions. All I will say is that they were very, very happy days.