Eastern Riviera

I

We are staying in Nice (not pictured). It is a pretty big city, very affluent, pretty, and even though it is off-season quite a few tourists. Our hotel is nice (nice in Nice!). There is a wide pedestrian walkway along the water which I am sure in the summer is packed.

So far we've had great luck with everything. We picked up our rental car yesterday. I expected problems similar to those we had in Spain (smaller car than reserved, unhelpful staff, etc). Instead we got a bigger, better car - a Skoda diesel - at the same price as for a smaller one I had reserved. The staff person was great, he even gave us an umbrella the evening we went to make sure car would be available for next day as it had started to rain.

We left yesterday morning to drive east - Monaco to the Italian border. Weather was cool but dry on land. Out over the water it was raining and dark and the surf was very big and this isn't even the ocean. The coastline is unbelievably beautiful and the Alps start here and the cliffs are huge. Many houses (and Villas) along the way.

Above you can see Monaco. We didn't stop just drove around a little. Its population is dense to say the least. Huge condos/hotels and a lot of traffic. Not the place for us.

The next town is Menton, which I'd never even heard of. It was the place for us. It probably is what Monaco looked like 100 years ago. It beautiful with its town on the water and then going up the steep cliffs. The moutains were just beyond it.

The surf was definitely up probably due to the stormy weather out over the water. At some places the waves were so big they were crashing over the sea wall and getting passing cars very wet. We walked along the sea wall and really enjoyed the experience.

We loved Menton!!! It shows doesn't it? For some reason my picture in the same area as Tom and Toni disappeard from the blog. I put it back in but it couldn't get it placed here so it is at the beginning of this post.

It was a stormy day out at sea but no rain on land. The waves were big - and this isn't even the ocean. We took these pictures while walking along the very substantial sea wall.

On the above left is looking up through Menton at the moutains behind it (the beginning of the Alps). We could see some snow on the tallest ones in back. The clouds hung over the mountains all day and I am sure that more snow was happening. Is this global cooling in early November? The other picture is the "petit" port.

We had lunch. Tom was adamant that he wanted grilled sardines, one of the town's specialties. Toni & I didn't think that sounded too good. We found a place that advertized them on the blackboard in front. Toni order a Salad Nicoise, I ordered Mussels and Frites, and Tom ordered grilled sardines. Toni's salad was perfect. My mussels were amazing probably at least 3 pounds of them, tiny and sweet as could be. Now Tom's sardines were something else - probably excellent if you like sardines with tiny little bones that get stuck in your teeth. They had their heads still on which also wasn't very inviting. Even Tom couldn't get into them. Fortunately there was plenty of salad and mussels for all three of us and probably a few other people. Below pictures tell the story.

We visited the Jean Cocteau museum. Not the one above - that is the future one. We prefer the present one which is on the left. It was great. Very small. Almost all the paintings were of men and women french kissing. Interesting???

Later we drove to Italy - just to the next town. Didn't take any pictures there. Nothing to special to see other than we walked by a large restaurant that had live music and geriatric couples ballroom dancing.

It was a great day...... more later.