Day12 Nice - St Paul de Vence

We are blessed with a late start to our leisure day around the beautiful city of Nice. About 20 of us elect to take the optional tour to St Paul de Vence and Eze. We are delighted to have made this decision as we enjoy the stunning Mediterranean sun and vistas.

The little hilltop village of St Paul de Vence is an artist's colony with shops displaying their creative talents dotted all through the narrow, winding cobblestone streets. This area and village have been home to many great artists including Renoir, Degas and Marc Chagall. On the way we pass by a strip of land known as 'the horn', the most expensive real estate on the Riviera. We are blown away by the galleries here and could have stayed all day but alas we have other destinations on the day's schedule.

Our next stop is another hilltop village on the other side of Nice called Eze. Here all on board the tour except Ray visit a perfumery Ray takes the opportunity to sneak off and do a little watercolour painting. Nearby we all gather in a local restaurant for a sizeable and very French lunch. Then with full tummies we haul ourselves up,the windy and steep narrow cobblestone streets past more galleries, cafés and fascinating nooks and crannies to view the upper village of Eze.

The coach enables many of us to continue our day on foot back in the centre of the old town of Nice. We team up with young Richard and Meaghan from Tasmania who have a map and Gps on their phone. We enjoy a stroll around the shops checking out windows like the lolly shop (pictured) and many other store windows beautifully presented then we continue along the boardwalk beside the magnificent and very blue Mediterranean ocean and Nice's pebble beach. On our return we call at the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity up until recently the parish of Fr Ken Letts.

We wind up our day with a trip to Carrefour a major supermarket type department store where we attempt to pick up a quick meal of bread and cheese and wine but not that easy in a very busy shop,where language is a challenge for us. Nevertheless it makes the evening meal even more enjoyable to have worked so hard to achieve it!

 

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