A nice place to be!

 

 

With a name as nice as that, I wondered if Nice (pronounced as ‘niece’) was just a name... what with a journey that had already begun on a not-so-nice note. To start with, my luggage, to my utter horror, was stalled at the Swiss airport, leaving me with less than 45 minutes to collect it, check in and board the connecting flight to Nice! At my wits’ end, I couldn’t help getting mad at the staff. Throwing a fit only proved counterproductive as most of my stuff was retained there… With a heavy heart, I boarded the plane in the hope that things would get better from there on, and as it turned out later, they did, sooner than I had imagined.

About an hour later, I reluctantly opened my eyes to fasten the seat belt, and what I saw couldn’t be substituted for anything else in the world. The plane was cutting through the clouds above azure waters and pacing towards the sea. The pilot having announced landing, my fears that it was an emergency landing (there still was no land in sight), were put to rest when the plane did land safely... on the runway of course, which is but a narrow strip of land on the airport just adjacent to the sea. So there I was, thrilled to the T, hoping for a real nice time in Nice. On reaching the hotel, I set off for the sea that had caught my eye. A belt of beaches border Nice, I left for the nearest one from my hotel. Though the beach was beautiful, instead of sand, were large pebbles that made it quite difficult to walk around. As the breath of the sea ruffled my hair, I made my way into the city. Shopping was in the air, after all, France is synonymous with fashion, so I checked out all the shops I could, be it in Rue de France, a shopping street parallel to the seaside, or the sophisticated outlets in the malls, all of them flaunting the biggest of brands and the latest trends in fashion and I ended up spending a fortune!

Nice has the feel of a small city, far away from the hustle and bustle of a metropolis. Soaking it all on foot, a while later I found myself at the Place du Palais where the Law Courts and City Clock appeared to be right out of a movie set-up, with the clock standing tall surrounded by red and white buildings and cobbled streets with antiquated lampposts each within a meter of each other. Making my way to the Place Masséna, the main city square that plays host to innumerable festivals and events, I got a chance to see the ‘Nicois’ (citizens of Nice) getting together for fun activities like racing and other traditional celebrations that clearly reflected the jovial spirit of the people of Nice. Life for a vegetarian can be a little difficult here. As I later found out, I looked around for something vegetarian, but in vain. Eventually I settled for an unappetizing meal of bread, tomatoes and cheese. The Place Masséna was a two-minute walk from the Promenade des Anglais, a walkway along the Mediterranean. I chose to walk along the Promenade to capture and cherish the rays of the setting sun falling on the beautiful aquamarine beach and wished I could have more of this tranquil environment. But I had to bid adieu to this beautiful city as my next destination awaited me…