The bus from Aix got us in to Nice around 11:30 on Saturday. We picked up our essential city map, walked around town a bit and grabbed some lunch before we were able to check in to our hotel (side note: I had the warm goat cheese salad with honey for lunch - fantastic!!). Even though we planned at the last minute, I was able to find a cheap hotel room near the parade route... it was a dinky 3-star, but it's not like we were there for the hotel. We had an itty-bitty room with an itty-bitty bathroom - I had to sit sideways on the toilet because there were only a few inches between it and the shower! Mark's favorite comment is how everything in France is smaller (mainly the beers).
Saturday afternoon was the Flower Parade. We got tickets for the "standing area", which we both thought was ridiculous that you had to pay to stand and watch a parade. But it was nice because the girls on the floats would throw out mimosas (tiny yellow flowers) to the crowd. The floats were incredible. There were about twenty flower floats and they were completely created by, you guessed it, flowers. Even the girls on the floats had costumes made of flowers or a nature-like design. Of course a super tall dude was standing in front of me, so it was difficult to get good pictures without his head in them. Another entertaining aspect of the parade was the crowd. Silly string and confetti is a big part of the celebration. Plus, you have people shouting at the girls on the floats to throw them the mimosas - like how Americans shout for candy. There was one little girl near us that would start shouting, "Madame! Mimose!" when the floats were still 50 feet away. Mark helped me catch a bunch of flowers, but I ended up giving them away at the end since I didn't want to carry them around all day. The parade also included dancers and performers, people in festive costumes, large ocean animal balloons and even a girl dancing on a giant red ball. We even saw a woman get attacked by a confetti machine. My favorite was the float that blew out bubbles, and Mark enjoyed the mechanical, "fire-breathing" dragon. They were all pretty cool.Later that day, following a nap, we took a long walk along the Promenade des Anglais to watch the sunset and finally found La Rue Massena, a stretch of street for pedestrians only. I remembered it from my trip to Nice 7 years ago, but couldn't remember the name or exact location. Turns out Mark and I walked around for over an hour looking for it, only to discover that we had walked past it several times earlier that day. Oops! Rue Massena is a great place for people-watching. Especially during Carnivale. All of the children are dressed in costume like it's Halloween, and of course some adults are dressed up, too. We stopped at a brasserie for a "happy hour" aperitif and then looked for a restaurant for dinner. We got a table at this nice looking restaurant filled with people and good-looking food. A table is all we ended up getting. The staff seemed flustered and the man who I guess was our waiter was dashing through the restaurant. After 20 minutes of nothing, we decided to leave. I understand that service is slower in France, but Mark knew that if we hadn't been acknowledged yet then everything else would take forever, too. And as a former server, I could tell our server was "in the weeds". Luckily we ended up finding another nice restaurant which had better service and better selections. Bon!
Saturday night was the Parade of Lights. Basically it was the regular Carnival parade with all the floats lit up for nighttime. We decided not to buy tickets this time and were able to find a good spot to watch in the "gratuit" area. Apparently there is more free space for this parade since flowers aren't being thrown out to the crowd. The floats are all huge with intricate details and made of papier mache. They were also somewhat odd with very animated characters, all of which had big noses - Mark's main observation (other than the floats with topless female characters). The ambiance for the parade was fantastic! People were having huge silly string fights, several of which Mark and I got caught in the middle. One little girl even came up to Mark and just threw a bunch of confetti on him. I found dried silly string and pieces of confetti on my purse the next day. After the parade we were able to find an English pub near our hotel with a live band. It was a "nice" and energetic way to end our evening.
On Sunday, we dropped our extra bags off at the train station since our train wasn't until later that afternoon. When I went to put the money into the locker, I realized that I didn't have enough money in coins. All of a sudden, the change machine for the lockers spit out about 10 euros in coins! It was a like a slot machine, but I didn't even have to press any buttons! Mark and I just kind of stared for a minute, and were like, "Okay, that'll help." So we pretty much got a free locker for the afternoon, with change to spare. We took a little train tour through the old town, past the port and up to the chateau overlooking Nice. It was such a gorgeous day and we had remarkable views of the city, with the Carnivale parade going on down below. Afterwards we just wandered through la Vieille Ville and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. Plenty of people were bathing in the sun along the "beach" - Mark doesn't consider it a real beach since there's no sand, only rocks. I tried to tell him that's how the beaches are in several areas of France, but he wouldn't have it. No matter, the sea and the view are spectacular even if the beach is made of rocks.Other than the fact that "Nice is nice", Mark and I both agreed that we loved the town and wish his work was closer to Nice than Marseille. We'll just have to make it a regular weekend-town-to-visit this summer.
