Day 96: Friday, April 22, 2011

Beautiful Nice <3

Today, we woke up around 9am.  Our goal this spring break was to come back tan, so we needed to spend some serious hours on the beach in order for that to happen.  Last night at Wayne's, we saw on the menu that they serve breakfast everyday of the week, and even better, they had pancakes!  And I saw a picture, they weren't crepes (like they were in Amsterdam).  They were fluffy, delicious looking, drenched in maple syrup, straight up pancakes.  So obviously, we headed straight to Wayne's.  We were utterly disappointed when we got there and were informed that breakfast didn't start until noon.  Not only is that incredibly bizarre, it was also extremely inconvenient.  We were starving.  Reluctantly, we decided to go to the beach for two hours, then come back.

Pebble beaches

Spring Break 2k11

After a few hours of our stomachs rumbling, we left the beach and headed back to Wayne's.  There was no way I was passing up a stack of yummy pancakes!  We got there exactly at 12:00pm and ordered within two minutes.  They actually came relatively fast.  And not to anyone's surprise, they were disgusting.  While they may look like your average Bisquick pancakes (see right), they were nothing of the sort.  They definitely Googled the picture of the pancakes they put on the menu, because the real thing looked nothing like them.  They were not half as fluffy.  And they even weren't cooked all the way, so they ended up tasting exactly like a crepe.  So disappointing.

After breakfast, we walked through the flower market that Nice is apparently so famous for.  And it definitely lived up to the hype.  I have never seen so many arrangements and so many incredibly beautiful flowers.  It went on for blocks and blocks.  And it smelled so good!!  There is nothing better than the smell of fresh flowers :)    

View from the top of Chateau de Nice

Afterwards, we went back to the beach for a little bit longer.  It was SO windy though!  I'm talking like hurricane winds, it was crazy.  There was virtually no sand on the beaches, but the little sand that was there would whip across our faces every once in awhile when a huge gust of wind would come through.  That part wasn't that fun.  After we decided the prime suntanning sun was gone, we decided to hike up the Chateau de Nice.  It's a tall overlook with beautiful panoramic scenes of the entire city.  Well worth the hike.  The views were spectacular.  The contrast of the sparkling turquoise Mediterranean sea against the shinning gold tin roofs was beautiful to say the least :)

The beautiful city of Nice

How picture perfect :)

After hiking back down, we decided to walk through "Old Town."  Nice has some of the most expensive shopping in the world, but we read that Old Town is an awesome alternative to the designer goods.  The shops were full of individualism and authentic souvenirs.  We walked up and down the tiny little streets for about an hour, peering into one store after the next.  Afterwards, we paid for an overpriced Italian dinner (did we really choose Italian food??)  By this time the sun was setting and we were freezing and covered in sand.  With the wind blowing like it was, there was sand on every inch of my body.  Including in my ears, all in my hair, under my bathing suit, etc.  I couldn't wait to jump in the shower!  We relaxed then went to bed early.  We had an early scuba diving expedition the next morning!!