Life’s a Beach, Then You Nap: Southern France, Days 4-8

Much like in our trip to Ireland, there is a portion of our trip that needs to be condensed to make it worth your time. Not, as in Ireland, because it is super tedious chore-like activity. No, we have come to the part of the trip that is actually what Lisa wanted for her birthday: time at the beach. Castles are fun and fancy lunches can be really yummy, but the truth is every year or three Lisa just wants to lie like broccoli on the sand somewhere. This used to be a problem for our travels because I, John, always professed not to enjoy the beach. As it turns out, when we visited Kaui’i a few years ago I discovered that accommodations could be made. If somebody is willing to provide me a comfy cushion, and lots of shade (preferably in cabana configuration, but an umbrella will do in a pinch) and I will be brought drinks and maybe even something to eat, why, the beach can be a perfectly pleasant way to spend a day. Look, I know, ok? But lying on the ground, in the hot sun, all in the name of a tan that I’m not particularly interested in getting, just does not call to me. Being spoiled calls to me; sue me. Fortunately, it turns out that there are places that will satisfy both participants in this marriage, and so the beach becomes a viable destination for traveling. Shockingly, the Côte d’Azur is a place that works for us. All that being said, if we broke this part of the trip down day-by-day, each post would be a pretty short “spent the day at the beach, had something good to eat, went to bed” and who wants to read that over and over again? And so, we compile our stories and condense them. Witness.

We transferred ourselves from the chateau up on the hilltop to a VRBO (that’s “vacation rental by owner”; they function identically to AirBnB from a practical standpoint) a hundred yards or so from the beach. When I have a mission to accomplish, I do not mess around, and the mission now is to get my dearest onto the beach, stat. Our flat is in what they call “old town Nice”, which is mostly a pedestrian zone with one or two arteries for delivery trucks to get in and out on. It would honestly have been a perfect spot, except that it was directly above a fried chicken joint (sooooo… smells) and was on a little plaza close to the outskirts of the pedestrian zone that apparently made it an ideal hang-out spot until literally all hours. We heard people out there goofing around at 4 AM. Woof. Nevertheless, I cannot deny that being able to walk out of our door and be on the beachside promenade in literally five minutes is just what the doctor ordered.

We spent each of the next five days at Plage Beau Rivage, one of numerous beach clubs that will provide you with cushioned beach couches (long chairs, whatever) and umbrellas, and will in fact bring you drinks. We chose this one because it was particularly close to where we were staying, and reviews said that the food in their restaurant was particularly good, meaning we wouldn’t even have to go that far. It is not, as you may have guessed, exactly the low-budget option for this kind of trip, but there’s a birthday involved and it was our first time on the Côte d’Azur and anyway, what the hell. We would arrive between 10 and 11 AM to secure our reserved spaces (although it turned out that Monday was the only day it would have mattered, things were quieter although not dead for the rest of the week) and then get to it. Sun (and shade), suntan lotion, books, splashing around every couple of hours… that was it. Day after day. It was pretty great.

We had meals at the club a couple of times. To their credit, while they were charging serious restaurant prices they backed it up with some serious food. A couple of different times I had a gazpacho with burrata that was knock-your-socks off good; Lisa had a ratatouille-cum-tart that was particularly yum and, at another meal, a sea bream – sea bass twofer that served both fish really well. If you’re ever there, and feeling too lazy to go off the beach for food, Beau Rivage will take good care of you.

Sadly, on our second day there my phone went AWOL. Exactly what happened to it will be a mystery, but unfortunately, I’m 90% sure it was taken. I couldn’t find it, so I used the “find my device” feature to make it ring, but while I didn’t hear it I suspect someone else did; shortly after that, it became unresponsive to GPS pings, and hasn’t called home (so to speak) in all the days since. I reluctantly sent a remote wipe command and called it a day. It has been inconvenient not to have a phone, but Lisa still has hers and we just re-route reservation confirmations and such to her now.

In the evenings, we would rummage through the numerous (seriously, hundreds) of restaurants, bars, and cafes for meals or to prepare picnic fare for the next day. We had a lovely meal one night at La Rossettisserie, Family restaurant and rotisserie in Nice. Another one of our restaurant hypotheses is that any place that’s been open for more than a month and only has 4 items on the menu is probably pretty good at those things. You tell them if you want the roast pork, roast beef, roast chicken, or roast duck, and you get that plus some veggies, and damn if it wasn’t exquisite. Another night was at Casa Leya, a joint which made for another interesting test case as we continue to refine our restaurant rules. On the one hand, it seats a lot of people, and it is located in prime real estate; as close to the beach as you get without actually being on the sand. On the other hand, no carnival barker hands out flyers and there’s no pictures on the menu. Turned out that it passed, and in fact was a truly fantastic meal. We also had a really fun conversation with the couple next to us who were from Bern, Switzerland. We swapped relocation stories; they’re really excited about Dubai in the United Arab Emirates of all places, and by the end of the night they had us considering a visit to the place. They, meanwhile, seemed genuinely inspired by our own adventurous leap into a new life and seemed more definite in their plan to head to the desert. Fun times all around.

This is pretty much the story of that whole week. Relaxation on the beach, plus food. There absolutely are things to see and do in Nice; we just didn’t see or do them. Next time, as we like to say.