When midterms come a-knockin’, they stick around on your
couch for two weeks and they just can’t seem to leave you alone. When they do
finally pack their bags and say ta-ta for now, decompression and relaxation are
screaming your name. And when the opportunity to do so on the southern coast of
France arises, you find yourself in perfect balance.
The funny thing is, when my roommate and I decided on a trip
to Nice, France, we selected the dates because it was our last fully free
weekend and because airfare and lodging were the least expensive then. It
happened to coincide with midterms; I was just about finished with everything
when we went, and Scarlett had only a few things to complete as well. Days
spent in the academic centre or at the apartment behind my laptop screen and
with hundreds of tabs opened up for research and writing, and a few nights up
studying left me weary but accomplished: the Mediterranean Sea beckoned to me
from cloudy Dublin, and two days in the sunshine-infused warmth couldn’t have
felt more deserved. Timing is everything, and it was the ideal trip to plan for
the middle of October.
Like the saying goes, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on
my list”. Before leaving for Ireland, I of course had ideas for travelling but
nothing absolute. Nice wasn’t on my radar for this trip but I’m happy it
appeared to me and became a reality. Half of me craved the beach atmosphere,
carved into history and architecture; the other half wanted to be in France,
among people who spoke a language that I had learned for four years but never
got to put into practice. And it is a beautiful mixture of Parisian architecture and seaside village. It’s a pretty nice place, if you ask me!
We arrived on the Côte D’Azur late Thursday night, the plane
close to skimming the water and soaring parallel to the coast. Nice glimmered
with its building’s lights strung along the shore and up the hill that the city
is built upon. And as we navigated the way to our AirBnB via shuttle bus and
tram, we slipped past palm trees swaying in the cool breeze and huddled to keep
warm. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a local McDonald’s where—yes!—I ordered
happily in French.
To be surrounded by a familiar yet not mastered on my part
brings with it exhilaration. I was only in the country for two days but my high
school lessons came back with surprising ease. (Shout out to my fantastic
French teachers for the foundations you gave me.) That enhanced my permanent
state of excitement.
Our lodging was a twenty minute walk into the city center and
located in a quiet neighborhood; we had a small balcony, and in the morning I
stepped out to revel in the comfortable temperature and the open square of
complexes around us. Our host provided a beautifully carbed-out breakfast of a
baguette and croissant, which filled us up for the rest of the morning.
We walked through the city, making pit stops through a
fountain park and to the Massena Place. On the way to a small hike up to the
top of the highest point in Nice—Castle Hill—we passed through the Old Town of
exquisite European dreams. Close quarters of neutrally painted apartments and
restaurants climbing overhead, where clothing lines hung and flowers were left
on balconies. Menus for mostly pizza restaurants stood outside, and employees
were milling in and out to get ready for lunch time. In general, the city was
quiet save for local bustle: not being Paris, and not being a high tourist
season, Nice was able to show us itself in its natural element. We were able to
stop and take pictures as frequently as we wanted and to tour the town without
fighting for a place among hundreds of other tourists.
As we climbed closer to the edge of the old city, we found a
set of stairs that brought us up to the start of the walk. We started at the
cemetery overlooking the red-roofs and crystal blue waters, where many
apparently wealthy families are buried. Each burial is intricately carved with
flowers and angels, among other images. It felt crowded to walk through, but
carried an ever-near peace.
We wound our way up the hill, the sights from the lower point
just as spectacular as the sights at the very top ledge, over the small
waterfall spilling over a rock formation. I could have sworn I was leaning over
the railing in the late spring with the way the sun hugged every corner of the
coast. I was hot from the walk up, cooler with the fine mist of the waterfall
still clinging to me, and at a loss for words at the view that overtook me now.
Not in pictures, mind you: in the flesh.
We worked our way down the other side of the hill, passing
through a park where school-age children ran around in pinnies and older
couples chatted by the side of the hill with the marina. Before lunch, Scarlett
wanted to check out a light house, which we could only get underneath. The
concrete slabs which hold it up create spaces with the rocks there, and the sea
sprays up through the cracks. I was almost hit a few times, exhilarated by the
possibility of getting splashed. I planned on sticking my feet in the water
later, though, so I saved it for then.
Lunch was taken at a porched in, mainly outdoor restaurant.
Scarlett and I both ordered minestrone soup, and as an added bonus interacted
very briefly with a charcoal gray cat planted at the opened back door of a
boulangerie across the narrow road. And then we spent time at the beach. We lay
there for a while, the sun teasing us as it poked in and out of the afternoon
clouds. I stuck my feet into the water, warm enough for one to comfortably swim
in, and closed my eyes, lulled by the constant ebbing and flowing of the water.
Before dinner, we walked along the promenade, through a
tourist shopping square, and sat at the Place Rosetti in the Old Town for
crêpes at Fennochio’s. Primarily an ice cream stand, Fennochio’s also boasts a
delectable menu for these thinned out pancakes; and I paired a sugar crêpe with
cinnamon ice cream which I am still drooling over. That is one definition of
the end-all-be-all. I will worship that treat for a long time to come.
Pizza was on my to-do list the moment travel arrangements to
get here were in order, so we scoured the town for a good place. We walked our
late afternoon snack off with a walk back through the parks up and across the
street, seesawing for a bit, and walking the length of them back through the shops
of the center. La Maison de la Pizza—a
building vaguely resembling the ABC Café featured in the movie version of Les Miserables—is where we settled in,
with an owner donning a New York Yankees cap and who later gave us each a glass
of free sangria because they had mistakenly given them to us in the wrong
glasses. As if we had known or even cared! But the sangria was sweet and the
pizza, thin, cheese-less, and tropical in its pineapple splendor, was magic. Scarlett
and I ordered one to share which they divided in half for us, and all of which
was devoured in thirty minutes.
We had wanted to stay in the city to listen to music, but
having been out all day and not finding anywhere that offered music for another
two hours, we headed for home. The evening was spent being consumed by our
host’s fluffy couch, watching Captain
America: The Winter Soldier.
The next morning, we were ready to take on the day—lugging
our duffels and all, as checkout was at ten in the morning and our flight was
at nine thirty that night. With more French carbs inside of us, we journeyed on
and found ourselves spending much time sitting to watch the world go by. When
in Nice, right?
For four hours we sat at the beach. The time was broken up
with another crêpe and ice cream party. Our first two hours there, we picnicked
with fruit and macaroons picked up from the Cours Saleya market still in full
flourish. There, both of us also bought small paintings done by a local artist
of the market and of the Old Town of Nice. I changed into shorts and waded into
water that splashed refreshingly over my thighs. Looking out at the eternal
horizon, I was struck with a moment of invincibility: of youth and freedom that
are at my expense. Of the world that I am being opened up to, of the world that
was only words and images in my mind but that have taken shape in my own
experiences and findings.
Our second beach-pedition was one for reading, writing, and
getting sunburnt. Yes, I was burnt, and I am proud. But so too was I unprecedentedly
content and relaxed. A little more cultured, a little more permanently eased, a
little more worldly. “Worldly” here can be explained by our—my—suggestion to
walk to the airport. We used our money to buy more dessert, got exercise, and
now can say that we have walked the entire length of the promenade of Nice. I
think that makes for a spectacular end to the story.
It took us longer than expected to get there, but there was
no rush. In Nice, there really is no rush to get anywhere or be anyone or do
anything. We did and saw; but we also could just be.
That was nice.
"In every outthrust
headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of
the earth." -Rachel Carson
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