May 20, 2012 – We came to life around 7am this morning and Kirk went down to see if my luggage had arrived. It hadn’t. But by the time he walked back to the room, it had! Happy, happy! So once we had cleaned ourselves up we went down for breakfast and feasted on wonderful flaky croissants, fabulous coffee, and crusty baguettes with apricot jam. That took me back to Paris when I was a teenager.
Ahhh, I could now check that off the list!
It was a cloudy morning, the forecast was for 90% chance of rain. No biggie, it’s still the Mediterranean and it is a pleasant temperature. So we donned our warmer and wet protecting clothes and headed out for a walk along the beach. And that took us the rest of the day.
We wandered along the waterfront, admired the street art, and were mind-boggled by the size and array of mega-yachts at anchor in the bay. The beaches are empty, the rush of tourists not yet here, and the weather keeping those that are, indoors today. But the rows of loungers for rent are still tehre, available for the taking.
We watched a fellow racing a remote controlled speedboat around pylons, and we marvelled that the city not only provides more motorcycle and scooter parking than one could possibly imagine, but that it is all free, and much of it completely protected from car damage by being behind fences. Definitely more forward thinking than Vancouver City Council.At one point, we popped out in a small park and there, atop a pole, was a strange piece of art that took us back to our first trip to Greece in 2005 – a pink elephant – the name of our first charter sailboat.
We found ourselves in a large marina, with some impressive boats. We laughed at a pedestrian walk area that was barely shoulder width and Kirk quipped “Single file only”. We laughed even harder moments later when a car backing out forced us to do just that!
As we wandered around the marina at Cap D’Antibes a few raindrops started to fall, so we took shelter under a tree at the edge of the road along the water. The Villas above the fortress like walls were amazing. Eventually we decided to strike inland a bit and wandered up a road where we admired many wonderful rooftops and fabulous gates. Pretty sure we were captured on hundreds of video surveillance cameras. In other words, the Villas are big, walled in, and well protected. These people like their privacy and their security. At one turn we were face to face with two very large dobermans guarding a home – luckily they were behind a very high chain link fence.
As we walked through the narrow streets, slick after the short rainfall, past the amazing Villas, all with unique names on their gates, we realized that on one side of the road were some gardens. We had accidentally found the botanical gardens and decided to try and find the entrance. After going in a large circle we eventually found it (no signage whatsoever for directions), but it was closed on Sundays. So we will come back later perhaps. But we could see it was filled with some impressive trees, including a eucalyptus that looked s straight and white as a massive concrete power pole.
As we carried on we came to a fairly major road and decided to follow it – it took us down into Antibes on the other side of the peninsula where we were knocked around by the heavy winds. As we sat down on a bench at the edge of the sea and watched some crazy kite surfers, both of us were remembering that frightening night at anchor in 2005 off of Kythnos where we thought we might lose our sailboat in these winds. We looked at each other and said “We aren’t on a boat, there is no boat back at anchor waiting for us, stop feeling those butterflies!”
Farther along was what looked like a fortress on the edge of massive walls that went straight down to the crashing waves. There was a narrow road along the top of the walls below the fortress, and we walked along it as cars flew by, inches away. The waves sent water crashing up the walls and the wind carried it up and over – we had a pretty good sea shower. As we rounded a corner we could see a massive marina ahead, it was amazing! The closest boats to us were 26-35 footers, and they looked like dinghies. The next row back were in the range of 60-100 feet in length, and they looked puny in comparison to the ones docked behind them. The lives of the rich and famous were rich there in front of us. Incredible!
We turned a corner and found ourselves on a short street filled with restaurants. All I wanted were crepes, but none of them was a creperie, so we steeled on an Irish pub blaring electronic techno music from within. But the food was good, and Kilkenny trumps Amstel any day.
After that we wandered along, found the Picasso museum, and archaeological museum, an impressive church, a market, and many little shops and bakeries along twisting narrow streets.
On our walk back across the peninsula we again peered through gates at beautiful villas, admired fabulous gardens, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves int eh cool and damp afternoon. The rain started to fall heavily as we came back into Juan les Pins so we ducked into a restaurant where I finally got my crepe and a cafe crema, and Kirk had his espresso. All fabulous! Check that off the list too.
When the rains lifted we carried on and wandered the shops of town. We ended up in a Swatch shop – didn’t even know they were still around – and discovered that Swatches now have a grown up side too. We both left with a new treasure.
Back at the hotel, the lounge wasn’t yet open, and we weren’t hungry because of the crepes at 4pm. We wanted some wine, but the weather had returned, so Kirk went out to find a bottle of wine to bring back to the room. He came back with two bottles, because he said he just couldn’t spend less on wine than he did on an opener. The wine cost three euros each, the opener was eight. Wine is inexpensive here, but that’s about all that is.
Eventually we found ourselves hungry around 9pm, but with the rain coming down heavily, the thought of walking back down to the restaurants on the beach wasn’t appealing, so we looked for something closer. We found a little family restaurant around the corner (literally) and they found us a table for two in a corner. They didn’t speak any English, and my French is less than rudimentary, but we managed with much laughter and many smiles on both sides. I had a wonderful linguine au saumon that was almost more salmon than linguine, and Kirk had a fabulous linguine carbonara – and was a little surprised to receive it with a raw egg in the half shell sitting on top of the pile of pasta. You just wouldn’t get that back home. The wine was great, the food was fabulous, and the bill was surprisingly reasonable.
All that from “Let’s go for a walk.”
Pretty good day 2!
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Sue