Starting a Winter in Nice

Arrived in Nice on January 4, 2011.  We've rented a one-bedroom apartment that is overlooking the "pedestrian-only" segment of Rue de France.  Great people-and-dog watching!  This place is smaller than we're accustomed to, but it's in what's just about the best location in town!  We're a block from the Promenade that follows the beaches along the Mediterranean Sea and very close to all the services (several grocery stores with excellent selections of wine, for example). 

Quite quickly, we found the best bakery in town only two blocks away.  You know, in Portugal we loved "Pao de Casa con Chorizo", a simple bread that's loaded with sliced hot sausage, for breakfast.  We called it "belly busters".  We've been to Nice many times and never seen anything similar...until now.  Our new favorite bakery makes French belly busters...a ciabatta-like bread with lardons (bacon bits) and emmenthal cheese.  Oh.  My.  God.

We've been over to Monaco twice already, to check out the Monaco Rally and the Circus Parade,  The Rally seems to have changed hands, since it's now the International Rally Challenge.  The catch is:  it no longer features the featured drivers!  Were we ever surprised when all these cars rolled in and we'd never heard of any of the drivers...it was fun to watch, though. 

The Circus Parade was fun, as always.  Princess Stephanie of Monaco runs the circus show and she never disappoints.  Monaco's annual circus spectacular attracts the best acts, and always the best clowns.

You can find our location on Google Earth, the address is 15 Rue de France.  More to come as the excitement builds.

The Grand Crossing

The big plan was this:  we fly to Venice and spend a couple of days, get aboard the Regent Seven Seas Voyager and set sail for Athens on a 10-day cruise, visiting Croatia, Montenegro and Turkey on our way to Greece.  Off the ship at Athens, spend a couple of days watching the riots, fly to Barcelona and goof off for a week before the Voyager would catch up with us.  Back onto the boat again and sail for Ft. Lauderdale.

But NO!  Two weeks before departure, good Captain Mario broke the boat (OK, it probably wasn't his fault) and the cruise from Venice to Athens was cancelled.  Boat went to dry dock in Marseilles instead.  Now, this caused quite a hassle for us.  Flights and hotel reservations cancelled, new tickets to Barcelona instead of Venice, etc. etc.  Kept Pati busy for several days.

So, we did go to Barcelona and had a great time.  The weather was very cooperative and we walked all over town seeing the sights.  As we pointed out on our earlier blog, Barcelona is full of architecture by the inimitable Gaudi.  Here are some more of his works:

 

 We took a side trip up to Montserrat, Spain via the Rack Railway.  Way up into the mountains to visit a monastery.  It's a beautiful trip, but not for the faint of heart.

Montserrat itself is an interesting location.  It is said that one side of Gaudi's cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, is patterened after the rocks atop the mountain.

 Speaking of the Sagrada Familia, while we were in Barcelona, Pope Benedict XVI decided to make the cathedral into a basilica.  So, one Sunday morning he showed up and did just that!  We were fortunate enough to catch him on his ride through town!  More about the cathedral at http://www.sagradafamilia.com/.  Click on "ENG" in the upper left-hand corner for English...or challenge your knowledge of Catalan.

We caught the Voyager and headed off for a 15-day trip to Ft. Lauderdale.  We made a few stops in Spain and one at our favorite island of Madeira.  Also, stopped overnight in Hamilton, Bermuda.  Here's the ship in port at Hamilton.

As always, sunset ceremonies were held each night in the ship's Observation Lounge.

The end.