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.