Nice March 17

Welcome To Nice!

French River Cruise Adventure - Day 1:  We began our Viking River Cruise to Southern France by leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale International around 3:30 pm with a connecting flight into JFK in New York.  As we flew into New York we flew right over Belmont Park where American Pharoah became the first thoroughbred in 37 years to win the coveted Triple Crown last June.

We had a three hour layover in New York so we grabbed a bite to eat.  A couple of interesting tidbits about the flight from New York to Nice.....first, the flight was at least less than half full.  In our section the first five rows, with each row being three seats on the left, four in the middle, and two on the right - there were a total of twenty passengers.  There was so much room that Kim quickly abandoned me to take command of her own middle row where she was able to comfortably stretch out and go to sleep for a large part of the flight!  The other item of "interest" was that the sound for my movie screen was dead, so in order for me to watch a movie - I watched "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" - I had to turn on the movie screen on what would have been Kim's seat (had she stayed), pause it; turn on the movie on my screen and then time it so that I restarted Kim's screen to be in synch with mine.  I could have moved I suppose, but I liked my window seat with only one seat to the aisle, and only one row removed from the bathroom area.  And finally, the flight went by pretty quickly.  About an hour out we flew over the ice & snow-covered French Alps - pretty spectacular! 

We landed at 11 am Nice time (the six hour time difference made it 5 am back in Ft. Lauderdale).  The process of entering France was SO easy - walked off the plane and were third in line to show our passport; picked up our luggage within ten minutes - no customs, etc. and as we exited the luggage area a Viking rep was standing there.  She looked right at me, pointed at me and said, "Mr. Love?"  Indeed!  She then immediately escorted us, along with two other couples outside to a waiting personal min-bus for transport to our hotel, the B-4 Plaza. 

Once inside we gave our information to the front desk and they told us our room wouldn't be ready until early afternoon.  The Viking representative - Bart - then gathered the four couples around his desk and he gave us an orientation to the city, illustrating on maps.  He gave us the layout of what was provided and some suggestions for filling our days here in Nice.  Kim and I had previously decided we wanted to take the optional tour to Monaco and Monte Carlo on Saturday, and the other couples quickly nixed Bart's idea to do that excursion on the same day as the walking tour (tomorrow) and to join us!  Who's running this show? :)  We found out that the walking tour did NOT cover a visit to Castle Hill, which was on our MUST SEE list, and the required photo-op for the stay in Nice.  We asked about it's location and were delighted to discover it was only ten minutes walking distance.  Of course that only was the walk to get there, not the many - MANY steps to get to the top!  Finally we made dinner reservations at an Italian spot Bart recommended and then we left our carry-on luggage with our other pieces and began our walk.  We walked along the Promenade des Anglais which was built in the 1800s for the rich Europeans who came to Nice for the warm weather and it was designed to be up off the beach so that (a) they wouldn't have to walk on the beach (which is very much like gravel), and (b) to avoid the smell of the fish from the Mediterranean Sea.  We walked down to beach level and posed for a photo......

We continued along the promenade and then Kim posed with Castle Hill in the background.  If you look closely on the left side you can see the stairs, and the circular structure is where we stopped for the photo op. 

I must say, I did a lot of research for each of our stops and the view from here of Nice was every bit as spectacular as it looks online! 

Then we continued the climb to the very top to check out the Cascade Waterfalls. 

By the time we'd climbed all the way back to the Promenade des Anglais it was close to 2 pm.  The sun was glimmering off the water, so of course I had to take another picture!

We had to wait one more hour for our room to be ready.  As we were waiting I wondered if we could be as lucky as we were on our first Viking River Cruise when we checked into our hotel in Budapest only to discover our room had the spectacular view of the Danube that was one of the best photos I'd seen online prior to going on that trip.  Could we be so lucky to have a room that actually looks out onto the Mediterranean Sea and the French Riviera?  When we got the keys to Room 407 and headed up, this is what we saw.......

W-O-W do the Viking Cruise people know how to treat you or what!  By this time both of us were beginning to run out of energy and we were content to just relax in our room before heading out to dinner just down the street.  We had asked Bart for recommendations and one he mentioned was Italian since Nice is so close to the border of Italy, they share a lot of the same cultural and food likes, especially in this part of France.  So he suggested La Massaia.  It was DELICIOUS - the perfect end to a great first day!

Day 1:  March 17th

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