Day 12 - To the Riviera!

Isla woke up at 3 AM and Graham worked for ~40 minutes to get her back to sleep with out feeding her as we really didn't want to reintroduce night feeds again. Needless to say, it wasn't a very restful night. Thankfully, another delicious breakfast awaited us: muesli, bread, cheese, cantaloupe, cherries and coffee. We bid au revoir to our Provencal paradise and were on the road by 10:30 AM. The sun finally reappeared after a few stormy days.

We stopped in Aix-en-Provence, a college town bustling with tourism and shops. We didn't really know anything about the place, but it seemed really fun from our brief exposure.

We grabbed a delicious salad with greens, goat cheese, ham and tomato, a chicken wrap with carrot, rice and beets, and a berry parfait with fresh white cheese (instead of yogurt) to-go from a French Jamba Juice-ish place and sat down on some steps to picnic/people watch.

We really didn't pay any attention to the building behind us until we were finished eating. Graham turned around and saw that we were eating on the steps of a church and so decided to take a peek inside. It was gorgeous! It had a circular opening in the ceiling that allowed the sunlight (and probably rain too) to pour through which was pretty awe-inspiring.

We hit the road and headed toward the coast. Our Google map directions once again led us astray. It probably didn't help that I couldn't remember the name of the town we were supposed to stay in. I knew it was a suburb of Antibes, but apparently I never wrote down the name...For the record, the town was called Juan-les-Pins and it is known for having more of the party scene (not why we chose it!)

We did find our place, Hotel Eden, eventually, shortly after 3 PM. It wasn't anything spectacular, but we did have a view of the water out our window (we were about a block away). We'd found the hotels on the coast to either a) be horribly expensive or b) not allow children so our options were quite limited.

The reception desk was quite accommodating and got us set up with beach mats, towels and an umbrella. Because we'd been sun-starved for the prior few days, we were changed into our suits and out the door within 15 minutes of arriving to our room.

We walked to a nearby public beach, recommended to us by our hotel. The place was packed! I have never seen a beach that full in all my life. We literally had to spread our towels right at the bottom of the stairs leading from the promenade to the beach as they wasn't room elsewhere. We didn't bring our camera and it was probably a good thing because you wouldn't want to see what we saw anyway. It took a couple minutes before I noticed the topless lady nearby. I firmly instructed Graham NOT to look to the right. But as I started scanning the crowd, I realized he'd pretty much have to close his eyes and not open them until we got back to the hotel to avoid getting an eyefull. I guess I was not prepared for this. The funny part about it was that all the topless women were ~40 and up. It wasn't like the people my age were doing it. And most of the women were laying there with their man, who didn't even appear the least bit interested. I guess when it's the "norm," it really is the norm and nobody (except for the naive American tourists) are phased. Oh, and by the way, Isla needed to nurse while we were at the beach. And yes, I still used my hooter hider. And yes, it felt really strange.  

Back to swimming....we took turns dipping in the water but it was hard to really swim as we didn't want to leave our stuff unattended since we'd had to settle so far from the shore. Isla tried to eat a rock but we fished it out before she swallowed and she cried when I dipped her feet in the water. One day she'll be grateful though that I made her touch the Mediterranean. We spent most our time lounging and reading.

After cleaning up, we took a 20 minute stroll into Antibes. The streets were so fun, colorful buildings pressed up against one another with lots of flower boxes and pretty shutters.

We passed a Patisserie and went in to buy an apple dessert and a mini chocolate pie with banana on top to enjoy later. After much deliberation, we opted to eat Italian at the Rick Steves recommended Le Brulot. They had those really long cracker bread sticks that kept Isla entertained for a long time until she shoved it into the back of her throat and began gagging...

I ordered the Daube Nicoise with ravioli because I thought it would be a salad AND pasta (rookie mistake: nicoise does not always = salad). It turned out to be quite tasty! I didn't know at the time but daube is a French stew made with wine, vegetables, garlic and herbs. Graham had farfalle with pesto cream. We drank the house red because it was cheap, but we pretty much got what we paid for.

The walk seemed longer on the way back but I was charmed by the city, even at night.

We ate our dessert back at the hotel while Graham watched the World Cup (in French!). We were in bed by 11 PM and unfortunately, Graham's throat was beginning to hurt....