Farewell to the Riviera

Sunday was such a perfect day -- temperature in the mid-seventies, gorgeous sunshine, gentle breezes -- that we couldn't find the energy to leave our sunny deck and do much of anything.  What a lazy, wonderful day!

Plage Keller

Monday was cloudier and cooler and we had more energy for our last outing -- a drive around Cap d'Antibes.  We stopped briefly in Juan-les-Pins to visit the Square FJ Gould and the nearby beach and then drove along the water, past the Eden Roc Hotel, and across the island to Plage de la Garoupe, a large beach with restaurants and piers on which one can alternately sun bathe and eat.  You don't even have to get sandy if you don't want to!

Over a lovely lunch at Restaurant Le César at Plage Keller, Laura and I compared notes on our various beach experiences in the US and elsewhere and we agreed that whether it's the money or the French, we've never experienced beach front life like this anywhere.  No neon signs, no hot dogs and cotton candy, no strewn candy wrappers, no screaming children (there were children, but they were well dressed and well behaved).  The service was lovely and the food top drawer.

Another View of Cap d'Antibes

After lunch, we took a long walk along the beautiful pedestrian waterside trail, le Sentier du Littoral dit "de Tire-poil".                                                            

We enjoyed the drive back to Antibes along the water on the eastern side of the cape.  There were a number of boats about and a surprising number of people given the inauspicious weather.

Negresco Bar

Back to Nice on Tuesday.  For our farewell dinner, we had a drink in the legendary bar at the Hotel Negresco, the Grand Dame of beachfront hotels.    The picture isn't very good, but the bar is wonderful and the large rotunda in the middle of the ground floor with its beautiful stained glass ceiling is absolutely lovely.  From there, it was on to dinner at La Réserve, a restaurant just beyond the old port, right on the water, with beautiful views of the Mediterranean, the lighthouse at the entrance to the old port, and some wonderful mansions on the hillside as the light faded from the sky. (See below.  Out of focus, but you get the point.)  The meal was absolutely wonderful, a terrific conclusion to our wonderful road trip!