Nice

Orientation Wine

After the orientation, we all took a walk to Voyageur Nissart Restaurant for our first group dinner. We had niçoises (my first time...yummy!) and all sorts of lovely little edibles that just make you happy to be in France, and don't forget the wine. Linda and I sat with Peter and Deb, a wonderful couple from Connecticut who have a son. It turned out that this son is my age, single, and

Our dinner wine

View of la Cote d'Azur (the blue coast).

Our hotel in Nice

Anyone who has been on a Rick Steves' tour knows that Day One begins at 5:00pm with a group orientation and then dinner. After checking into the hotel, Linda and I had

several hours before the orientation, so we decided to walk down to the beach for our first look at the Mediterranean. The beach was covered with beautiful bikini clad (yes men and women both) Franciscans all baked to a golden brown. On the Promenade des Anglais (a large walkway above the beach), visitors strolled along while eating ice cream and the locals were zooming around on their rollerblades.

Everyone that we saw skated so well, and they were all

When it was time for the orientation, Linda and I walked down to the breakfast room of the hotel and met Sabine our tour guide. We liked her, and her choice of wine, right away. During the orientation, we were in the middle of introductions when who should walk through the door but Rick Steves. Linda grabbed my arm so hard I thought

never been on a Rick Steves' tour or to Europe for that matter, so she was already in sensory overload, but loving every minute of it. While we strolled along the beach, I told her that Rick actually leads tours on occasion and we talked about how fun it would be if Rick was our tour guide. After lunch (and some ice cream, of course) and a little more sightseeing, we headed back to the hotel to meet our tour group.

fearless. Whether it was jumping a ramp at top speed or doing a full splits while weaving through the tourists on the walkway, these people really know how to enjoy their lunch hour!

As we walked down to the beach, the Mediterranean was so blue and inviting that you just wanted to jump right in, clothes, camera (um...maybe not), and all. Linda had

After dinner, a group of us decided to go experience Nice la nuit. It had been a long day of traveling for everyone, so most of the group went off to bed. But I just had to see the nightlife in Nice and so Laura, Elena, Linda, Steve, Judy, Jack, and myself went to go mingle with the locals. We headed down to

thought she was going to fall out of her chair. Too bad I didn't have my camera out (the one time...go figure) because I would have loved to get a picture of Linda's mouth hanging open, and everyone else's for that matter. None of the tour group, except Sabine of course, knew that Rick was in Nice filming for his television show, so we all got a big surprise. Rick stayed and talked to us for a bit and it was during this conversation that we learned that Steve Pick (my tour buddy) is the infamous "Alp Boy" frolicking in the mountains like Julie Andrews in the Best of Europe photo. It was definitely shaping up to be an interesting tour.

the main pedestrian shopping street and ran into our first really colorful local. We just called him "Cat Man" or "Chat Homme" for lack of a better name. This is a guy who dresses up like Louie XIV going to a masked ball and performs with

his two cats. Now I live near San Francisco and we have a lot of street performs there, but California doesn't have anything like this guy. The Cat Man actually lays the cats on his arms and swings them around and dances with them. Of course, the cats don't seem to mind, so if their happy, I'm happy.

We continued our walk down to the boardwalk chatting about who we are when we are not on vacation, what sorts of

wandered around, I couldn't help but notice that it was just as busy as it was earlier in the day. If fact, it seemed like the whole City was out. It was nearing 10:00pm and the cafes were full. People were talking and drinking coffee while small children ran around laughing and playing games. I wanted to stay up all night and absorb this wonderful atmosphere, but my eye lids had other ideas. So we headed back to the hotel to get some rest for the first full day of our tour in Belle France.