Escape: Nice Day 1

Okay, for those who doesn't want to be home sick, this entry is safe and Malaysian food-free.

I went to Nice and Monaco for 3 days from the 10th till the 12th of June. I can use 3 words to describe the trip to Nice: Frying, Food and Football.

Day 1:

I had to catch a bus to airport at 5am for my flight at 6.50am. Reached Nice around 10.30am because the clock moves forward an hour in European countries. We were homeless for half a day cause we didn't book any hotels.

Hakuna Matata. Eat ice cream first.

What to do? Luckily the weather is hot enough to be spent outdoors.

Finally, we came across this really good deal, thanks to E. I think it came up to 20 euros a night.

Happy that we managed to get a roof over our heads and soft mattresses for our backs for 2 nights.

As a promotion, they even threw in a cat as our pet for 2 nights.

Off we went exploring the area.

I wonder do the fountains cool the place down a bit. It was so hot that we were seriously fried under the sun.

They walked to the left...

And walked to the right. I just stood there taking photos while waiting for them to make up their minds.

Most happening place where all the excitement, shops, food and people were - Old town.

Flowers at Flower Market which will turn into a night market and restaurants at night. There were wines, spices, preserved fruits, flowers, etc.

This particular shop sold a lot of cookies and chocolates. So, I decided to buy 5 pieces of cookies for the 5 of us to taste. The free sample of chocolate on the bottom right was really delicious.

Our system of cookies tasting was, each take a bite, then rotate anti-clockwise. Verdict: Looks delicious but doesn't taste as delicious as it looks. Last person had to finish whatever is left, so, if you're lucky, you'll get the smallest and tastiest piece.

Nice's version of Subway

We saw some interesting things on sale as well:

The last time I saw this was 10 years back in Sandakan. You get to measure the length of chain that you want and the shop keeper will add on the clasps for you.

Maybe that's the side effects from using it - Rape all.

We saw a shop selling Middle Eastern food as well.

A decided to buy 4 doughnut for us to share. 2 of each type.

The verdict:

One tasted like lime stone (batu kapur) and another one was seriously too sweet. We tried our best to pose as if they were really delicious, but reality is reality.

So delicious that even the lemon was worth eating

Best food we came across - the deep fried anchovies (ikan bilis). They're totally different from the Malaysian type as they were so juicy and soft. I think they fried them while they're fresh as opposed to the dried type in Malaysia.

Soon, we could feel that the guys were getting restless. Reason: they need their 1st dose of football for the day.

So, here we were, watching the 1st match of Eurocup of the day. They quieted the girls by buying us drinks.

We continued our sight-seeing when the match ended.

Palace of Justice

Soon, it was dinner time. We ate at one of the Restaurant offering a 3 course meal for 15 euros.

There were so many combinations to choose from.

However, the best combination went to mine:

My meal consisted of a free glass of alcohol (it tasted more like fruit juice), fried calamari rings, salmon with rice and for desserts, I had apple pie.