Nice Day 2

Today was the official start of our tour. We had a walking tour of the old Nice town area in the morning, then free time in the afternoon.

I started the day early with a 5K run on the promenade along the sea. There were not too many people out then. It was 57 °F with a faint breeze. With the warm sun, I decided I overdressed with long sleeves.

Notice the beach. It’s a sandy beach underneath, but I think the city covers the beach with small stones to protect it from washing away. We saw areas with big piles of stones and earthmoving equipment to spread them out. The carpet in our hotel celebrated the stone beach.

On our walking tour this morning we walked through the narrow streets of old town Nice.

And through the market. Lots of produce and flowers.

We saw the Adam and Eve frescos on the outside of a building. They date from 1584.

We got a taste of Calisson (Melon, almond flour, honey) on the tour, but not socca. so we went back to the market to try some socca.

Socca is made from chickpea flour, water, and a pinch of salt. It’s baked or broiled. This street vendor baked it at the main store and had a specially equipped bicycle to bring over a hot two foot diameter tray.

It’s generally eaten warm right out of the oven, when it tastes the best. I wanted to sample the real thing, as Donna found a recipe for it and I’ve been making it at home since last year. I’ve seen a number of recipes, between equal parts chickpea flour and water to two parts water to chickpea flour. I preheat the cast iron skillet in the oven, then put it in to broil so it’s browned on both the top and bottom. This was only browned on the top, so it may be poured into a cool pan and broiled. Mine is a touch thicker, so it’s still custardy inside. I also sprinkle rosemary on top before baking. The street vendor used black pepper after baking when serving.

Donna wanted to walk along the promenade in our free time after lunch. We stopped and took off our shoes and socks and waded into the Mediterranean sea. It was challenging getting in, because the beach is a bit steep and because of the rocks. They don’t cut your feet, but are hard to walk on in bare feet. It was also pretty cold in the water. Many people had flip flops that they used to walk in a few feet and then threw them back to shore before they swam. It took only 15-20 minutes in the warm sun for our feet to dry off in the warm sun. We stopped for ice cream again, Fenocchio has lots of flavors to try. We had violet, passion fruit and ginger today. The passion fruit had a really intense concentrated flavor that dominated everything else. The ginger was pretty strong, but no match for the passion fruit. The violet was a subtle flavor, so didn’t match well. The lavender from yesterday would have been a better match.

We walked to the port east of the old town and then walked back around the north side of the hill the castle ruins are on. There is a memorial to World War I & II soldiers on the east side of the hill.

There were a number of bikers coming back along the promenade from the east. I suspect biking along the coast could be quite pretty on a nice day.

We had the tour welcome dinner tonight. Chicken and potatoes with tiramisu for desert.

Donna had 20,000 steps, I had 29,000 steps with my run and a little extra walking. We slept pretty well.