Nice Journal - Autumn 2011 - 2

Wednesday, 7th September, 2011.

Lunch at Le Nautique

There was no school today, so it was unusually quiet at 8:45 when my alarm went off, even though we had left all the windows and balcony doors wide open all night for coolness. As the morning was looking cloudy and cool, I closed up the doors while making coffee for us both.

Breakfast was a simple affair of cream cheese and ham on bread and butter with orange juice. We took our time getting ourselves organised and it was almost noon before we set out for the tram stop over on Gorbella. We rode the tram as far as Place Garibaldi and walked down Ségurane to Foresta. By now the sun had burned off the early morning haze and was quite fiercely bright and delightfully warm.

Perry welcomed us and we passed over our gifts of various quintessentially British biscuits. We chatted for a while and then agreed to go down to Le Nautique on Quai Lunel for lunch. Perry was warmly greeted by the proprietor of the place and we were seated at a table to the rear of the terrace. Lisa and Perry both opted to have the grilled loup (sea bream) while I ordered the risotto St. Jaques (scallops). Lisa and I shared a half of Côtes de Provence rosé. The food was spectacularly good: far better than on our last visit (a year ago - it was closed for refurbishment, read "gutted and rebuilt from the inside out", in March) and back to the excellence of our first visit with Lisa's uncle.

We had desserts (crème caramel for Lisa and I, chocolate fondant for Perry) which were, like the wine, good but not as outstanding as the main dishes. Typically excellent coffee to finish (restaurants in France generally do serve extremely good coffee) with Limoncello "on the house". Although we were so close to the busy Quai, the traffic (apart from the acasional motorcycles) was not disturbing and we enjoyed sitting and talking for a couple of hours out of the direct sun.

Eventually we moved on to make our way gently back up to Foresta where we sorted out Perry's camera battery charger (I'd bought the required adapter with me from England) and continued talking for another hour or more. We made plans for a couple of museum visits but Perry declined to join us on a trip to Monaco to see the aquarium there. Having set a time to meet tomorrow, we made our farewells and walked around Quai Rauba Capeu to the Cours Saleya and had a couple of "Seize" at the Civette de la Cours while sitting in the late afternoon sun and watching the world go by.

We got the tram home from the Cathédrale stop and popped into the Gorbella Monoprix for a few bits and pieces (plus a set of 19cl wine glasses and a bra). We grazed on a selection of snacks, including some fresh prawns which we dipped in cocktail sauce, and I had another beer. Lisa went off for an early night and I turned in some time afterwards.