Nice, France is Nice.

Oh man. This post has been sitting in my draft box for an embarrassingly long time. I've been incredibly busy and thought about writing this practically every day, but either haven't had the time or the energy to write it. Even though it was an awesome vacation :-)

And yes, I've been planning to use my title pun since I thought about writing a post about Nice :-D (But in case you didn't know, as I also didn't know, Nice is pronounced like niece.)

For the second week of our vacation, Dorina and I flew to Nice.

Okay, so you can't exactly see the word Nice, but it's there. And you can see how far it is from Winterthur (Zürich). Far enough for warmer weather and sun!

It was Dorina's first time on a plane, which was fun to experience with her! She was so excited and nervous, and when we landed, she said she was already excited for the flight home (for the flight, not for the going home part).

We were extremely lucky, in that we found a flight and hotel, for five days total, for less than 200 CHF each! Practically unheard of! We flew in on Monday and settled into our hotel Monday night, leaving all the touristy things and exploring for the next days.

Tuesday: In the morning, we started off with breakfast in the hotel (included!)

So many options and so tasty!

Then, we started off. We planned to go to the Marc Chagall museum, but apparently it is closed on Tuesdays--what we found out, of course, only once we'd gotten there. Wednesday it is, for the museum then! So, instead we meandered back to the city and walked around a lot. It was a beautiful day, and much warmer than snowy Winterthur, so we ate lunch in a park and wrote out a couple of postcards. It was fantastic (and made me anxious for Spring back in Switzerland!)

The French kids were adorable :-)

We turned in a bit early because we were pretty tired from walking around, but made plans for the museum and old city the next day.

Wednesday: We started off, of course, with our free breakfast again and then headed out for the museum. We both knew nothing about Chagall, but it came highly recommended to us. And boy were we glad we went! He painted several paintings during WWII time that depicted religious scenes, but the paintings were colorful and bright, and they have so much more than what first meets the eye to them. We had headsets to listen to in the museum that explained the history behind the painting, as well as all the little details that he included, often connecting to his own personal life.

This was both Dorina and my favorite painting

Afterward, we went to the top of a tower or something (I've forgotten now what exactly it was) and had a breathtakingly stunning view of Nice. The Mediterranean sea, with the city, and the mountains as a backdrop--amazing.

walked back to the old city to walk around. I love old cities--the buildings, the narrow and twisty roads, the shops and apartments crammed together. All of it. We walked around for a while and then decided to buy pizza for dinner and sit on the beach to watch the sunset.

♥

Then we went home and planned for the next day.

Thursday: We started our day off again with our hotel breakfast and then headed off to Antibes for a day! 

Antibes is less than 30 minutes from Nice by train and is a small, rich, touristy town. It was another gorgeous day, so we walked around up a path to see out over the sea. Again, astonishing. (I'm running out of adjectives...) We sat at the top for a while, enjoying the sun, before heading back down in hopes of finding some sort of souvenir for our time in France. After walking for a while, we ate lunch in an adorable little restaurant in the middle of the town, and then continued our search for a souvenir. We also wandered around some smaller streets in the city, which were gorgeous and filled with apartments.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a summer home here?

We unfortunately didn't find anything and decided to head back to Nice. On our way back, however, we spotted a clothing store that intrigued us, so we went inside. After a few different clothing changes, we both found something we loved--a dress for Dorina and a skirt and sweater for me. We agreed that that would be a good souvenir (instead of something tacky).
And, since it was Valentine's day, we decided to dress up and go out for one drink before having to pack that evening.

And then early Friday, we made our way back to Winterthur. Back to the snow and the cold, and back to school on Tuesday. Nonetheless, it was a lovely vacation, enjoyed completely, and we were well-rested and relaxed for going back to school.