We took a long walk on Friday from Villefranche-Sur-Mer to the next town east of us called Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, commonly known as Cap Ferrat. This town sits on a beautiful peninsula with amazing views, famous for the big villas overlooking the Med, the home of Ephrussi de Rothschild, David Niven Villa and other celebrities. Like all towns on the Mediterranean it has a beautiful harbor and beaches, nice boutiques and restaurants.
We celebrated our Valentine dinner here. What a great choice in a quiet waterfront restaurant with a beautiful menu, not only in presentation but in quality. I had baked clams, Ed has escargot, and we both ordered the Bouillabaise for our main course, and for desert Ed had creme brûlée and I had the fromage plate. Both were very apropos for the occasion. Another one of those unforgettable dinners! We had to take the bus home as it started to rain.
Nice Carnival is a huge event. We saw the stands set up along the streets ready for the celebration since we arrived. It seems that everywhere in the world, but the USA, celebrates the carnival in a big way. Yes, New Orleans celebrates the Mardi Grass but it's not an American tradition. It has its roots in medieval Europe. It's for sure a big thing here in the Côte d'Azur. Our own small town will have a celebration Feb 16th that we will not miss. The program for Nice runs for almost 2 weeks with different events per day starting Feb 13th. We bought tickets for the flower parade, Bataill de Fleurs, to be held on Valentine's Day at 2:30 pm. With all the sunny days, we didn't think we could go wrong and we selected the afternoon event the as the other event that same day was at 9:00 pm. Well, when we checked the weather forecast and discovered rain was predicted at 50-80% probability; we were bummed. On Saturday we got up and found out thru FB the grand opening was canceled due to rain. We got ready just in case the weather improved, fat chance, we discussed our options and kept looking thru the window - and it was getting darker and darker. We decided to stay home hoping the event was canceled to get our €50 back. Well, thru the Nice Carnival Facebook page was posted that the event will be held.....but an hour later a second posting was made saying that due to rain the event was canceled. Yeah! It's amazing how Facebook it's used as the medium to communicate to the world. We turned the TV on the French channels and nothing found, but checked the web and Facebook gave us the information.
Now we need to go to tourism office so they can process our refund.
We spent a quiet day at home, walked to the boulangerie before the rain started to buy fresh bread and my favorite pastry, a Mille-feuille or "milhojas" en spanish which means a thousand leaves. It's a pastry of stacked layers of puff pastry, the best!
This is how the clerk wrapped it to go, like a gift, not brown paper or plastic. They do this for a sandwich too, very pretty!
I had made lentil soup the other day and we had a serving for two saved for a day like this, it worked out perfect on a rainy day!
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