Day 42, Thursday, Nice

After breakfast at the hotel we checked out and set off in search of a car wash. We found a Total station with an automatic wash on the road towards Nice. Good value really, 6€40 for the wash and 1€ per 3 minutes aspirateur to clean the carpets. The car looked almost new.

My phone wasn’t working with Google Maps or email, Anne’s was OK. The issue turned out to be that my phone had used all available 7GB of data in my Vodafone plan overnight, and also all the remaining cash balance. The culprit was the wireless hotspot. I had been using it to run the ipad, since the wifi was nonexistent last night in the hotel in Antibes. Checking the ipad just now, I found it was offering to install the latest IOS 12 it had thoughtfully downloaded overnight. Thanks, Apple. Fortunately, Anne’s phone still has 11GB of data left.

Camille got us near our hotel in central Nice, despite my refusing to go on the A8 motorway. We parked underground and dragged our cases 800m to Rue Paradis and up 96 steps to the hotel Dortoir. The “hotel” is 3 converted apartments on the 4th floor. No lift, but the room is large, about 20sqm, bathroom another 8sqm, luxuriously appointed, within about 200m of Place Massena, Old Town, beach and 98 bus stop for the airport.

The view. Buildings at left without terra cotta roofs are abandoned.

The half of the room without the king size bed.

Then back to to the airport 7km away to hand in the car. I chose the wrong boom gate to get into the return area. Vehicles had to back up to let me move into the correct lane. The attendant at the gate distinguished herself by being completely unhelpful.

No damage after 4005km, except a stone chip on the bonnet. Many near misses though. I signed something in two places, and apparently I’m not buying the car any more. I forfeited my deposit. In Australia I would buy the car. It was terrific.

Now, sans luggage and sans car, we felt liberated. All we had to do was figure out how to buy a bus ticket and find where the 98 bus leaves from. Not straightforward. No decent signs anywhere near terminal 2.

Typical Nice beach scene. The sea really is that colour on a sunny day, which seems to be most days in our experience. The beach is pebbles, not sand, but faces south. 28 degrees today, windy.

After that all we needed to do was wander around the old town, buy some French made string bags for presents that Anne had been looking all over southern France for (and found here), buy a glace, find an Indian resturant for dinner, visit the place on Rue Rivoli where I plan to rent a motorcycle next September, have a long drink, and find the closest 98 bus stop to the hotel. We fly out tomorrow afternoon, home Saturday night.

In the Indian restaurant in Place Grimaldi we conversed with a lady from La Jolla, California, widowed two years ago, who stays here in the same apartment for five weeks every year, by herself now. She loves the place. So do we. At least English is spoken here. We were speaking in French to the English waiter, originally from Bangladesh, who probably knows less French than we do.

French TV is well worth watching just for the ads.