I’m back from Europe (sadly!) but really excited to share my travels with you! Nice is a beautiful city in the south of France that sits on the French Riviera.
Memes and I packed a lot into a pretty short trip! We both flew into Paris separately and right from there got on our flight to Nice. We chose to fly Easy Jet around Europe but another inexpensive airline I’ve used before is Ryan air.
We stayed at the Radisson Blu Nice which is located right on the Promenade de Anglais which is super convenient. We booked the hotel because of the views of the water. We had every intention of relaxing at the pool and then hitting the beach but unfortunately it was raining most of the time we were there. Apparently Nice gets 300 days of sunshine a year, and we just happened to pick the wrong dates! We were very happy with the hotel over all. Our room was quite large and we even had a view of the water from our balcony! This wasn’t our room exactly but it looked pretty close to this!
We checked into our hotel pretty late and after over 24 hours of traveling! We were exhausted so we randomly picked a spot that had decent reviews and was open. Our Uber driver suggested a different place across the street called La Pizza Cresci, and I’m so happy he did because the original place was empty! I had the pasta carbonara and Memes had the nicoise salad. In addition to this recommendation he gave us a ton of other places to see and bars to check out. All of our Uber drivers gave amazing recommendations!
Our first full day we got a bit of a late start because we ended up going out until 3am…oops! When in Nice! We were really hungry so we stopped at Skender Kebab because it was the first place we saw that was open. The food wasn’t great, but the cappuccino was so good we went back the next day for two!
For dinner that night we went to Casa de Leya in Old Town Nice and it ended up being one of our favorites from the trip. The bruschetta was unlike any bruschetta I’ve ever seen. I got the risotto for my main entree and the frozen vacherin which apparently is pavlova. I had no idea what that was but it was so freaking good. There was vanilla and strawberry ice cream, meringue, homemade whipped cream and berry coulis. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Honestly, one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.
For lunch on our second day we went to Blue Beach. The view was pretty amazing, if only it had been sunny! I had the clam linguine and it was so fresh.
On our last night we went out to Le Plongeoir which came recommended by Emily from @thechiceuromom. Plongeoir means “diving board” which makes sense that the restaurant is small and sits out on the water! The portions weren’t very big but the octopus was yummy.
Like I mentioned our intention for Nice was to relax, fully knowing London and Paris were going to be really jam packed. Unfortunately due to the weather our plans changed and we ended up doing more sightseeing. To be honest, I didn’t realize there was so much to do in Nice!
We wandered around a lot and enjoyed sightseeing. The Promenade de Anglais has a lot of restaurants and cafes that overlook the water. If you walk back one street there are a ton more too and they are a little less expensive! We had heard amazing things about the flower markets so we checked those out in Old Nice. They’re open 6 am to 5.30 pm except Mondays, Sunday afternoons and public holidays. There were SO MANY flowers. It was really neat to see, if only we had daily flower markets in the states!
There are a ton of cafes with outdoor seating so make sure to take some time to find a cute cafe and grab a cappuccino or a drink. It’s fun to sit, people watch and plan out your next stop! Funny story…the morning this photo was taken I plugged my T3 Micro curling iron into the adapter and all of the lights went out in the ENTIRE room and my curling iron popped in my hand and turned black! It was my own fault, it was a new curling iron and I didn’t even think to look at the voltage! Hence the reason my hair looks like this!
Obviously, I love going to the beach (I live in San Diego!) but the beaches in Nice are SO different. All of the beaches are pebbles but there is a ton of sea glass. I could have spent all day picking up sea glass!
One of the recommendations from our Uber driver was Castle Hill. There was once an old old castle that was used for military purposes but now it’s a large garden with a waterfall and beautiful views of Nice. The elevator is free, though there generally is a bit of a line. The wait is worth it! We walked around and grabbed rose for only €2.50!
The Negressco is one of the oldest hotels in Nice and is stunning! We walked in and ended up having a rather pricey drink at The Negressco Bar. The music was great and the atmosphere was really lovely!
I love wandering around new towns, especially in Europe. There is nothing better than getting lost and stumbling upon cute little streets and cafes. Here are a few random little sights we saw!
Can’t forget the bars! Our Uber driver recommended Wayne’s Bar which ended up being our favorite bar in Nice. Funny enough my friend messaged me and told me she used to go there in the 90’s and loved it! It’s a really small bar but there was a DJ, everyone was dancing on the tables and having a great time! High Club is a club and doesn’t open until 11:45pm. We went there on our last night and ended up staying there until 4am! I asked one of the staff what time the club closes and he said 5 or 6am. I knew at that point we had to get out of there or we would never make our flight at 10am! Blue Whales and Oxford are two other bars that were suggested!
Since we only had a couple days there were things we didn’t get to do! Eze came highly recommended along with Monaco, Antibes, and St. Tropez. I also really wanted to go to the lavender fields in Provence. Next time! I would suggest a week in Southern France during the summer. In hindsight I would have skipped Nice this trip and stayed longer in London.
Next up, London!
