7. The French Riviera (Nice, France) ((Nice!))

This post looks long, but it's mostly pictures (and no quizzes).

Day 17.Friday 6/7/26

Nice Day 1. Morning Food Tour with Heloise. 

Public Transit. Dude, when public transit works, it’s incredible. When the city is structurally designed around public transit (or vice versa) and the systems work, it’s so easy. Cost me 1.5€ for one ride to anywhere. Nice has a brisk and on-time tram system (4 lines, arriving like every 6/7 minutes) that runs mostly above ground. You can just put into your apple/google maps where you want to go, click the “public transit” feature next to driving and walking, and follow the instructions. It’s so, so easy. Each city is different and has its norms/rules/strengths/weaknesses. We figured out Nice in 2 days. Note: in busy times of day, you will be up in the business of (other) smelly people. Also, who could possibly be confused about getting off at the tram station “Jean Médecin”, to walk to another station called “Jean Médecin”, to then board a separate bus at a bus station named “Jean Médecin”? Me. I could possibly be confused. 

Trams are cool. Beautifully cut grass below as they fly above through the heart of the city. Train stations have so much cooler vibes than airports.

Wet Tuna Sandwich. Worst description ever. Best sandwich ever. Used to be for the poor. Tuna, whatever vegetables they could find lying around, and old bread drenched in olive oil. Now it’s a normal local favorite. It was so, so good. I would eat one of these every day. I thought the bread would be soggy and gross — nope. Just really wet with olive oil. 

Socca! Traditional Nicoise snack/breakfast/lunch. Cooked on a giant circular castiron skilled the size of a large car tire in a brick oven at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Chickpea flour and some other things. Flaky, crispy, dense. Like a thick savory pancake. You cover it with fresh black pepper. Whoa, it’s good. 

Macarons. Blueberry vanilla was my choice. We were told authentic French macarons are a little less sweet than commercial ones. We also learned that the biscuit is actually Italian [gasp] and the cream filling was added later. 

Gelato. The Menton Lemon is a special kind of lemon grown in the region and is only available for a short time. It’s “the sweetest lemon”. It’s so sweet apparently you can pick it from the tree and eat it just like an apple. We missed the season by one week. I had the gelato form. It was ‘aight. 

Dinner at a local Indian restaurant. Why? Because a) I love Indian food and b) you can only eat “French food” for so long. #noregerts. It was incredible. Talked with the owner a bit, who was really nice (nice!). I adored the homemade chilli oil he put on the table. You know it’s going to be hot when they serve it in a silver pitcher the size of a tiny shot glass with the smallest spoon I’ve ever seen on a table. I put some on my plate, dipped the back of my fork in it, and it came the airplane. It was hot. After my high coup fit (literally every time I eat anything mildly spicy), I slathered it on everything and was terrific. The owner and I got talking. He told me he learned to make the chili oil recipe when he was working at an Italian restaurant. He modified the recipe with Indian spices. He told me the recipe and sent me home with the “bird tongues” dried chilli peppers and told me to try it and make some at home. (He served them into a small container from a 10-gallon bucket. I would like to reach out to him later to discuss recipes and cross-cultural cooking (Italian and Indian cuisine. We could even throw in Indiana-an (Hoosier) cuisine for spice. Or the lack thereof.) 

Day 18.Saturday 6/8/26

Nice Day 2. Market. Car Tour. Chagall Museum. Clarinet Concert 

Big Antique Market. Woke up early to go to the Saturday antique market in the square. It was so cool because it was vast and filled with actual antiques, not just junk. The Koewler side (mom’s side) of the family has a history of collecting things. Could be treasure, antiques, junk — who’s to say. I am nature/nurture predisposed to the same interest. I purchased a handful of 100-year-old postcards. 

That face when you realize how junk you plan to buy and sneak back in Mom's suitcase to carry.

Tiny Fiat Car Tour. We took a morning scenic-views-of-Nice private car tour in these itty bitty cars. We drove the cute little Fiats. They were about the size of an American-size bowl of ice cream. Stunning views climbing the rolling hills and the city. Visited “the biggest/most beautiful Russian Cathedral outside of Russia.” Russians settled in Nice as a result of the war. We’re not convinced it’s actually 200 years old — even towers at Disney aren’t as clean as this. 

Lunch at a seafood tapas bar. Tapas = small shared plates, popular in Spain. I picked 2 and asked the server to bring us the next best 4 more. Woah. How could garlic/pesto/olive oil bread be? Coconut prawns — not like you’d have on the beach in Florida. So savory and subtle coconut flavor. Some fresh seafood carpaccio (raw thin slices of fish), burrata mozzarella basil salmon. Octopus hummus with focaccia. Fish “croquettes” which were the biggest I’ve ever seen, like double the size of a McDonald’s hash brown. Light fry on the inside and melty, melty cheese and fish on the inside. I feel like I say this after many meals, but it was incredible.  

Picked out something for Bethany. Hope she likes it. 

Hiked to the Chagall Museum. (Sprained ankle drama is continuous. So is composing and music. Just not mentioned throughout here.) Marveled at the new exhibit displaying sketches of the Paris Opera House Ceiling mural (unveiled to the public Sept 23, 1964), in which he created a collage that honored the composers and their works, with stories/symbols woven throughout in vivid color, including composers: Debussy, Ravel, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and others. 

Chagall is particularly inspiring to me for his devotion to the ideal of “total art”. In French, “mise en scène” is mentioned earlier, and “Gesamtkunstwerk” in German — it’s the idea of how all elements of art combine to make the full art: music, staging, costumes, lights, sets, etc, etc. He was a man who had his hand in all the jars: making costumes, painting curtains, painting sets. Also, I am moved by how he used art to express himself and live, namely coping with the death of his wife so young in 1944, when he lived for another 40 years or so. Exploring his process and thoughts inspires and informs my creative process. 

We attended an evening concert of chamber music, two clarinets and piano. Clarinets traded off playing different kinds of clarinets. I was particularly excited about this program to experience in person French musicians interpreting core clarinet repertoire (that is incredibly difficult) in both the French and American and older and contemporary (present day) idioms. How dope could the clarinet actually sound? Check out famed clarinet composer Luigi Bassi’s “Grand Duo Concertant sur le thèmes da La Sonnambula” (1867). Incredible virtuosity while being both playful and refined. My mom was a clarinetist (did you know you could march a bass clarinet in marching band?), so this was particularly moving for her. 

Day 19.Sunday 6/9/26

Nice Day 3. Roller Coaster. Excursion to Cape Feratt (Rothschild Mansion/Gardens) & Monaco (Oceanographic Museum) 

Roller Coaster. If you like the thrill, danger, excitement, views, and wonder that come with roller coasters, might I recommend you ride a city bus with your face pressed up against the glass overlooking the front/side of the bus while traversing switchbacks along the Mediterranean coastline? Yeah, it’s kinda pricey to get from Indianapolis to the Nice bus stop, but the ride only costs 2 bucks. Seriously, it was so fun and all of those adjectives listed above! The bus was jammed back, everyone seated and even more people standing. This man was zooming through these hills while we looked out at fancy yachts anchored and moving about the Mediterranean Ocean while the coastline whizzed by.

The Rothschild Mansion and Gardens (Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild). Built and owned by Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild (1864–1934), when her husband died quite young, she worked hard to fill the void by spending excessive amounts of money on a lavish garden and mansion. Both sit on a long skinny property the width of the entire skinny peninsula in Cap Ferrat on top of a hill, so the sea is gloriously visible on both sides of the garden. The gardens are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, with themed gardens that you walk through: Provencal garden, exotic garden, rose garden, etc. Mom, who adores gardens, had a field day (garden day!) exploring these beautiful sights. It was so tranquil and lux. The mansion was built (early 1900s?) in an older Italian style and was also quite fancy. They had one of the first telephones in the area. This allowed them to call….guess?… the bank! Ha! True story. 

In the above photo, the fountains are spinning. As am I.

As usual, not of these pictures do justice to just how magnificent, lush, exotic, opulent these gardens are.

We had a fancy and surprisingly affordable lunch in the mansion restaurant, overlooking the gardens and the Mediterranean Sea [pinky out]. Octopus/squid is so hard to get right for me. I've had it several times that's just terrific, wow, I'm never eating red meat again (most times in Spain). Then like 80% of the time it's rubbery and flavorless. Dad liked it. I didn't. Mom can't eat it after watching "My Octopus Teacher". Thems creatures be too intelligent for her I guess.

Inside the mansion (excessive and beautiful), I found these delicately decorated gravy boats! They were in the dressing closet just off the lady's bedroom. "Wait, [continues to read placard on wall], oh, those are actually chamber pots... I regret how I set the table for dinner."

We took the roller coaster further east to Monaco! (Which is technically a “municipality” and not a “country” — even though it mostly functions like a country.) We saw the Grand Prix in Monaco! Well, we were two days late for it. They were taking down all the viewing stands in the city. It was surprisingly quiet two days after the race. We hiked to the Prince’s palace and then around the corner to the Oceanographic Museum, famed as “the most impressive aquarium in Europe

”. 

Oceanographic Museum. Part Aquarium, part ocean-study museum. Absolutely enormous building from the early 20th century built on the side of a cliff. One of the early princes of Monaco was a conservationist, enamored with the sea. He built the museum and conducted significant research and government-sanctioned exploration/study of the sea. I wanted to go to this museum because I am inspired by the sea/beauty/creation and have been since my childhood visits to my Suleskey family in Florida. The sea and thus port cities connect humanity because all people come/came through these ports! Culture has been explorted/imported since the beginning of time, and the most broad means of connectivity has been the sea! More on this next year in the classroom.

Below, I don't know if I've ever seen a tank of fish this tall -- like 4x my height. It was full of water and fish. Intimidating.

Below we can see the kitchen....where they prepare fish...for the fish to eat. This was so strange (only because I've never seen or thought about such a display), and I appreciate the education.

Crazy cool, complex, crunched-together, crustacean mosaics on the floor scattered throughout. Everyone was looking up at the exhibits. I kept looking down -- flooring!

Below. There was this strange, recently-unveiled exhibit "Méditerranée 2050," a major interactive exhibition. It features an expansive 1,000 m² digital space where a 16-minute cinematic experience, projected across 27 screens, transports you into the marine ecosystems of the the future. The premise is you are on the 2050 sea crew working to save the planet via the sea, cuz if ya aren't aware, lots of man-made problems. Spoiler alert: humanity decided to make better decisions and we can continue to survive and the sea is in better shape. Kind a trippy to be immersed in this so I thought I'd share.

Dinner in Old Town Nice. Found a place in the Rick Steves Book. Didn’t have a reservation. Walked to restaurant front. Looked tiny. He said wait. He found us a seat. He walked us all the way to the back to floor 1.5 with great interior view and breezy windows. It was wild, because it was like entering an ant hill. Looked like the tiniest place from the street view (like total property exterior 4 meters wide) but so many twisting and turning places filled with dinners throughout! I think we got the last seat. Traditional French boef (beef) stew. Good, but I can only eat so much of these in a calendar year, so I will definitely need to find lighter options throughout France. 

Unrelated: Have you heard of the Pizza Vending Machine? Neither have I. At the train station.

Day 20.Monday 6/10/26

Nice Day 4

I got sick. Had a cold. Took the day easy at the apartment. Pretty hard with this view and a French banana. Well, I assume it was made in France because it had a French flag sticker on it. Unless, of course, that was applied later to assert French dominance over the banana. Regardless, the more I listened to it, the more French it sounded. 

Mom and I have been playing the two-player card game “Whist”. (Specifically I think it’s “German Whist”.) One of my current favorite 2-player card games. Regular deck of cards. Played by Europeans during the Victorian Era (?)and on to pass the time. She crushed me the first time. Then I crushed her. Then she beat me. We keep trading pretty aggressive wins/losses. No one has cried yet. Below is an unusually good hand. Hearts were trump. Sorry, Mom.

Below is the day we booked a boat tour. HA! We canceled that. Minus the wind, this is the view from our 5th-floor balcony overlooking the Promenade de Anglais