old family blog

2:00 PM Check in -- And Then!

We woke early on Thursday the 13th to head down to Nice and meet up with Clem’s parents. We got the airport early to avoid any drama with lines or security. We took EasyJet down to Nice; there was practically no one on the plane flying down there.

We landed around 945am and went to the hotel right away. The cab driver drove along the Promenade, which was a very fast drive and only cost about 30 euros. We arrived at the hotel and asked to check in early. The man at the front desk greeted us in English and spoke a few phrases in English – when we asked if we could check in early his English seemed to have disappeared and just said 2pm Check in – he repeated his phrase every time we asked for early check in.

The man finally gave us a key and to our surprise, the room was very, very tiny. I think it was pay back. I could most certainly not recommend the Hotel Agata in Nice, France. It was hell. Our first day in Nice was most certainly a contrast though. After we got into our room we took a nap for a couple of hours since we woke up at 530am and went to bed around 230am.

Clem’s parents arrived in the early afternoon. We decided to go out and walk around looking for a place for dinner and do a little window-shopping. The hotel where we were staying at is located next to a large yachting port. Huge Million dollar yachts were all over the port. We took several pictures of them. We also got to see some of the new Speedboat yachts. Two months ago Vanity Fair did a piece on some of these yachts but located in St. Tropez. Last month they did a full-length article about Larry Ellison and his new 455-foot yacht – the longest private yacht in the world.

After walking up and down numerous streets we finally found one restaurant with its doors open. The problem was it was around 630pm – And Nice is just like Paris or maybe France. No one eats till after 8pm. The young host at L’Icone was gracious enough to open the kitchen early for us . We started off with some drinks and then for dinner we ordered a broad array of goodies. Some of our dishes were good but some were not done properly like Nancy’s tuna. But the service made up for whatever was lacking.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and hit the hay. We were planning on getting up early the next day. Especially Clem’s parents, who had to drop their new Volvo at the shipping port to ship back home. Overall his parents enjoyed driving through Europe and seeing so many new places. Sadly they did have one little ding on the new baby. On the flight down we wondered if they lucked out or had that one whoops.

Photos are in the right column.

posted by turlie @ 6:31 AM