Nice Will Get A Second Chance

Because Paris gave us three solid months of gray skies with alternating rain and snow, we headed south during Kid 3’s winter break. The South of France is warm and sunny, as everybody knows. When I booked the train tickets, weather reports said Nice would be about ten degrees celsius warmer than Paris, so that seemed like a reasonable place to go in February. We had also considered Rome, but decided to stay closer to home for this short trip.

We started to get a little worried a few days before the trip. A fierce cold spell was moving into Europe. Of course, we said, it won’t get too cold in Nice! That’s on the Mediterranean!

Then our friends who went skiing in the Alps told us they couldn’t ski because it was too cold. The lifts shut down.

Our friends who went to Spain posted photos on Facebook of their car buried under snow.

Well, we said, we’re sure it’ll be sunny in Nice. So we got on the train.

See? It’s sunny! Right?

We arrived after dark and got into our Airbnb, cozied up, and slept. The next morning, we decided to walk along the Promenade des Anglais, the boulevard that runs next to the beach. It wasn’t bad.

We did see a bit of sunshine, and the cold was not biting the way it had bitten us in Paris. See, we said, it’ll probably warm up more this afternoon!

Then we heard that they were calling the cold front The Beast from the East. Flights were cancelled. Bus and train service was disrupted. Cars got stuck on freeways and were abandoned by their drivers.

Bummer, we thought. We ate some good food and walked around town. Nice is beautiful, and we were happy to see some colorful architecture.

That cold front probably won’t get down here, we said. This is the Cote d’Azur! ​

These flowers don’t know about The Beast from the East

Boats at the port

So true. “I piss, therefore I am.”

We are cold but undaunted. So far.

We went to Monaco the next day. It costs one Euro and fifty cents for the 45-minute bus ride, and is one of the most stunning bus rides I’ve ever taken. See, we said. We’re having fun!

​In Monaco, though, the wind was harsh and cold. Snow flurries were in the air. We were hungry. Monaco looked like what Vegas wanted to be when it grew up, but unfortunately Vegas took a hard turn downhill in the seventies and now it will never be Monaco. Vegas is still bitter.

The snow stung our eyes. There were no cute cafes like in France. Everything was expensive. The massive yachts in the harbor looked miserably cold. We looked for a restaurant where we could eat and warm up, but the only one we could find just had enclosed outdoor seating. The wind beat the plastic walls. The space heaters were useless. We shivered in our coats and glared at each other. The waiter giddily assured us that this was the coldest day in ten years. Do tell, we said. We decided to bail on Monaco. We found the return bus and went back to Nice.

That was Monaco.

We shoulda gone to Rome, we said. Then we saw the weather report--snow in Rome. Priests were having snowball fights. Adorable.

Great Britain was snowed in. Police in Paris took homeless people to shelters. People in several countries died on the streets, in avalanches, in cars. It was colder in Great Britain than in the Arctic circle. Something about the Arctic being too warm and pushing the cold air south. Thanks, climate change.

Kid 3 developed a nasty cough. He was hot and cold. His nose was stuffy. His throat was sore. I went to the pharmacy down the street and got some drugs.

I woke up in the night to get a drink of water and saw that the snow was covering the cars. In Nice. Around dawn, the snow changed to rain.

Knowing that Kid 3 could feed himself the drugs, I declared it Girls Day Out and left. I went to shops and cafes, stopping more than once for cake and coffee, just to warm up. Also because I love cake and coffee.

Old Nice

Everybody except me went home

No excuse needed for coffee and cake

Museums are always warm and dry

We left the next day. We had several hours between check-out time and train time, so we dragged our luggage and the congested, drugged teenager to a restaurant and tried to pretend we were just casually eating brunch, not loitering and exposing the public to germs. It was not our finest hour.

The train was late. The news said there was an avalanche in the nearby mountains.

We got home to Paris after bedtime. I gave Kid 3 more drugs and put him in bed.

So, I said to myself, that was Nice.

I’m going back this summer. I’m going with my niece. To Nice. Every day will be Girls Day Out. We will go to art museums and drink rosé on sunny terraces and swim in the Mediterranean.

Because I believe in second chances.

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