Nice Food, Nice Race, and Moving On to Como

It's been more than a week since we came back from Nice, but now it's time to finish up writing about it...

Our morning started off with a trip to the Cours Saleya (the flower market), where we had some crèpes for breakfast. Fernando was the champion at our table with his extra-fancy crèpe, while Kristen and I opted for more ordinary ones.

After our quick meal, we headed up the Colline du Château - the hill from which we took the photos of the city from yesterday's post - of course, after grabbing some free stuff from the Tour de France caravan.

At about 1PM, the street by the shore was getting really crowded, since Stage 2 of the Tour was set to pass through at about that time. We were able to squeeze into a spot about 300m away from an intermediate sprint point of the stage. First, a breakaway of four riders passed by, which is pretty typical for this type of stage in the Tour.

Afterwards, the rest of the group (there are 180 riders total in the race), riding in a bunch called a "peloton," passed by at a relatively relaxed pace.

I took pictures of the peloton using the burst function of my camera, while Kristen was able to get everybody in this video. If you can freeze the video, you can catch a tiny, tiny glimpse of Lance Armstrong. He passes by at the 10 second mark, on the other side of the road, in a light blue and yellow jersey, and wearing a black helmet...

Video from Kristen. Can you find Lance Armstrong?

After the race, we went back to the Cours Saleya, where the flower market had been taken down and replaced by dining tables. We ate a prix fixe meal at a seafood restaurant, where for my entrée (which in France is the appetizer), I had some grilled sardines

to go along with my main dish - called the plat in French - of swordfish. Fernando, meanwhile, had a salade niçoise, which was basically a tuna salad,

with spaghetti marinara for his main dish, and Kristen ate a fish soup and some mussels.

Finally, we've reached the conclusion of our travels in Monaco and Nice. After a mostly uneventful week, we embarked on our next weekend trip, to Lake Como in northern Italy, close to Milan and just a few steps away from Switzerland. The lake was formed right in the middle of the Alps after some glaciers receded. Fortunately, the result of this melting was a beautiful lake completely surrounded by mountains and mountainside towns.

Over the next two to three days, I'll be recounting our journeys in the Lake Como area. I'll also be going on some hikes in the Turin area over the course of this week to warm up for our trip to the Alps on Sunday, so I'll have to find a way to fit everything together. Stay tuned!