Monday, June 16, 2014

Day 6 Cote d'Azur French Riviera: Èze, Monaco, Nice




Our second day in Cote d'Azur began with a 1.5 hour drive to Èze (between Monaco and Nice) to visit the Fragonard Perfumeur overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We took a guided tour of the perfume factory to learn how perfume is made and the native flowers used from France.  The tour concluded in their showroom where our guide captured our attention by giving us sample scents to smell and turned us loose to buy perfumes, soaps, and lotions at their store.  Let's just say the bus ride to our next destination was smelling pretty sweet!




We continued east to the Principality of Monaco, the second smallest country and most densly populated in the world (on approximately 2.5 square miles). Here we stopped for lunch and some sightseeing.  The views of the bay were spectacular with yachts (very large yachts) lined up one after another in the harbor.  On our free time we shopped, some of us walked to the St. Nicholas Cathedral were Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier were married, took photos of the Prince's Palalce of Monaco and others went to the Oceanographic Museum.




Pictured on left are stained glass windows inside the Saint Nicholas Cathederal.














Back on the motor coach we headed west along the Cort d'Azur to Nice.  We started with a walking tour of Vieux (old) Nice where we stopped for ice cream at the famous (says our guide) Finnochio.  We enjoyed a couple of hours of free time to explore Nice.  Some of us went to the beach to dip our toes into the Mediterranean Sea. Instead of a soft, white sandy beach this beach was rock hard-- literally!  It was like a rock bed all the way from the beach to the sea.



After a little shopping we met up for group dinner. In case you are wondering, we eat dinner as one group with the meal pre-arranged by our tour director.  This allows us to keep the dinners within an hour with minimum fuss.








On Tuesday we continue west to Provence.


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