Day 14 July 23, 2007

Nice, France

Our last day in the South of France. 🙁 We ate breakfast on the hotel’s terrace again before lugging our stuff down the 3 flights of stairs and hitting the road for Nice. Construction in Nice was crazy – we had a very tough time navigating our way through town to the old port area. Our goal was to find a shop specializing in Provincial food items then to find the Hi Hotel for lunch. Because the streets were such a mess, we just headed straight for the Hi. What an incredible space! The restaurant is situated in an Asian-inspired courtyard that made us feel we were sitting somewhere in Southern California! Everything on the menu is organic and was delicious! We then asked the reception desk if we could just see one of the rooms – very cool! I could definitely stay there on my next visit to the area! After lunch, we headed straight for the Nice airport to return our Golf and fly back to CDG in Paris. We had packed all of our breakable and delicate purchases (aka Christian Lacroix and Pucci!) in a carry-on bag, but the security folks at the airport made us check it through with the rest of our luggage – French airports don’t allow ANY liquids on board (unlike in the US where you can carry on 3 ounces or less). Our flight was crowded but uneventful (though a bit bumpy). It was chilly and rainy in Paris, just as it had been at the beginning of our trip. Once we arrived and went to get our baggage, the first 5 bags came right off the plane. But, the carry-on piece was missing! We looked at our baggage claim forms and realized the bag was checked to Atlanta – omigod! Matthew spoke with someone at the AirFrance baggage office, explained that we needed to get the bag back tonight so we would have it in-hand to receive our detaxe at CDG tomorrow, and gave our hotel information to her. We then caught the shuttle to our hotel, Courtyard Marriott near the airport. It was nice to be in a spacious American-style hotel suite for our last night! About two hours after we settled at the hotel, the AirFrance woman called to say she had found our bag and that Matthew needed to come to the airport to pick it up. Since the shuttles were shut down for the night, the hotel concierge drove him to get it. Turns out, the concierge used to be a busboy at L’Orangerie in LA just like Matthew – small world! Anyway, he got the bag, got back to the hotel, and we crashed for the night.