Mougin, France

Our accommodations in Mougin are beautiful. We have a one bedroom place with a pullout sofa bed, a mini kitchen, and an awesome view. We have a patio with double sliding doors that open to a view of the city with mountains in the background. We enjoyed breakfast on the patio the morning after we arrived. We spent that first day relaxing, grocery shopping and doing a bit of laundry. The day before was an extremely difficult travel day. JoBeth, Lauri and Deiann arrived in Barcelona Thursday and we left on the bus for Nice Friday evening. They had very little time to adjust to the time difference and then faced that rather sleepless night on the bus. We hopped off the bus and did the hospital thing in a strange, foreign town and then had to find our accommodations in another town. We made several tactical errors, had continuous bad luck, and were sleep deprived/sick through it all. It was tough. We made it to our place late in the evening and fell into bed. Relaxing the next day helped take the edge off of the memories of the day before.

Moday we spent the day in Nice. We had begun to figure ou the bus/ train system. There are 1euro buses that would take us everywhere at the expense of two hours of our time (one of the things we had done the day we arrived because we didn't know about the  train).When we arrived in Nice we headed straight for the Matisse Museum (free) and followed that up with the Chagall Museum.(9.5 euro) I am happy to have seen the Matisse but I was thrilled to see the Chagall. I am really entrigued by his work and this is the first opportunity that I have had to see any in person. This museum has many of his religious works inspired by the Old Testament and I would have preferred to see some that I am more familiar with but it was really inspiring to see what was here.

After the museums we heaed to the Nice Flea Market to searchout treasures to take home with us. JoBeth found some cool old skeleton keys and a bargained herself a good price. Deann found a gorgeous French Brooch that looks absolutely fabulous on her. I found two vintage baby bonnets and a vintage French christening gown, which I spent way too many euros on, however they make me very happy so well worth the price. The saleswoman even threw in a hank of vintage lace as a "gift". I also found an old French 10 centime coin (the type with the jole in the center) as I poured through a box of coins from around the world. (the box also contained a  "rare American dime".... that cracked me up, but if I want French coins, why wouldn't someone want American???) The entire French flea market experience was exciting and I can't wait to go again in Paris!

 We visited the beach so I could collect my sand and JoBeth had a goal of dipping her toes in the Meditterean Sea. The water was much warmer than expected so we spent some time frolicing in the beautiful Coke bottle green water.

We wandered through the streets in search of the Nice Harley Davidson Dealer in order to buy JoBeth's husband a TeeShirt. We finally found the location... a tiny back alley street... only to find them closed on Mondays. Ugh! Poor JoBeth has tried so hard to meet this request of her husband's, only to be shot down twice now. We enjoyed the backstreets of Nice along the way though.

While we were in Nice we took several different types of transportation to get around, which was a fun adventure. Among them:Train, bus and Tramway (unlimited rides for 4 euro). Great ways to get around the city and rub elbows with the locals, especially after the Harley shop search which took us straight into the middle of rush hour.