Day #16 - Easter in Paradise!

Bonjour, and Happy Easter everyone! Or, as they say in France, Joyeux Paques, I think. :)

This morning, we got up and went to Easter Mass at the Notre Dame. Nope, we didn't fly to Paris...there is actually a Notre Dame here in Nice, which is a miniature replica of the real thing. Mass was packed, and in French of course. Luckily, we had a bulletin, so we could follow along with the readings. Holy cow though, spoken French sounds nothing like written French seems like it should! Makes me realize just how bad I've been butchering words whenever I try to read menus, or anything else French. :)

After Mass, we hopped on a train to Antibes, which was only 25 minutes away up the coast. Compared to busy, crowded, noisy Nice, Antibes was small-town charm. We walked along the harbor, which was packed with huge yachts, and soon found the beach! Antibes is the only place in the area with actual sandy beaches, so it was wonderful. :) We laid on the beach for something like 2 1/2 hours, in the peak of the afternoon. Yeah, we got a tad bit sunburned...oops. :) It was strange though, because it was only mid-60s, so we had coats and jeans on, but other people were in their bikinis or Speedos. :) A perfect Easter afternoon though - so relaxing taking a nap with the sound of waves crashing at your feet...

We eventually pried ourselves away from the beach, and walked through the Old Town a bit. There were shops, and of course a market. Notice a pattern at all? We kept walking along the coast, taking tons of pictures and stopping in a park to watch some old men play bocce ball. Then, we found another beach, and just chilled there for awhile. There was a group playing sand volleyball, so we sat watching them, wanting to play, but they were all French and had too many people already. Next, we walked up a huge hill (yet another pattern to our trips :) ) to see an overlook of all of Antibes. We could see the harbor, the beach, and the other side of the coast too, which has the so-called "Bay of Millionaires" because of all the huge mansions.

By then, it was like 6:30 and we were starving, so we walked back downhill to the Old Town, where we found a pizzeria with Hawaiian pizza, which we were both craving. :) So, we each had a huge plate of pizza -which is so good and so authentic I'm convinced I'll never be able to eat Pizza Hut again!

We got back to Antibes by hitching a ride on a reservation-only train. Oh well, it worked. :) Then, we met up with Nicole Hance at her hostel. We were going to go out somewhere in Nice, but we were all pretty tired, so just hung out at her hostel's common room instead. We met her 3 other friends from Iowa State, and we had fun hanging out with them and sharing travel stories and getting tips on Spain. Great day, great night, great Easter. :)