Last day of this brief trip and I was planning to make the most of it.

My flight was scheduled for 17.55 (local) and I was aiming to catch the 15.30 airport express bus from the main train station. They leave every 30 minutes and take 15 minutes to get there so even if I missed that one I was still going to be in plenty of time.

Up at 7.15, no need to shower as my long de-grotting last night has taken care of that. Cheekily helped myself to quite a small breakfast (I knew where the cereal and milk were), got myself packed, off I went.

A short digression before continuing. I should say at this point that one thing that was bothering me was whether my evening flight would be on time. I had a booking at quite a nice restaurant at 20.15 (and was the reason I had decided to fly back today when booking the flight in the first place), so I’d have been quite disappointed to miss it! The plane was scheduled to land at 18.50 so catching the 19.32 train from Gatwick would have me there on time. Unfortunately the flight tracking history was showing this flight to be consistently late over the past couple of weeks. Seeing a news story first thing in the morning about Heathrow cancelling some flights due to warnings about the tail end of a hurricane didn’t help my worry! Gatwick and Easyjet didn’t seem bothered, though, and the £35 flight change fee for switching to a plane leaving a couple of hours earlier didn’t seem worth it. I decided I’d leave it to the lap-of-the-gods and I wouldn’t worry about it for the rest of the day.

Right, where was I; just leaving the hostel. First act of the day was, very much in keeping with the rest of the trip, walking ~2.5km to the old city and then climbing up to the top of the hill that overlooks it. “Climb” is definitely the operative word, here – the way up is a combination of steps and steep paths and my calves were complaining loudly before ever I could see the top. Can’t really blame them, though, I did put them through quite a lot yesterday! Here are a couple of pics of the start of the climb; the peak is way up and over the top of the trees you can see in the photos.

The top of the hill was the site of a castle, way back; appropriately, the name of the hill is “Castle Hill”. There’s almost nothing left of the castle now, just an archaeological dig, but the reason it was positioned there is pretty clear – a full 360° view and sheer cliffs on three sides, the definition of defensible. And that view lived up to expectations, looking out over the Bay and City of Nice was fantastic. Just like Eze yesterday it was well worth the climb, and (relatively!) much less strenuous besides.

OK, panoramic viewpoint done, back down I went. Now for some exploration of the Old Town. Nice’s Old Town is famed for its narrow alleyways, churches and a street-long market that runs every day.

The market was one of the reasons I didn’t do Nice itself yesterday; on every day but Monday it’s a food and fresh produce market, on Monday it turns into an antiques market – definitely less interesting to me! The market was also the reason I’d had a small breakfast – I was hoping to sample some delicious street food instead.

It was pretty easy to find – one of the first streets I encountered after my descent – and unsurprisingly I spent a while sniffing out (almost literally!) what was available. It was a slightly odd mix; fresh vegetables and other produce for the locals, hot food (mostly bread/pastry-based) for the tourists, flowers for ??? (I don’t understand flowers). There were also some amazing-smelling stalls selling various teas and spices of the Mediterranean. Scouting complete I settled on a slice of a Nice speciality – pissaladière – which was a pizza-like base liberally topped with grated onions, olives and anchovies. Good choice, it was delicious.

Next up was some wandering/exploring/touristy time; browsing up and down the small alleyways, going into various churches and cathedrals, admiring some very pretty gardens and other buildings. All of this was good fun but the pictures are more interesting than me talking about it so just look at those!

It was now 11.30 and I was ready for an early lunch. My plan for having multiple small portions of delicious things throughout the day was working perfectly! I already knew where I was going to have lunch, because (surprise!) I’d done my TripAdvisor research. The main speciality food of Nice (or hey, at least that’s what they tell tourists like me) is “socca”, which is a flatbread (quite like a crêpe) made with chickpea flour. And I knew the best-reviewed place I could go to get some!

It was about 1km from the edge of the old town (yay more walking!) and when I arrived at about 11.45 it was already quite busy and had a wait time of 25 minutes. A good sign, and it turned out to be well worth it. For €2.60 I got 4 strips of this socca thing (pretty cheap!) and it was *amazing*, probably the best crêpe-like thing I’ve ever tasted. I’m not fully sure what exactly they do with it – it’s not filled, no obvious toppings – but oooooh. I’ve actually had a recipe for socca on my list for a while, I’ll definitely be pulling it out to see if I can reproduce what I ate.

While sitting for lunch I’d worked out my plans for the rest of the day. I felt I was pretty much done with Nice itself and I’d come across a good review of some gardens near the airport so I figured I’d head out there and spend a few hours relaxing.

Armed (although not for long!) with the delicious mini-pastry from a boulangerie I headed for the bus stop. I had much more time than I had originally expected so I was abandoning the previous plan of catching the 15-minute airport express from the main train station and instead getting a different express line from near the Old Town. Although, that should definitely be “express” because it had a journey time of 45 minutes! Standing waiting at the bus stop, though, I make an amusing discovery. The express line takes 45 minutes, leaves every 30 minutes and costs €6. A regular local route (from the same bus stop) also serves the airport, leaves every 15 minutes, takes only 20 minutes to get there and costs just €1.50. And, bonus, it also had a stop for the gardens. Yeah, I don’t understand either, but I wasn’t going to complain.

Got to the gardens-cum-mini-zoo. They were quite nice but a little bit weird; they were a combination of a few different things: some random animals (otters, wallabies, tortoises, flamingos), some nice fountains, a small bird house, a bunch of exotic/tropical plants, a tiny aquarium and insect/lizard house. Very weird all put together but pretty and peaceful and well worth the €3 entry.

Now for some relax time – I was definitely finished with walking for a while! I stretched out a towel on a green area in front of that pyramid, lay down and spent two hours in the sun snoozing and reading. Perfect.

Walk to the airport. Through security. Your water costs how much? Grumble. Through passport checks. Grab a salad (more grumbles) to tide me over until dinner. Quick freshen up and shirt change, won’t have time in Gatwick. Get on plane, looks like we’re leaving on time.

I started writing this just after I boarded (being able to use electronics all throughout the flight is excellent!), we’re now just over half way through the 1:50hr flight. Just had an update from the captain saying we should be landing at about 18.55; a little later than scheduled but hopefully I can make my train.

(I did, and dinner was delicious!)