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Even though I had paid 114 euros for the Paris Museum Pass, we still needed to make a reservation for a time to visit the Louvre at no charge. Otherwise, we would have stood in line in the cold for no one knows how long.

And it was coooold. My phone said 35F. It was 10:30 a.m.

Mercifully, we were allowed in and through security a few minutes before our 11:00 a.m. entry, then sent down into the relative warmth of the Louvre entrance underneath the famous Pei pyramid. I was astonished that full backpacks were allowed into the museum. For all their security, the French are trusting souls. That would never happen in the U.S.

The last time we visited the Louvre, travel had just opened up again in the wake of Covid. There was no one in Paris, and there was no one in the Louvre. The Mona Lisa room was all but empty. Not this time.

The special exhibit was the Treasures of Notre Dame, a very timely display, since we were planning to see the progress on the cathedral later the same day. Some of the treasures had been salvaged from the fire, others had been in remote storage. The ancient books and manuscripts were as interesting as the elaborate gold and silver liturgical instruments. But they were all fascinating. The exhibit was fairly small, and the crowd was fairly large, but we were able to see most of the exhibits up close and read the explanations.

After the Notre Dame exhibit, it was up to the fifth floor and the main attraction, the Italian Renaissance masters. Including the Mona Lisa room, just out of curiosity to see how crowded it would be. It was very crowded.

Aa usual, the surrounding paintings were largely ignored. If they were transported away, the paintings in that room alone would constitute an entire other museum. But all anyone wants to see is Leonardo’s girl.

The rest of the floor had its own fascinating display, as the Louvre had borrowed a number of paintings from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, which itself holds a wondrous collection of Italian Renaissance art. In the temporary special exhibit, the Naples paintings are positioned adjacent to the Louvre’s collections by the same artists, which makes for interesting reading and comparisons.

We made our way down the entire length of the hall, which is no small walk. By then, it was time for lunch and a rest off our feet, so we stopped in the downstairs cafe in the Louvre, where Lynn ordered a Caesar salad and I had fish and chips, accompanied by a little bottle of rosé. As museum cafes go, this was not bad. In fact, my fish was pretty darn good.

And then it was off to Notre Dame, stopping along the way to take a photo of the small church directly behind the Louvre where my ancestral great-grandmother Anne Francoise Rolland was baptized about 1699 or 1700. She would grow into a rebellious young woman who was sent to jail by her father for debauchery and ultimately shipped out to Louisiana on the ship Mutine with 95 others of her like, all women considered not proper for France but just fine to populate the new colony of Louisiana about 1720 when no one with any sense would go there.

Anne married three times, all quite successful unions which spawned a bunch of children from the French Quarter in New Orleans to the wilds of Pointe Coupee Parish, where she died in 1758. My cousin has traced our family in Louisiana back to Anne, who plays a prominent role in a book entitled Mutinous History, telling the story of so many of these women who were summarily dismissed as undesirables from Paris but (at least for those who survived the voyage) became prominent in Louisiana.

When we reached Notre Dame, we saw for the first time the spire that had recently been rebuilt and placed back on the roof of the cathedral surrounded by a massive web of scaffolding. The golden rooster/phoenix that was recreated for the peak of the spire had just been placed there the day before.

As we walked around the construction site, we read the instructive panels, which have been updated recently showing the latest achievements in the reconstruction. The cathedral is still scheduled to open at the end of next year. Can’t wait to attend Mass there again.

Back in our hotel, we looked up Pomme d’Eve, our favorite South African bar–in fact, the only South African bar in Paris. Previously, George the owner had shown the NFL games starting at 7:00 p.m. (noon CST),and we planned to bring him a Saints banner to hang next to the LSU banner behind the bar. But, alas, George no longer opens early on Sunday, staying to his regular hours of midnight to 5:00 a.m. Facing an early rise the next morning to catch our flight home, we gave up on giving him the Saints banner personally and will send it by post from Nice.

But we made the best of the situation and walked into Tourn’bride on rue Mouffetard for our last dinner in Paris. Tourn’bride was our initial discovery on our favorite street and did not disappoint this time. We were among the first guests of the evening to dine in the little bistro. Lynn decided to feast on their cheeseburger, and I ordered the lamb confit, which is served over a bed of ratatouille. The lamb was tender, the ratatouille was extremely flavorful, and the house Bordeaux was quite tasty in its own right. It was a good way to say good-bye to Paris.

Our goal for our first full day in Paris was two museums–Musee d’Orsay for its special exhibition of Van Gogh’s last paintings and l’Orangerie for Monet’s masterpiece and the special showing downstairs.

One out of two is not bad.

I had bought and downloaded two-day Paris Museum Pass for 114 euros. We would need to visit at least two if not three museums to make the pass worth the investment. We also knew that the pass would send us to a special line at d’Orsay, which alone is worth quite a bit rather than standing in a large queue in the cold. And indeed it worked.

We walked right into the museum in a special line past the queue of cold, huddled patrons that would only get bigger as the day progressed. One of the most attractive aspects of Musee d’Orsay is that the entire museum opens up to the eye as soon as you walk through wide the entrance. The building was formerly a train station, and visitors enter where the tracks once ran. It is quite a sight, and one of the most welcoming and dramatic entrances of any museum we have ever visited.

The first floor consists of a huge collection of sculptures in the center lined with galleries of paintings on either side the length of the building. To the left, about halfway down, was the special Van Gogh exhibit. Even though we did not have timed tickets, we were sent right through into the temporary space–and into throngs of people viewing the paintings. The rooms were way too crowded to be able to spend much time up close with the paintings.

We shuffled our way through our fellow Van Gogh fans, and finally some of the rooms became less full so we could get close-up views of the paintings and read the legends. I am always interested in where the individual works come from, and in this case they traveled from all over the world, although many were part of the house’s permanent collection.

We were able to work our way through the special exhibit in about an hour, leaving plenty of time for the other galleries. Starting on the 5th floor is the so-called post-Impressionists, with galleries devoted to Monet, Cezanne, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Morrison, Seurat and others. It’s a visual feast of painting and sculpture, an art history book hung on the walls and displayed in the cabinets.

Working down from the fifth floor, the third and fourth floors are devoted to furniture and decorative arts of the early 20th century, easy to navigate in a short time. We wizzed through those galleries and went downstairs to the main floor, now ready for lunch.

The lines were too long at the museum cafes, so we walked across the bridge to the Tuileries where we stopped at the cafe for lunch outside. The day was beautiful if chilly, but it was comfortable sitting in the sun. We shared the charcuterie platter of meats and a decadent melted Camembert with a pichet of rosé and enjoyed both of those.

After enjoying our al fresco lunch, we walked up the ramp to Place de la Concorde and the Musee l’Orangerie, Monet’s gift to the people of France and my absolute favorite. Apparently it was a lot of people’s favorite too. Even with our Museum Pass, the line was going to be nearly an hour long. Rather than stand around in the cold, we retreated to save Monet for another day.

One of our goals for this quick trip was a visit to the Christmas market on Champs Elyseé, but we found a huge Christmas market right in front of us along the side of the Tuileries. So without hesitation we dove in.

It was a mosh pit of Christmas cheer, food, drinks, rides and people.

The crowds were as thick as anything I remembered from our last encounter at the Champs Elyseé Christmas market. Lynn was freaked. We shuffled through as best we could and finally emerged at the end right in front of the Louvre entrance and the Metro station where we would return the next day.

Released from the pressing crowds, we stopped off at Nicolas wine store on our way back to the hotel for a nice bottle of Bordeaux. As we approached our hotel, I realized that we had no corkscrew. (You can’t put one in a carry-on bag.) So I walked back to Nicolas intending to buy a different bottle with a screw top, but the kind, wise and pretty attendant said this happens all the time and opened the bottle for me to take back to the room.

But first we visited Jardin des Plantes, right down the street from our hotel. This January when we visited, they had erected a phantasmagoria of lighted cloth sculptures on a theme of plants and bugs. This year they repeated the display, this time focusing on animals and the jungle. This was their version of Celebration in the Gardens, a walking tour through lions, tigers, bears, snakes and oh my what else. It was a visual treat for kids and adults alike.

Back in the room, we were finally able to relax with a glass of hearty Bordeaux before our walk down rue Mouffetard to dinner at La Forge, our very favorite restaurant in Paris.

La Forge is a quiet, cozy restaurant staffed by a married couple who generally have all of one other person assisting. The proprietors recognized us when we entered, and since we were first to walk into the place for dinner, we were given our choice of tables. Within 30 minutes the place was nearly full, but our order was already coming out–beef bourguignon for me and duck confit for Lynn. Her duck confit defined what it should be with a skin so crispy it is like glass. And my beef bourguignon (aka beef cheeks in daube) was rich, tender, tasty and utterly decadent. And it was all accompanied by a bottle of Morgon Cote de Puy, which was once described to me as Beaujolais on steroids.

And then for good measure we splurged on their wonderful creme bruleé. Their everyday version is better than anything at home. It may have to do with the eggs, the butter and the creme. They are all better than anything we have in the U.S.

We promised to return to La Forge. That’s one vow we’ll have no problem keeping as long as we keep coming back to Paris.

One hour on the plane, two hours on the train(s). That’s how long it took to get to Paris Friday for the weekend. And that did not count the 45 minutes on the tram from our apartment to the Nice airport or the two hours waiting on our Easy Jet flight that was more than an hour late.

Luckily, we had access to the Aspire Lounge in the Nice airport, because Easy Jet, as is the norm, was late. When I checked the app (shame on me to forget checking before we left home), it noted that six hours earlier, the plane was projected to be late. So they knew all day long.

The boarding procedure in the Nice airport is rudimentary, to be kind. All passengers simply queue up at one single passage for entry to the plane. My boarding pass gave me “speedy boarding,” whatever that meant. Presumably it was the reward for paying for a carry-on, but I saw no sign or signal that this gave me early boarding privileges. So we waited in the long line for a full plane.

As we approached the aircraft, the agents began directing passengers who chose to board from the rear of the craft off the jetway and out to the tarmac. I had no desire to walk outside and climb up a stairway holding my bag and carry-on luggage.

Inside the plane, the atmosphere was stuffy and hot. It didn’t get much better once the engines were fired up and we taxied to the runway. And the flight remained the hottest, stuffiest, I have ever endured for an hour and a half. Lynn stripped off her vest, then her sweater as she suffered through the heat. I was just hot and uncomfortable.

We walked the usual mile from our gate to the Charles de Gaulle main terminal where we followed signs to the RER B, which was at least another mile. The RER B takes you to the middle of Paris for 11.45 euros, a third the price of the Heathrow Express and three times as long a trip. The RER system is a collection of old suburban trains that go slow and stop frequently. It took nearly an hour to get from the airport to our stop at Chatelet to transfer to a regular Metro.

Chatelet at 5:00 p.m.on a Friday was the scene of chaos, with commuters hurrying every which way to find their Metro lines home. Although the agent at the airport had said we would have no trouble finding a ticket machine to buy a Navigo card, we saw no sign of one in the main transfer hall. Lynn was ready to give up and take a taxi but I persisted until we tried our original paper RER tickets, which worked to get us out of the transfer hall and to the Metro station. After another long walk down a path restricted by construction, then to the main Metro station, then to the gate, we finally reached the Metro.

There we found rows of machines to purchase the Navigo card and load it with 10 rides. They don’t tell you that inside the main transfer station.

We had left our apartment at 11:30 a.m. and barely made our dinner reservation at Terronia for 7:30 p.m.

Terronia made it all worth the trouble. Some reviews call this the best Italian restaurant in Paris, and we would not argue. We were met with hugs and took our table as requested right next to the kitchen so we could watch the show. Our chef/owner/maitre d’ Pasquale de Simone, brought out an amuse bouche to start as soon as we could order a bottle of delicious Sangiovese from the village of Montalcino. It wasn’t a Brunelllo, but it was in the neighborhood.

Dinner was terrific. The gang in the kitchen outdid themselves. Lynn’s pasta with beef stew (beef daube in the south of France) was as rich as anything we enjoyed in Nice. Meanwhile, my grilled lamb ribs (aka lamb chops) were perfectly seared. The lamb here is very different from what we get in the U.S. It is more tender, more flavorful. And the ratatouille of potatoes, onions and artichokes, sliced thin and cooked down, was the perfect accompaniment.

We had skipped the appetizer to save room for one of Terronia’s decadent desserts. but Pasquale came out with a bit of Christmas angelfood cake lightly dusted with powered sugar that he placed in front of us and we gobbled up. There was no room for any more dessert.

It had been a long day but finished in terrific, tasty fashion.

We started our day like young people and ended much later the same way.

We woke up at 9:30 this morning. I don’t think I’ve slept that late since college.

Getting out of bed at what we consider a reasonable hour is a common and perennial problem for us here in Europe. First, in the winter the sun doesn’t rise until nearly 8:00 a.m. due to our latitude just below 44 degrees North. Secondly, the sun takes a couple of hours to beam down on our narrow street, so it stays dark even later. And finally, jet lag takes its toll, regardless of how we think we have adjusted.

So by the time we left the apartment, it was almost noon. We were due at the Crypt tour at 3:00 p.m., so we didn’t have a lot of the day to waste. Not that we had a firm agenda anyway. This was our first real day off.

So we decided to take the long way around through the Cours Saleya market (which was already closing up by then) via a stop at Wayne’s where we ran into the wife of one of the owners. We chatted up for a while, then walked around to the Charles Negre Photography Museum to see if they had a new exhibit. (They didn’t.)

Then we walked along the market and the Promenade to the Port to ogle the new boats at the docks, including a Windjammer cruise ship and the 210-foot super yacht Kaiser, which is owned by an Ukrainian oligarch. Kaiser is available for charter at the budget price of 500,000 euros a week in off season, an extra 50,000 euros a week in high season. Plus expenses (fuel, provisions, port fees, tips, etc.). It can accommodate 12 guests, so do we have 10 friends with USD 55 grand a piece to charter for a week?

By the time we reached Place Garibaldi, we were ready for a late lunch, so we found a very stylish restaurant on the square (breaking one of our rules) that turned out to be very good and reasonably priced. For lunch, they offer pasta dishes with your choice of toppings, which is a common practice here in Nice. Lynn ordered the ravioli in tomato sauce (marinara anywhere else), and I had the tagliatelle smothered in daube, which is universal in Nice and uniformly deliciously rich.

By the time we finished, we had only a few minutes to trot down the street to Maxi Bazaar, the store that has everything except what Lynn is looking for–dark gray cloth napkins. Apparently, she bought the last three earlier this year, because we have never found them again. The shelf tag identifies a pack of three napkins (why three?) in anthracite, which is dark gray, but they are never on the rack. Today, instead of dark gray, the rack contained a yellowish tan colored napkin that fit nowhere.

We hurried out past the long line at the cashier to meet our tour guide at the Crypt. This turned out to be a fascinating hour and a half. We had been warned that the tour was conducted only in French but figured we could understand enough to get the gist of the history. But when we walked in to join the three other tour patrons (all French), the very learned, eloquent guide said she would translate into English for us along the way.

Which she did eloquently. The tour took us through the ruins of the original town going back to 1383. When the tram was under construction in 2006, the authorities knew that the track would run right over the site of the original town and engaged archeologists to perform a dig for six months. First they dug out the ruins, then they erected a concrete ceiling over the 2000 square meter space to create a box that would preserve the ruins while allowing construction of the tracks to proceed.

The result is a fascinating look at medieval Nice, some of which goes back even further in time to the Romans. Our tour guide switched between French and English so we all understood her accounts of the history of Nice nearly a millennium ago. For six euros, it was a fascinating, worthwhile tour that I would recommend to anyone, whether they can understand French or not. (The English language brochure at the patrimony office gives a comprehensive history of the ruins, so non-French speaking visitors can at least appreciate what they are seeing.)

By the time we finished it was 4:30 and already getting to dusk. Cocktail hour was approaching, and after that dinner at our favorite restaurant, Bar des Oiseaux.

Our favorite restaurant did not disappoint. We shared an appetizer of tiny mushrooms in a sauce of egg, onions, parmesan and capers, just a deliciously decadent dish. Sharing was all we could do.

Then Lynn enjoyed the veal confit, which is chunks of veal pulled together in a form, then seared on both sides. It is like nothing you will ever see in the U.S., but it should be offered by all restaurants. My dish was a tender, delicious round piece of pork that looked like a sausage but was pure meat. We couldn’t figure out where it came from on the pig until our waitress explained that it was the neck, of all things. Again, something we have never seen in the U.S. but just a wonderful dish.

After polishing off a bottle of Mediterranean red wine, bold and lusty, we walked around the corner to Wayne’s, groupies that we are, to join the fans of Sons of Guns for a set. Dave remembered us as we walked in, and we took a standing spot right in front of the group. They rocked the house as always, as they brought in one friend to play the bongos and another to play a brilliant violin. We stayed through their second set, which necessitated two more shots of Havana Club dark rum.

It was late when we left, and the streets of Old Nice were even more deserted than usual for our quick walk home. We had enjoyed a day of reaching back to the past of the city and our own lives.

Finally checked out of the hotel, we walked to our apartment, stopping off for a croissant at Multari patisserie on the way, hopeful for the work to be completed and the apartment to be habitable. As soon as we opened the door, we were delighted to see our place in perfect condition. The new floor was installed, and the ceiling repair was completed so one would never know anything had ever happened. We can only hope nothing will happen again.

It was good to be home.

So a day late, we embarked on the usual chores. First, of course, was a visit to Caves de Caprioglio wine store for essentials. Next it was back to the Cours Saleya market for vegetables, cheese, paté and sausage. By then it was mid-day and the vendors were already packing up their wares. We were just in time to buy.

After three full meals the day before, we ate a light lunch with slices of pizza and pissaladiere from Multari, where we also secured a baguette for the delivery of paté and cheese later. After that short break, it was off in the opposite direction to Monoprix for basic groceries like eggs, lardon, cereal, and the usual list of household items. Life in Nice was already becoming normal.

By then, the afternoon was well advanced. Lynn was ready to prep her signature sausage and peppers dish, our traditional first home-cooked meal, but before that we wanted to check out the Christmas market near Place Massena.

Like so many cities in Europe, Nice decorates in lights, booths and characters for its Christmas market, which features some 45 chalets selling mulled wine and all sorts of tasty snacks, including a champagne and oyster bar. In addition to the year-round Ferris wheel, the kids can enjoy other rides and an entire special section of child-sized attractions in Santa’s village. Outside the market itself stands a large Christmas tree set up right in the middle of the splash fountain in the park fronting the Christmas market.

We arrived shortly before sunset, so we did not get the full effect of the lights and the decorations, but there will be plenty of time for that later in our stay. This was just an initial excursion before the huge crowds arrive in the next several days.

As the sun set and darkness fell, we walked back through the Paillon, the park developed over the Paillon River that flows into the Med at the beach. It’s a lovely walk that we take often. This time we walked with a purpose–Lynn’s cuisine.

Indeed, it was good to be home.

Normally our first day is devoted to chores like shopping for groceries and wine. But since we are staying in a hotel, chores would have to wait for another day. So we slept in and went downstairs for a full breakfast off the lobby. The buffet was fine and varied, although I suspected that the price would be dear. (As it turned out, they didn’t charge us at all when I checked out the next day.)

Our first order of business was to walk to our apartment to see the progress of the workers. We met a team of two men who clearly knew what they were doing and both spoke English. One, the taller of the two, explained that he lived and worked in Chicago and New York for several years before returning to Nice. He was sanding the ceiling repair, while his teammate was finishing the last of the flooring and caulking the edges.

The promised to thoroughly clean up the place, especially after I pointed out the thin layer of sheetrock dust that covered just about every square inch of the apartment, including the kitchen shelves and the folder of appliance instructions tucked there. We’ve lived through renovations before; we know the mess they make.

Meanwhile, I was communicating with Smart BnB about the cleaning crew, who were scheduled to arrive either late Monday or first thing Tuesday to change the linens, service the bathroom and finish the cleanup. We plundered our luggage locked away in the huge owner’s closet for a change of clothes, then departed with fingers crossed that the workers would make our apartment habitable the next day.

And then it was off to Castle Hill for perhaps the hundredth time. The elevator up to the Tour Bellanda is only steps from the front door of Hotel Suisse and was open now, taking us up 90 meters to the old ammunition magazine for the fort. Castle Hill is a true gem of Nice, now a public park that looks out over the Med on one side and the Port on the other.

Once the original site of the Greek and Roman city, Castle Hill was built up as the fortress that defended the city from enemies invading by sea. It was the site of churches going back a thousand years, with archeological ruins now on view behind a chain link fence. After conquering Nice (then called Nizza) in 1706 Louis XIV ran all the inhabitants down the hill to what is now Vieux Nice and destroyed the fort to make sure he would not have to conquer it again. The fortress was dismantled stone by stone, and many of the pieces were used to pave the Promenade des Anglais along the shoreline of the Med.

Today Castle Hill is a marvelous city park containing huge playgrounds for kids; winding walking paths; long stone stairs for fitness buffs; two cafes; a cascade created in 1883; wonderfully creative tile works depicting scenes from the Odyssey and the Iliad embedded all over; two cemeteries (Jews and Christians are buried in separate sections); quiet lookout areas for visitors and enough space for hordes of visitors without feeling crowded. Tourists and residents alike flock to Castle Hill 12 months a year.

We cannot go too many times.

We stopped for a beer at the lower of the two cafes in the park, since the one at the top overlooking the Cascade was fermé. The alfresco seating in the sun was most comfortable as we watched park patrons of all ages grab a quick snack, which in retrospect is what we should have done.

Instead, we walked down to the town and found L’heteroclite, a little restaurant near our apartment that is run by a married couple. There, instead of sharing snacks, we ordered full lunches. It was 3:00 p.m. and we would be eating again in just a few hours. But I enjoyed one of the best salade Nicoise ever, and Lynn had a large chèvre chaud salad, all washed down with a pichet of Provencal rosé. It was nap inducing.

Which is exactly what we did upon returning to our hotel.

Dinner was scheduled for a very American time of 7:30 p.m. at Acchiardo, a 100-year-old restaurant and arguably the oldest in Old Nice. Unlike so many other old, traditional restaurants we have encountered in cities like Lisbon and Barcelona, Acchiardo does not rest on its laurels by serving mass-produced food in an assembly-line atmosphere. At Acchiardo, the service is attentive and professional, the food excellent without being exquisite.

Acchiardo sprawls throughout a large building with a smallish main level dining room and a larger area a few steps up. Our host picked up two menus and started toward the back, which gave me the idea we would be sitting in the very comfortable mezzanine where we have enjoyed dinner before. But no, this time, we were escorted downstairs to the wine cellar, which I didn’t know existed. Our waiter explained that this really is a wine cellar, and the stack of casks on one end of the room were actually full of wine. They contain Acchiardo’s house wine. Next time I will order a bottle of that.

Instead, I chose a delicious bottle of Languedoc. It was the perfect accompaniment for Lynn’s choice of the duck breast in a pepper sauce and my escalope of veal, both of which were excellent. Neither was fancy, but both were delicious and perfectly prepared.

After our third full meal of the day, we were sufficiently recovered from travel and walked back to the hotel along the sparkling Promenade full and satiated, ready for chores the next day.

After completely blowing off The Blog in October, when we traveled from Prague to Passau to Linz to Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest and finally to Nice, I apologize to my few but faithful readers. The Muse just didn’t speak to me in the fall.

But join us now for our latest excursion, Christmas and New Year’s in Nice, with a short excursion to Paris and possibly another to somewhere else in January.

Our air arrangements with Delta took months to work out. Our initial reservation on the way home was arbitrarily changed to leave Nice on January 23 and Paris on January 24. Delta gave no explanation and no plan to addressing this obvious deficiency. Then Air France canceled the flight from Nice to Paris, only to reschedule the next day to a slightly different flight. But we were still on a two-day reservation, which would force us to spend the night in a hotel near Charles de Gaulle.

Finally in late October after we returned from our fall trip, I was able to connect by phone with a most helpful and enthusiastic Delta agent who not only found us a better one-day flight home, but also gave me the happy news that it was $100 a person cheaper than our original reservation. Thank you. I wish she had told me her name.

The morning of departure, our dear friend and personal Uber driver Tracey picked us up at 9:30 in exchange for a bag of lemons from our tree, a bag of gumbo from the Thanksgiving fried turkey and and assorted vegetables. All in all, a pretty good deal.

As we left our house, it occurred to me that I had made a mistake pulling out a windbreaker jacket from my carry-on bag. I had the space, but for some reason decided to leave the jacket behind. It’s a perfect lightweight outer garment for mild Nice winter days. But the time we reached the airport, I was kicking myself and of course blaming Lynn for not correcting me. Too late.

But we had time for Bloody Marys at the Delta lounge, where we met the bartender Kevin, who used to work at the Monteleone and Commander’s Palace. As we took our beverages back to our seats overlooking the tarmac, we ran into our old tenant Tara, who was flying out to Atlanta to visit some old friends for the weekend. So far, the trip was pleasant, and we hadn’t left home yet.

The flight to Kennedy was uneventful but packed. There is no such thing as an unfilled flight anymore. The airlines have seen to that. Once in Kennedy, we found our flight to Amsterdam not far from our gate, and ran through the Delta lounge for a glass of wine and some late breakfast, knowing that we would be served dinner on the overseas flight as soon as the wheels were up.

Which is exactly what happened. Our flight left at 4:45 EST, and they started serving dinner by 5:30, which was 4:30 our time, way too early to dine. We didn’t even have time for a pre-dinner cocktail. Instead they poured the wine and slung out the Indian-style chicken and buttered rice dinners. By 6:15 EST, we were finished eating, and we hadn’t made it to Canada yet.

Hours later, as we approached Amsterdam, we politely declined the breakfast burrito Delta offered, because our experience had been that Delta’s pre-landing morning offerings are generally inedible. Besides, we were landing at 5:00 a.m. in the dark, and our systems were not up to eating anymore until we reached terra firma.

Our layover in Amsterdam was scheduled to be nearly four hours and became more than that because our flight to Nice was late. We lined up for passport control at 5:30 a.m. before the main shifts of Border Control arrived at work, so there were only two agents to process at least 200 non-EU inbound passengers. As we waited patiently in line (we were in no rush), one by one the morning agents showed up for work, and the process sped up considerably once seven windows were open.

Schipol Airport is a huge international operation. It is relatively sterile, strictly business, and a lot of it was under construction. We landed at D Terminal and had to walk all the way to B Terminal, so we got in our first mile walk pretty easily. After sitting for nearly eight hours in a cramped airline seat, the walk was not unwelcome.

The Aspire Priority Pass lounge was nearly deserted when we arrived shortly after 6:00 a.m. There is no bar or hot meal line. It is pretty basic compared to the huge sleek KLM lounge we passed on the way to Aspire. In fact, the place is shabby. The seat cushions were ripped and worn away, and the tables were clearly on their last legs, to coin a phrase. But any port in a storm.

Our flight to Nice was not only late, but leaving from a different gate much farther down the concourse. After our quiet sojourn in the lounge we made our way down the concourse to find our gate. By then I received a text message from KLM about the delay and gate change, but another message telling us our seat assignments had been changed. When I checked with the very nice Dutch gate agent, she looked at her computer and confirmed that our original seats were still assigned. A little odd there.

The flight was blessedly in an Embraer 190, a small plane with only two seats on either side of the aisle. The seats are pretty small too, but as tired as we were, it didn’t matter for a fight of less than two hours. The route, scenic from 30,000 feet, took us right over the snow-covered Alps and then down to the Mediterranean and along the Cote d’Azur to land in our beloved Nice.

As always, the Nice airport was quiet, elegant and efficient. Our bags arrived quickly, we walked through what they call Customs even though not a human agent was ever seen, and then we were outside in the cool air and on our way to the Ligne 2 tram that would take us to our apartment.

Unfortunately, the repairs to our apartment were not finished. I knew that in advance, and told our management company, we would just work around the workers. But as soon as I walked through the door, I realized that was not to be.

The floor was not finished, the workers’ tools and equipment were piled up on the floor, the bathroom heater had been left on, the linens had not been changed since the last guest and the entire apartment wore a layer of sheetrock and construction dust. We would have to spend at least one and probably two nights in a hotel. Not what I had counted on.

I had to make the reservation on my phone, since all the electronics had been disconnected, so there was no WiFi network. Every time I pulled up the hotel, the web site gave me a different price until finally settling at most reasonable 125 euros a night for our stay.

Hotel Suisse has been perched at the foot of Castle Hill overlooking the bay for many years. It is one of the traditional spots but clean, fairly modern and very friendly, especially to last-minute guests who arrive in the dead season before Christmas begins. And the views are spectacular, if you like to see the Med in all its sapphire glory.

We checked in, dropped our overnight bag and immediately lit off to Wayne’s for our traditional first meal in Nice.

As soon as we walked in, we were greeted with hugs and kisses, then sat at the bar for a real cocktail. Lynn ordered her usual vodka and soda with lime, which our lovely Russian bartendress immediately recognized as a Skinny Bitch. Really–that’s the name of the cocktail in Europe. Who knew? Apparently it is the favorite cocktail of slender, demanding young women.

As Wayne’s filled up, we moved to a table to order our first real meal, the Wayne’s Sunday Roast. It is a proper British plate, complete with roast beef, potatoes, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. It was all we could share, and it was 19.50, a bargain for the quantity. It was just what we needed after the torture of transit for some 24 hours–hearty, bland and filling.

We hustled back to our hotel room to catch the audio of the New Orleans Saints game against Carolina. By 9:30 our time, it was obvious the Saints would win, not because they were any good, just not as bad as the Panthers. We gave in to sleep somewhere in the late third quarter.

Villefranche-sur-Mer is the little Riviera town immediately to the east of Nice, just on the other side of the peninsula that borders the port. The Ligne d’Azur 38 bus takes you there in about 15 minutes.

It’s a typical Cote d’Azur town, perched on the hillside overlooking the Med. The bus stopped across from a small market that offered beautiful vegetables, better pissaladiere than I had seen in town, and a cheese vendor who plied us with samples to tempt us to buy. His St. Marcellin was on sale for all of 1.50 euros, half the price in the Cours Saleya market in Nice.

The tourism office was right off the little park where the market stood, so we grabbed a map and directions to walk down a series of stairs all the way to the marina. Villefranche-sur-Mer has an old town and a church and a museum, but a marina is far more tempting.

We slowly worked our way around the old citadel and down to the marina accompanied by two elderly French couples with whom we shared photo duties. The west side of the marina showed off a number of traditional fishing boats that if you look carefully had been modernized to more contemporary standards.

By the time we reached the far end of the marina, we found a winding road that would take us back up to the park and the bus stop for the 10-minute ride back to Nice and lunch. Along the way, we walked past a mechanic shop where a pristine Triumph TR-3 was parked. I couldn’t resist a photo of the classic lines of British auto design.

Overall, Villfranche-sur-Mer we found to be pleasant, pretty and well worth a half-day visit. Especially for the grand total of four bus tickets at one euro a piece.

Back in Nice, we started to look for lunch, and both of us had the same notion: oysters at Cafe de Turin, the signature oyster house in Nice, operating since 1908.

The French love their oysters as much or more than we do in Louisiana and the U.S. They cultivate them mostly in the northwest and far southwest of the country and eat them all winter. The favorite oyster season for the French is the week between Christmas and New Year, when the French buy them by the box. In general, the French consume 4.4 pounds of oysters per person per year, and after you taste the local huitres, you will know why.

It was still a bit chilly in town to be sitting outside for us Southerners, so we took a table inside the handsome interior that features two large sculptures of female forms flanking the bar.

We ordered a dozen of the small oysters at “only” 28 euros a dozen and a pot of steaming mussels and frites for 19. Both were delicious if more than a bit pricey.

The oysters were smallish but filled the shells completely to the edge. The borders of the oysters were almost translucent, and the meat broke free of the muscle very easily. They were as briny as any we had tasted anywhere, served only with lemon. I longed for some horseradish, but it was nowhere to be found. With a pichet of wine, our lunch bill came to just over 60 euros, almost what we pay for dinner.

But vive les huitres!

Nice, especially Old Nice, is studded with Irish bars and pubs all over. There are two on our street alone between our apartment and Place Rosetti.

Wayne’s is not one of those. It is not an Irish pub at all, even though its owners are Irish. It’s an English-language bar, a gathering spot for all the English-speaking ex-pats around. Nationality doesn’t matter. Russians speak English, French speak English, Danes, Germans, all of them speak English inside Wayne’s.

And it is our home away from home away from home. Wayne’s is the first place we go to when we arrive in Nice, and it is our go-to restaurant when we just want a simple but good cheeseburger. They understand how to make a pretty good Bloody Mary, so we visit there every Sunday morning.

We have frequented Wayne’s enough that the bartenders and servers know us. When we walk in the first time on a stay here, they ask where we have been, how long we will be staying and what’s the weather like in New Orleans (pretty much the same as it is in Nice, most of the time).

We know Sarah, the wife of one of the partners in Wayne’s. She just had a baby last fall, so we caught up on the New One. And we know Rebecca, the tall bartendress from Denmark whose 12-year-old daughter attends the high school between Place Garibaldi and the Chateau tram station. We commiserated with her about the travails of raising teenagers and explained it will only get worse. And of course, there is Gabby, the bouncy, always friendly server who reminds us so much of the daughter of a good friend at home.

Wayne’s promotes itself as a music venue. The place features at least one band every night when there is not a major soccer game on the three TVs around the bar. And for our stay this time, the group playing early in the week was called Sons of Guns. We found them most enjoyable, as they played music from the 70s that we could relate to. The rhythm guitar player was a most personable young chap from York in England. He bought us a drink the first time we saw them, at which point Lynn turned into a true groupie.

After the bar had been closed for most of the prior week for renovations and repairs, the band was back on Monday evening. Since I had a Zoom meeting scheduled for 7 p.m., we decided to have a burger at Wayne’s and watch Sons of Guns again. The fans quickly packed in.

The boys played a fine first set and came back for a second, with an elderly, gray-bearded gentleman wearing a camel overcoat sitting in on guitar for one or two numbers. They played David Crosby and Fleetwood Mac selections to honor the recently departed icons of rock and roll. And then the old guy sat in again, this time on lead guitar.

By now he had taken off his long coat. The band started a rendition of Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits, the number that put Mark Knofler in the rock-and-roll pantheon.

Our old guy proceeded to rock the house down and get the audience on its feet, cheering, hollering, applauding, as he fired up his guitar to a level we hadn’t seen in years, especially in a venue as tiny as Wayne’s. It was, for just a few glorious minutes, a time warp to when we and our guitar player were a lot younger with a lot more energy and piss-and-vinegar. The moment was magical in a way that only music can bring back the past so vividly.

Rock on, Wayne’s.

We had been through Genoa’s train station at least twice before but had never visited the city. Now was the time to go.

We made one mistake–we should have stayed two nights instead of one. Genoa is worth it.

After a bit of research, I booked a room in the Bristol Hotel just a block from the Ferrari fountain, the signature feature of downtown Genoa that is the dividing line between Old Genoa and New Genoa. Understand that “New” Genoa is old. It’s just that Old Genoa does back to Roman and medieval times, and New Genoa is only about 300 years old. Or so.

Our trains from Nice to Ventimiglia and from there to Genoa were pleasant and comfortable. If anything, the Italian train was newer and nicer than the French. We took the tram from our apartment carrying (dragging) our small bag, and reached Nice Ville in only 10-15 minutes. I had a bit of a problem scanning the ticket code from my phone to the gate at the Nice train station, but a helpful SNCF attendant simply opened the handicap cart for us to pass once I showed him the QR code to prove I had really paid for a ticket. He didn’t seem interested in Lynn’s, perhaps assuming if I had bought one for me I had bought one for my wife.

The route from Nice to Genoa runs right along the Mediterranean, so the view from the starboard side of the train headed east looks out over the sea and the cliffs and the homes of the Coté d’Azur. People would pay money just to see the views, even though the train goes through several tunnels along the way, some of which are fairly long. Our round-trip train fare was $100 US. The view was priceless, to coin a phrase.

We arrived at Principe station in Genoa in the early afternoon, and checked into the Bristol. I felt like we were splurging on what seemed to be the best hotel in town. I hit the jackpot.

The Bristol is old-fashioned opulence and elegance. The entrance is unassuming, a narrow doorway along the huge arcade that lines both sides of via XX September toward the huge Piazza Ferrari Fountain that is the signature feature of Genoa. We had to change rooms, because the one we were originally assigned had two twin beds. The desk manager apologized and assigned us a different room, which he described as an upgrade.

Upgrade indeed. Our room was huge, on the order of our palazzo last year in Florence. Quite the nice upgrade at the bargain price of 149 euros. I realized instantly that we should have stayed two nights. But that would have meant changing our train tickets, which is always fraught with danger, since we have to deal with both a French train and an Italian train. Next time.

We made the best of our abbreviated stay, however. We dropped our bags and made off for the old Genoa, but not before finding lunch in a counter-like cafe just off the Piazza Ferrari. I ordered the pesto pasta, and Lynn was served a heaping plate of ham and mozzarella, which was not exactly what she ordered but close.

The pesto was heavenly, light and not over-seasoned with garlic. In fact, pesto was invented in Genoa, so what you get here is the authentic original recipe. It’s quite different from what we find elsewhere, and it’s quite a bit better. (By the way, denim was also invented in Genoa, so we have them to thank for our jeans.)

Lynn’s plate came out a heaping mound of sliced lean ham with a ball of purest buffalo mozzarella in the center. The ham was delicious, not too salty and very little fat. The mozzarella was almost liquid inside the thin shell. It defined how mozzarella should taste. Just for once, I didn’t mind paying the coperta (cover charge) for the bread.

We checked in at the tourist information booth across the piazza, where we learned that the HoHo only runs Friday-Sunday during the winter. So this being Thursday, we would walk. And walk we did.

Down the narrow streets toward the waterfront, we hit the high spots of Old Genoa–San Lorenzo Cathedral;

the Jesuit church a block away that features two Rubens paintings over side altars (he deemed the cathedral not worthy of his works but was more than happy to paint for the Jesuits); the Doge’s Palace, now an arts and educational center; the old city gate left over from the fortress that guarded Genoa; and finally Columbus’s house where he grew up before leaving Genoa for the sea.

Columbus’s house museum costs all of three euros to enter, and that’s about what it’s worth. Visitors walk up a flight of stairs to a tiny room that overlooks the pretty colonnaded cloister of St. Anthony.

Inside, the room, four displays tell the story of Columbus’s life as a child in Genoa, Admiral of the Sea in Spain and a disgraced explorer late in life.

The house tour took all of 20 minutes at most. We stepped out and headed back to our hotel for a quick rest before finding dinner. We had covered a good deal of Old Genoa in about three hours. It was time to enjoy the warmth of our hotel room and research a place to dine.

Once again I hit the jackpot. Trattoria Rosmarino was located a very short walk in the cold wind, right across the huge Piazza Ferrari and just a few meters down narrow via San Lorenzo. Inside was elegant without being fancy, sort of a New York steakhouse look with tufted green leather(ette) banquettes along one wall and tables for two and four in the small room where we were sent by the maitre d’, who recognized my phone number as being from Louisiana.

We were lucky to get a table at all, because the banquette next to us was about to host a group of 14 business or academic types, clearly in a professional dinner meeting. The organizer, obvious holding her papers and folder, nervously looked out to make sure everyone was seated, then left the room. We would later meet her back at the Bristol, where she explained she was an employee of the hotel and was in charge of the dinner. They would have hosted the dinner in their own elegant restaurant Il Gioto, but it was already booked for a very large affair.

As a result of the big group next to us and a family behind us with a screaming baby at the table, our service seemed a bit rushed, as if they wanted us served before the kitchen got tied up with larger orders. Regardless, our dinner was excellent, and the wine was a steal for Brunello Montalcino at seven euros a glass. The standard Italian wines were four euros per glass, so we splurged.

After dinner, we walked into the bar at the Bristol, just to take a look. The bartender was friendly, the night was young, and I could’t resist a nightcap in such elegant surroundings. Indeed, the bar offered Havana Club 7 Year, and the bartender squeezed just a bit of orange juice into mine. He promised it would enhance the rum flavor without making it sweet. And he was right.

The next day, we ran downstairs to the complimentary breakfast that featured an entire room full of hot and cold selections, including scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes on the hot side and a large assortment of breads, cereal, fruit, cheeses, sliced meats and juices. You could spend the day eating the Bristol’s breakfast, but we had a mission. The HoHo started at 10 a.m.

At precisely 10:07, the red bus pulled up to our stop at the piazza, and we boarded, the only souls on the entire bus. The driver would not sell us a ticket, and we understood through his Italian that our tickets would be sold at the other end of the trip. Our bus drove around the city, we listened to the commentary, we pulled up to each of the designated stops, and we were still the only two people on the bus.

Along the way, we learned that in its prime, Genoa was such a maritime power that England paid the city to use its flag. So the Genoese flag of a red cross on a white background is exactly the same as the St. George’s Cross of England to this day. I don’t know if England still pays Genoa royalties.

Our bus stopped at the Old Port, which was its starting and ending point. The HoHo attendant came on board to sell us our tickets and gave us a choice of a discounted rate for a single trip around. That worked just fine for us, because we needed to leave anyway. What didn’t work so fine was that we decided to ride the bus back to the Piazza Ferrari rather than simply depart right there in the Port, where we wanted to go anyway.

But we took the ride anyway to the fountain where we had caught the bus, and luckily the walk back down to the Port took less than 10 minutes. The Old Port is now a major attraction in Genoa, but on this cold day, there were few visitors.

The two biggest features are a replica galley that was used in Roman Polanski’s film The Pirate, and the Genoa Aquarium, one of Europe’s largest, that extends a good hundred meters out into the middle of the maritime basin.

Some of the old warehouses have been converted to restaurants and offices, while past the aquarium is a conventional operating marina containing human-scale boats that any of us could relate to, mostly made by Beneteau and Jeanneau.

On the opposite end of the Old Port is the Genoa Maritime Museum, which, according to everything I had read, is one of the best in Europe. As much as I wanted to visit, we just didn’t have the time. That will be first on our list in our next visit to Genoa.

But then it was time for a walk back to the hotel and a quick lunch before descending into the Genoa Metro station for the eight-minute ride to the Principe train station. It’s simple navigation–Genoa has only one Metro line, and Principe is only four stops from the Piazza Ferrari.

Since we were carrying only one small, relatively light bag, the long stairways down to the Metro stop were no problem. Fortunately, I had bought our Metro tickets in advance on a scouting trip earlier in the morning, so we simply boarded the car and took off for the four stops to Principe, which is also the stop for the Genoa cruise ship terminal.

Genoa’s Principe station, like most older European train stations, is pretty much open air. The only shelter is in one of the many cafes (including McDonald’s, of course) that line the perimeter of the building. We had arrived faster and therefore earlier than planned, so we had time to kill. I looked for a waiting area with seats but could find only two rows of five metal chairs situated right in front of the open air entrance, too cold and windy for sitting around. So we nursed a bottle of water purchased in a cafe until it was time to descend to take our Italian train to Ventimiglia.

This time, our train was old, decrepit, noisy and generally unpleasant. It was the end of the workweek, and most of the passengers seemed to be laborers returning to their homes in the little towns along the Italian coast. This was clearly not the sleek, modern, fast train we had enjoyed on the way over.

Ventimiglia’s station was smaller but featured a counter bar where we were able to have a glass of wine to while away the 40 minute layover. We boarded the French train that would take us finally back to Nice in some measure of comfort, although I had not been able to reserve seats. An hour later, we pulled into Nice Ville train station and made the short walk to the tram and then home.

At no time did anyone ever ask to check our tickets on the entire trip back to Nice. Not the Genoa Metro, not the Italian train and not the French train. Maybe that’s why Italy is always broke.