Mediterranean Meditations

After a day of rain in London, on Friday evening I headed down to Gatwick and caught a late-night flight to Nice, where my parents were waiting to whisk me away to their flat in Cannes. I hadn't been to the Côte d'Azure since last year's soggy film festival and it was nice to be back. After a croissant and a run along the Croisette yesterday morning, we headed to the beach with the French equivalent of hot dogs (mini baguettes and skinny saucisses). Although it was very sunny, the wind made it a little too nippy for me to swim, unlike my brave/mad parents.

In the afternoon, I wandered along the shops of the rue d'Antibes, although as usual, didn't buy anything. After smartening up, we took a taxi to Antibes, where we went for cocktails on the terrace of the Hôtel Belles Rives, a favourite haunt of Fitzgerald et al. My cocktail, the Gatsby, involved gin, lychee liqueur and violet syrup and was fruity and beautiful, and we sat and watched as the sun dipped below the Esterel mountains.

We had a table booked for 7.30 at the hotel's restaurant, but, it turned out, the person who took the booking hadn't told us that it was a special 'Bacchus' themed evening, with five courses, each paired with a premium wine. This didn't sound too terrible until we discovered we had to wait until all the other invités had arrived, which could be as late as 9 pm. Oh, and there would be une petite explication of each wine before we could tuck into each course. This sounded like a rather longer evening than we had planned, but the hotel staff handled it well, letting us have our cocktails with their cocktails, and booking a table at their sister restaurant at the Juana Hotel. The food was nice enough at the Juana, although a little less exciting than we were expecting. The pudding was my favourite part: a delicious chocolate and praline cake.

Without five courses of wine, getting up for an early-morning run was less painful than it could have been. I ran the first mile gently with Papa and then sprinted back along the Croisette after a couple of leaps on Sunrise Beach to invigorate us for the day ahead.