Concert

Chamber Music in Nice as reported by Cindy

I suppose it’s to be expected that there is a price (beyond monetary) to be paid in order to hear some of the most glorious chamber music in the world.  I accidentally found information about a string quartet concert to be given at the Nice Opera on Monday at 12:15.  The tickets were only 7 Euros (US$9) and the timing was right, so off we trudged along the lovely bay on a beautiful sunny day, arriving at noon.  We knew that the seats were not assigned but we were not prepared for near mayhem! 

The lobby was absolutely crammed with people forming a loose line from a stairway on the far left side where 3 ushers were blocking access.  The good news was that all the people who kept arriving after we did moved to the right and to the end of the line – this in a country where they don’t understand lines! No one tried to cut in and at about 12:10 the ushers finally let us pass … up 4 flights of stairs.  Our reward was a beautiful ornate “concert hall” – so to speak – it was long and narrow with about a hundred chairs in rows, and there was no stage.  Since we were at the back of the line we ended up at the back of the hall, which means we could see nothing more than the backs of the heads of other concert-goers.  If I sat up very tall and craned my neck I was able to see the tops of the heads of the two violinists.  Hmmm, if I’d only wanted to hear the music and not watch the musicians, I would have purchased the CD and repaired to my boudoir to listen!  It didn’t help to have noticed on our way up all those stairs that there was a gorgeous empty concert hall (the main opera venue) that was empty.  I have no idea why the concert was not offered there.

But I digress slightly – the musicians - two violinists, a violist, cellist, and oboist - were from the Vienna Philharmonic and they were absolutely fabulous.  The sound was incredible – yes there was the lack of visual accommodation but the acoustics were truly outstanding.  They played string quartets by Schubert and Dvorak and in between the Mozart oboe quartet.  We even got an encore.  If you closed your eyes – oh, wait, you couldn’t see a darn thing – you’d think there were 20 string players up there.  It was a lovely concert and well worth it.

Afterwards we walked to a nearby favorite restaurant, D’Acchiardo, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch.  More on that in the food section of the blog!

-Cindy

Nice

Nice, December 22, 2014

After one week of living in Nice we have settled into a rather nice pattern.  We sleep late, walk long, stop for an espresso at one of two places we prefer, pick up some fresh bread and a pastry of some sort and come back to the apartment for breakfast.  We have been blessed with perfect weather. Yesterday, the first day of winter, our afternoon walk along the Promenade was in full bright sun with a temperature of 65!

Our apartment is just perfect for this six-week experience. It is relatively compact but large enough to have some space to spread out. The bed is comfortable and there is a lot of light in the apartment until the afternoon.  The kitchen requires a lot of flexibility when cooking but I’ve made several decent meals without issues.  Shopping is lots of fun here and for the first time I’ve used a French shopping cart, which is a big bag on wheels.  I, and my fellow old farts, walk around the market looking things for our dinner.  The Niçoise are not a very tall people and on numerous occasions Cindy and I have been stopped by other shoppers and asked to get something for them from one of the top shelves.  The inner city supermarkets do not have the same space as those in the suburbs so they pile things up high and hope for the best.

We are still exploring our neighborhood seeking out the best places for coffee, Kirs, oysters and wine. When stores are closed here, they are really closed and you could never tell there was a restaurant or café until they open again, and then we are greatly surprised that we didn’t notice it before.  Two nights ago we were wandering around looking for a place to have dinner.  We had walked to the old town to watch the light show and see the new Marché de Noël, which really was a bummer since it consisted of only two stalls selling homemade soap and a huge crèche, but at least it smelled nice.  Anyway the place we thought we would eat was closed, closed on a Saturday night before Christmas!

We had a very interesting Friday. As we were leaving the apartment to go on our walk along the water, we saw an electrician entering the foyer.  Upon our return we found out that we had no electricity.  Calls to the manager got us nowhere for three hours until everyone realized that the electric company had turned off our apartment instead of the one next to us that is unoccupied. Forty minutes after that someone came and pushed the right buttons to give us juice, which meant we could now use the Internet again, not to mention keeping our wine cold.  At lunch I made sandwiches, nothing fancy and certainly nothing that would cause my tooth to chip, but that is what it did. Luckily, it doesn’t appear to be anything but a minor annoyance and I’ll wait to get it repaired when we return.

We are now off to a concert at the Opera House, more later.  Best to all, Cindy and Wm

December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014

And lo, it came to pass that today at 13:11 (7:11 Long Beach NY time) I welcomed my 69^th year as I was seated next to the most beautiful woman in the world who was toasting me with ice cold Rosé, in a sun filled room with doors flung open to allow the warm breeze of Nice to waft over our semi-clothed bodies.  And it was good!  (from CCE:  OK, dear readers, try to figure out which phrase is not quite true.)

After a well-deserved night’s sleep, we awoke late for a walk along the Baie des Anges, the Bay of Angels, where fishermen hauled their nets and pleasure boats cut through the emerald waters of the Med.  I was in heaven as we joined the multitudes enjoying a long morning walk in Nice.  After awhile we stopped for a coffee and then hit the supermarket for the basics: paté, mousse de canard, a lovely baguette, fresh butter, cherry jam, water, wine, and milk.  After our breakfast in the apartment we cleaned up and wandered around getting familiar with our new neighborhood, which has the delightful name of Quartier Musiciens and all the streets are named for great composers or performers.  This is a new area for us and we are enthralled.  For lunch, fate placed us right back at the very restaurant where we dined last night and we shared mussels and frites and a grand salad, with a bit more Rosé.

We stopped at a high-end wine shop and Cindy insisted on purchasing me a few marvelous bottles of wine despite my severe protestations. (Now try to see which phrase is not quite true.) More walking, a bit of a nap and now we are ready to hit the Christmas Market before we find the perfect restaurant for a birthday dinner.  Best wishes to all on this the best holiday of the year!  Wm

Milan to Nice

December 12-14, 2014 – Milan and onward to Nice, very slowly

We arrived in Europe on Thursday morning having been up most of the night flight with screaming babies, so when United finally deposited us at Milan’s Malpensa airport we were delighted to get off the plane.  We headed for the nearest café for a real espresso, which was as good as it gets and washed away a lot of the aches and pains of a long coach flight.  We took the train from the airport to downtown Milan and then walked to our hotel, which was only five blocks away.  We were thrilled to find that our room was ready and we didn’t have to wait until 3 pm to check in, so we hastily unpacked and took a long walk around town to stretch our muscles and prepare ourselves for lunch. We found a nice little bar called Aperitivi, which was what we needed and we enjoyed a glass of wine before heading to another little spot for a light lunch followed by a long nap.

Our friends Roberto and Maria came to the hotel at 18:30 and we wandered around looking for a good restaurant and enjoying a few glasses of wine on the wander. Dinner was unexpectedly delightful and tons of fun.

While in Milan we saw the labor protests on Friday and we knew that there could be problems due to strikes over the weekend.  However, on Sunday when we were scheduled to take the train to Nice the day started with the same guarantees that the night before had ended with, “Yes, your train to Ventimiglia will go as scheduled.”  We were of course concerned but since this was a high-speed train, it would go as scheduled at 9:10 AM.  We arrived at the train station in plenty of time and sure enough our train was at the assigned platform and loading passengers.  We settled into our cabin along with three others traveling to Ventimiglia.  At 9:00 it was announced that the train would depart on time but that it would terminate in Savona due to the work action of the striking railway workers.  We quickly established from our new friends in the cabin that Savona was about 120 KM away from Ventimiglia, but they thought there would be buses to take us there so that we could get a French train to Nice.  Besides, the notice was too short to get off the train and we didn’t have a backup plan, so we departed for Savona right on time.

Savona has no bus service to Ventimiglia, or anywhere else that we can determine. The station itself is modern and filled with marble and glass but doesn’t have a place to wait for trains so everyone sits on luggage with nothing to do. If you gamble, there was a large casino but no restaurant.  A taxi to Ventimiglia would have cost 240 Euros so that was a no-brainer.  There is one hotel nearby but no one was quite sure where and we really didn’t want to stay in another hotel when we were trying to reach our apartment in Nice.  We were promised that a train would run at 17:29 which meant we had a lovely five and a half hour wait – what a kick-off to the birthday weekend!

As of 17:15 and we had been there for five plus hours and we headed to the platform where the train to Nice was supposed to arrive in fifteen minutes. And then we were finally on the train and moving in the right direction, oh joy unbound.  Got as far as Ventimiglia and thought all was well for our arrival in Nice at 8 pm but Lady Luck seemed to be deaf, dumb and blind to our needs.  Seems the Italian workers got one more jab at us before we headed into France because the train engine needs to be changed at the border due to different track gauges.  Normally this is a five-minute operation but after a half hour of sitting at the border we were told that there were no Italian work crews to do the changeover so the French had to handle the entire operation.  Finally, en route again and in France thinking we would be arriving at 8:30 pm but the French had a surprise for us and we stopped at Menton where three of the largest, blackest police officers in the country boarded our carriage and went right to four young men and demanded their passports.  After about ten minutes they took all four off the train and we were finally underway again. Such drama!  (We asked a French train official but he didn’t know what the problem was; the men didn’t look all that threatening but you never know!)

Arrived at the apartment at about 8:45 and were met by the manager who showed us all the tricks - and then we raced to a bistro arriving at 9:15, a mere 12 hours after departing Milan. For the record, you can drive from Milan to Nice in a bit over three hours.  However, we were delighted to sit down to glasses of Champagne, a hot meal and cold wine, and all was well with the world.

Cindy and Wm