Our original plan for the Ascension holiday weekend was to visit Annecy, which we have wanted to do for some time (since winter). Then we checked the weather forecast; it promised mostly rainy and chilly weather around Annecy and Grenoble. Another look at the weather map told us to go south to Mediterranean. So we chose Nice. We did not want to drive all the way in one day, so we booked a room at the hotel La Nouvelle Citadelle in Sisteron, which is about half way from Grenoble to Nice.

We started driving to Sisteron after work, and had a lot of difficulties getting out of town with the Garmin Navigator we rented and paid 10 euros per day. The usability of the navigator was poor and the available functions limited. We had no idea what it had in mind when it took us to smaller and smaller roads when we got closer to the destination (and when it also got darker and darker).

We reached the hotel at 10pm. The hotel restaurant was already closed and the friendly host suggested that we head out quickly to find a pizza place open nearby. Before doing that we dragged our luggage to our room, and that’s when the host came forward and offered us some salad, charcuterie and bread for a light supper at their restaurant. We happily accepted, and enjoyed the fare with some local wine on the idyllic (but breezy) patio facing Rocher de la Baume

	Before starting driving again to Nice we take a quick walk around the old town Sisteron and the Citadelle.

We reached Nice in the late afternoon. The air was warm, but the breeze made us feel a bit chilly as we walked Promenade des Anglais a bit before having lunch at Le Magnan (highly recommended, their vegetarian pizza is very good). The couple at the next table cast strange looks at us, and after a while they initiated a converstation … in Finnish. They had been bicycle touring in France for a couple of weeks, and were returning home that night. We discussed this and that about bikes and bicycle touring until at some point the guy got a little political and started a rant on Russia. Then they had to run for their flight.

Our first full day in Nice started with a run on the coastal promenade when it was still cloudy. By the time we finished the breakfast and headed back to the promenade the clouds had given way to the sun, and it was getting quite warm.

Our main destination of today was Musée Marc Chagall. The collection of paintings was not extensive but they had a special exhibition on Chagall’s tapestry, which we were not familiar with at all. Chagall’s tapestries are usually large, several meters in both dimensions (see one with a red bird above). We learned that it required a tremendous skill of the weavers to estimate the weft length beforehand to dye it perfectly to fit the shaded color patterns in Chagall’s sketches (when woven continuously).

On our second whole day in Nice we escaped the heat and the humidity to higher altitudes. We drove past Monaco and through Menton to Colline village to start the hike up to Château de Sainte-Agnès. We found the bottom of the trail closed because of landslides caused by recent rains, so we drove a bit higher to start the climb at the midway.
It was a very comfortable, gentle walk up to the village Sainte-Agnès. After visiting the fortress we had pan bagnat for lunch (bought in one of the small cafes near our residence in Nice), enjoying the gorgeous view over Menton and the Mediterranean, and piece of Italy. Afterwards we had a short stroll in the village.

When back in Nice, we had dinner at Le Bar des Oiseaux in the old town. They had a very fresh take on pasta. Food was delicious, service good and friendly, but in the end they failed to take care of customers who wanted to check out. Very big minus in our books!

Before starting our long (much longer than we ever anticipated) drive home, we visited the Promenade des Arts, and had lunch at Museée d’Art Moderne. We followed Route de Grenoble and found it a bit strange that there were road signs directing to Grenoble from Nice. We took the idyllic road that followed the river Le Var and had a break in Touët-sur-Var to visit the old medieval village up on the mountain side. There were brand new stone pedestrian paths and sighseeing platforms in the village, so presumably they were expecting more visitors.

Soon after Puget-Théniers (the next, seemingly very touristy, village) we hit a major traffic jam — strangely nowhere near any major urban center — and frantically probed the Garmin guy if it could give us an alternative route, but it could not. After a couple of failed rerouting attempts (which took us back to the same road — well, it was only rerouting), we told it to take us somewhere else than Grenoble. We drove to Gap. It was getting really late and dark. We parked the car and took a walk to find a place to eat in the city center, which was quite deserted. For a while we did not find anything, but then we smelled pizza and heard human voices. Navigating to the direction of the voices, we entered a plaza with a couple of restaurants with patios … open. One of them still served pizza and beer. We were so lucky and happy! It was after 11pm. when we started driving to Grenoble. We were home at 1am. Happy end.