Wow – what a mouthful to say! Basically Ville Franche-de-mer is the city in the bay just east of Nice. So lets just call this Nice as that is actually where we went! So with our cruise we were given three $100 Excursion credits to use and one we used on a trip to Nice and Eze. Actually, the stop was supposed to be in Monaco, however just like Gibraltar, that got cancelled for some unknown reason, so “Nice” was the replacement stop. When going to Monaco, we were going on a HAL trip to Eze and another village in France, now we are touring Nice and Eze. So those on this tour (2 busses worth) plus 2 other tours were taken by tender directly to Nice where anyone who wanted to go ashore on their own were taken to Ville Franche-de-mer. Our tour started with a walking tour of Nice – which as it was a Sunday, was the antiques market instead of the flower market that operates the rest of the week. We walked through the market (but I did not touch or buy anything!) and then went to a very interesting wine tasting where the vintner/owner explained the wine industry in France very well – even for a person who does not drink wine! He also linked in what has happened in the USA, Australia and Canada which was a surprise! I had a lovely l’eau sans gas vintage 2022. Andrew had the 2 white wines and 1 red wine and he enjoyed them with some bread and cheese. I was full with my l’eau so I passed on the “le pain”. After that we were back on the bus to Eze, which is a small village on the top of a cliff. I knew it was small, I knew there were shallow stairs to climb to get up to the village however what blew me away was how small and compact the village was on this cliff side! The bus trip there was very short and then we started the climb (I was using my crutches and not my walker) which is done in 3 parts. I made it up the first 2 parts (which surprised the guide quite a bit) and then she said the last part people could do on their own – it takes you to a garden. I decided to call in quits as I knew the next day we also had a long walking excursion to Cinque Terre in Italy. It is very hard to explain this village other than it was like a cinnamon bun sitting on top of this cliff – you start walking at the bottom of the bun and circle around and around through the middle of the bun going up until you get to the top of middle peak which is where the garden is. Then you have to come down… There are two ways to come down we found out – the way you came back up OR the back route which we mistakenly found which is LONGER and goes past all the kitchen back doors! It is also more slippery as they keep the tourist steps area cleaner than the kitchen access it seems. On our way down, we left with plenty of time to get to the bottom (after all going down a hill you can walk faster) and we were going to take some pictures of the bridge and instead we were the last people to make it to the bus! Oh well it was a fantastic experience and not one we would really do on our own – which is how I pick the Excursions to do generally. Here come the pictures now!
