The Hochmuth Adventures 2019 - Discovering New Places, Rediscovering Old Ones: Trip to France - Day 6 - Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019

I think our guide likes to sleep in as we had another late start of 9:45 today. We had a delicious breakfast with a little culture lesson that displayed the 13 Christmas desserts of Provence that we could sample. We had a 1 hour drive to the elegant city of Aix-En-Provence which is famous for black bulls, white horses and flamingos. It is also famous as the birthplace of Cezanne and Emil Zola. We started our visit with a cup of tea and calissons (a traditional French confectionery). It was a nice gesture but not my favorite. We had a few hours to explore Cours Mirabeau and the maze of streets that were filled with shops, restaurants and Christmas market stalls. We stopped in one of the churches, window shopped and had a snack at a little bakery/pizza shop. Then it was back on the bus to the hotel in Nice. Since we didn't have much lunch we ordered a charcuterie plate (they called it tapas) at the hotel and enjoyed some champagne. While in Nice we had the option of going to Monte Carlo but we decided that we wanted to have some time to explore Nice as our time in the other cities had been too brief. Those that went said it was amazing but we had a wonderful time exploring Nice. Our hotel was within walking distance of the town center which made it easy to get around. We did have a little issue with our first room which was gorgeous but ant infested. Then we were given another room that was definitely a down grade but soon found out that the phone didn't work. As we had a 3:15 a.m. wake up call the following day we got a third room that worked out fine. Like the other cities we had visited Nice was decorated for Christmas in a big way and had a huge Christmas village with market stalls in the center of town. We were still fairly full from our "snack" at the hotel but stopped at a restaurant and shared mussels and fries - yum. Lovely evening - no regrets about not going to Monte Carlo.