I didn't post yesterday because I spent my day enjoying St. Paul de-Vence and the surrounding areas. "Vence" is a medieval village way up in the maritime Alps, not too far from the coast, and is quite remarkably preserved. It' s cobbled streets and ramparts and vegetation all give you a glimpse of what the city must have looked like a thousand years ago. Very interesting, very impressive, and very lovely.
It is also now very much a tourist trap, but that is OK. I enjoyed it anyway. I had a very nice, very delicious lunch of steak tartar, fresh mesculin salad, frites, and a really delicious tapenade of black olives and olive oil with crusty french bread. I enjoyed this while looking out over the entire valley, with a nice cool breeze blowing. It was quite heavenly.
I also had the most delicious "bisquits" as a dessert. Actually, the dessert was unintended, but delicious none-the-less. I came into a quaint old confectionary, and it was quite an amazing shop. There were cookies piled so high they defied gravity, and nougats, chocolates, and every other confection you could possibly dream of all crammed into this delicious-smelling shoppe, and an older woman was walking around with a mound of little "sample" cookies. As I gazed cautiously around (afraid to knock down the towering cookie displays), this woman came up to me smiling, and began a rapid-fire stream of French, presumably about her wares. As I opened my mouth to say I didn't understand her, she literally shoved one of the little cookies in my mouth, with a smile, LOL.
I was kind of taken aback, but, the deliciousness of the cookie replaced the shock, because it was a little lemon cookie with a sweet and tart lemony interior, with the exterior cookie part being a soft, crumbly, buttery type of shortbread. It was one of the best, if not the best, cookie I've ever tasted. As she saw my expression, she smiled and nodded.
Needless to say, I wound up buying more of her cookies, and each was even more delicious than the next. I bought an almond and anisette cookie, which was delightful, and then the King of all cookies, the one with the gooey chocolate interior. This one was a cookie that you might trade a family member for, haha!
Later, as I boarded the bus headed back for Nice along with some other tourists, I noticed several were carrying the Confectionery shoppe bags as well. Her method of shoving cookies into unsuspecting mouths must work pretty good, because I saw a lot of cookie bags around the village ;-) I thought of this with a laugh on the ride back. What if the person was a diabetic or hated cookies? Nah. They wouldn't be in that shop. Her method of shock sales would be akin to me taking one of my paintings into a gallery and bashing the curator or client over the head with it, and when they came to, them being so overwhelmed with the goodness of the creation, they forgot all else. You have to be pretty sure of your product, and make sure it's a damn good one, to utilize this method!!!
Anyway, I will be leaving here soon, and I am sad about that. I really did love it here, and as the old saying goes, "parting is such sweet sorrow." I look forward to seeing my everyone, but I still feel sadness at returning. The "same-old same-old" is not appealing or comforting to me, as I thought it would after being gone for several weeks. Maybe it's time to examine why I am feeling this way...maybe it's hormones! Or, maybe I dread the jet-lag, or, maybe it's more than that, either way, I'll have some time to grapple with it at home for the next few months before Berlin.
Well, enough ruminating. Time to get out and make the most of these last two days!!! Got some shopping to do for everyone, and some more swimming at Florida plage later on. Bon jour!
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