Nice

My first stop in France was Nice; the location of my dinner meeting (the reason I was sent to France) and the EFORT Congress, which is the European conference for those working in the orthopedics field.  Despite the prediction of rain for the duration of my stay, I got a couple of afternoons of warm sun.  It wasn't nice enough to do any swimming, but I did wade in the Mediterranean a bit.

The beach is not easy to walk on though.  Instead of sand, it's made of smooth pebbles.  They weren't sharp, but were challenging with shoes and quite uncomfortable on my bare feet.

 

Nice was a lot bigger than I anticipated.  It seemed that most people had scooters and that was the main way they got around, which was very exciting and made me want to ride my scooter!    

It was really beautiful, to the east was the Mediterranean and to the west mountains.

While I was there, I visited St Nicolas Russian Orthodox Cathedral.  I'd never been in a Russian Orthodox church before, it was quite a sight!  Everything is very ornate and gilded and covered in images of Saints.  What makes it a cathedral instead of a church is the architectural tradition of one main large dome, with four smaller lower domes, and a single bell tower.  Apparently, St Nicolas' is the largest orthodox cathedral outside of Russia.

I also visited Cannes one morning, but I'll save that for another post.