A&G Off to France--Day Nine ( Part 2 of 2)

Before dinner we head back to the shore to watch the sun set over the Mediterranean. There's a reason this light inspired so many painters, when it can even be captured, somewhat, by us with an auto-everything digital camera.

Grossly picturesque, I know.

Luckily one plus that accompanies Nice being a bit more urban than most of the places we've been is you can eat dinner a bit earlier. Yes, here we are in a city where we should explore the nightlife, but instead we get tuckered out and hope we aren't as old as we are. Choosing a dining spot isn't easy, because the edges of the Cours Saleya are more or less one monster food court. We choose Le Grand Bleu as it has deliciously fresh displays of seafood gracing its exterior. We share an order of mussels marniere, which is bread soppingly good, and then a fruits de mer platter with langoustines, oysters, mussels, clams, tiny shrimp and two kinds of sea snail. It's a wild, briny seafest.

And things taste different here, the seafood is gamier, somehow, than the milder versions of oysters and clams we generally encounter in the U.S., even in the best places. There needs to be a water word to pair with the land-bound terroir. We wash the many mollusks down with the wine made just above Nice and that rarely makes it out of France, a Bellet, namely a 2004 Clot Dou Baile Bellet rose.

Nice is nice indeed.