I always wanted to visit Nice, France. Nice, the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes department on the French Riviera, sits on the pebbly shores of the Baie des Anges. Founded by the Greeks and later a retreat for 19th-century European elite, the city has also long attracted artists. Former resident Henri Matisse is honored with a career-spanning collection of paintings at Musée Matisse. Musée Marc Chagall features some of its namesake's major religious works.
Our NCL Viva cruise ship stopped here on our return to the port of Rome, Italy. We had to take a tender from our cruise ship to the port of Nice. See my tender pics. At the port we loaded onto a tour bus, which took us to the Old Town Square area on the Mediterranean Sea.
We were visiting Nice for the first time with another couple of our friends. As we were touring the old town square center, we decided to stop at the El Merkado Restaurant for a snack and some cocktails. We had a nice table for 4 outside. We ordered two of their cheese boards and some local red wine. The cheese board and local red wine was spectacular. There was lots of cheese to eat. We could not eat all the cheese. We should have ordered only one cheese board for the four of us. Service here was very good for us Americans who could barely speak French. Our total bill for both of us was 58 euro. I would return here for another cheese board. After our lunch and some shopping we took our tour bus back to the port to return to our ship. Nice was a very pretty town. read more