Nice, As Advertised Back to Journal →

Saturday, September 19, 2026

The internet insisted on day trips - Villefranche-sur-Mer, Menton, Eze, each sold as more essential than the city we were actually staying in. We took the bait. Nice stayed the favorite anyway.

Dinner kept tasting more Italian than French - focaccia at Le Panama, pasta at Pappagallo worth the wait, cheese and Aperol spritzes at Le Bistro du Fromager. It had us counting down to our upcoming Genoa trip before we’d even left the Riviera. Vibes earned a rare second visit from us, a different Sazerac riff each time, though Kileen’s Double Pomme became the order we stopped questioning.

Villefranche-sur-Mer was a hot enough walk to regret, right up until the view made its case. Menton made no such case. My entire note from that day says it all: "Menton was a letdown." Dinner at Peixes was good, if pricier than it should’ve been, and that was the whole story.

A week doesn’t need every day to deliver. Nice did enough of the lifting on its own that one flat afternoon barely registered.