Biot, Antibes and Nice

This past weekend we were very lucky with the weather on Saturday and Sunday: it was around 65 each day making it warm enough to get a little tan and almost warm enough to feel like I was back in Tampa.

Friday, we weren’t as fortunate. After class we had a trip to the towns of Biot and Antibes. It was very cold and very windy. When we were in Biot we visited La Verrerie de Biot, a glass blowing factory, shop and gallery of glass artwork. The glass art in the galleries was really interesting to see but no pictures were allowed so I can’t share it with you, sorry!

                                                                                             

After the demonstration at the La Verrerie de Biot, and a little shopping for my mom, we headed to Antibes. Antibes is a town on the coast between Cannes and Nice. I wish the weather had been nicer when we were there because we were right on the water and I would have loved to explore the town some more, it was just too windy and cold! We plan on returning on a nice afternoon soon, since it is only a 30-minute train ride and costs less than 3 euros. While we were there we visited Musée Picasso. What was really interesting about the museum was that it is located in the Grimaldi castle, named after the royal family of Monaco, and was previously inhabited by the Grimaldi’s hundreds of years ago. In 1925 the castle was turned into a museum and in 1945 Picasso visited the museum and it was suggested that he used part of it as a workshop. The castle has beautiful views of the bright blue ocean that obviously had influence on the 23 paintings and 44 drawings Picasso completed while he worked there. The museum, both the artwork and the castle, is definitely something to see if you are ever in Antibes.

 Saturday we stayed in Cannes and the plan was to rent bikes, ride around and go on a small hike. All did not go as planned, but it still turned out to a really nice relaxing day. In the morning we went to the open air market and looked at all the fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, flowers, candies, meats and any other food product you could dream of. Everything was so fresh and delicious looking it made me wish I had my kitchen here so I could buy some serious ingredients and get cooking. However, we did buy some fresh strawberries that were absolutely amazing and my mouth is watering just thinking about them. After the food market we went to the “flea market” and looked at the paintings, vintage postcards, old silverware and many vintage accessories that made me want to spend all the money I had in my bank account. I fell in love with a beautiful Chanel cross body bag that was a mere 700 euros and made me question if I could actually live off what would be left in my bank account for the next 3 months; I decided not to risk it. When we finally made it to the bike rental place it was closed, so that plan went down the drain, but we ended up laying on the beach for a couple of hours soaking up the sun.

Sunday morning we went to brunch early and then headed back to the beach for another couple of hours in the sun before leaving for Nice. While Meghan, Emily and I had already been to Nice for the Flower Parade and Light Parade the rest of the group had not and our program planned a trip to see Le Corso Carnavalesque. The weather was MUCH nicer than the previous weekend, there were some floats we hadn’t seen in the other parades and we left covered in silly string and confetti.

With the exception of the weather on Friday it was a really great weekend. The weather this week has been absolutely awful though, we are on day 3 or 4 of rain so we haven’t been leaving campus too much. Tomorrow we are heading into Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, and on Saturday morning we are leaving super early to go to Milan and coming back late Sunday night. I am really excited because I have seen pictures of a fried calzone like thing stuffed with mozzarella and tomatoes that can be found in Milan. I have made it my mission to find it.