I had hopes for these free days in Menton. I had a selection of possible day rides planned, we brought our swimsuits, goggles, and travel towels for some swimming in the Med, but it’s just so damn hot!  I’m really glad I booked an apartment with “climatisation”. I’m not sure what we’d have done otherwise. 

We had nothing much planned for today other than swim in the sea (we carried our swim stuff over a lot of passes and only used it in one hotel pool so far) and get grandchild gifts. 

We walked the couple of blocks to the beach and for the first time ever, I was in the water before him!  Those who know me know this means the water was warm. 

We skipped the showers at the beach since the apartment was so close and tossed all our wet stuff in the washer. The quick wash cycle was the right amount of time for us to get cleaned up and go out for coffee before shopping for kids’ clothes (easiest thing to carry for a not-quite-two year old and someone who won’t join us until November).

For the extra Euro per cup, yesterday’s coffee was much better. We are looking forward to getting home to our own coffee machine.  We both remembered coffee in France being good, but the proliferation of fully automatic coffee makers has not helped. Our apartment here only has a drip machine so no joy there but I’ll take the AC and go out for my one-a-day. 

We ventured out once again for lunch at a traiteur very near our apartment (great location in addition to the AC).  Al grabbed the one shady table and I placed the order:  club sandwich and IPA for him, savoury tarte and bière russe for me. I chose the beers from the glass fridge full of assorted local artisanal brews and, since the first russe was quite high in alcohol, I put it back and chose a different one.

I carried our food out and returned for the beers the shop assistant was opening. She was having difficulties with the russe as it wanted to foam everywhere (unlike in Beaufort where the server said it was always the IPAs that did this). I have never had such fizzy beer! 

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Nor did it taste anything like what I was expecting. I looked at the ingredients and then looked up “courge longue de Nice”.  Most hits were seed companies but they all said essentially the same thing, as translated by Google:

The Nice long squash is an old variety typical of the region, late-ripening and trailing. Indeed, when grown in the ground, it is allowed to creep for several meters. This squash is also nicknamed "the trumpet" because of its shape. It comes from the same "cucurbita moschata" family as the Napoli long squash, the Provence butternut squash, and the butternut squash.

So on a blazing hot day at the end of June, I’d basically selected a pumpkin spice beer! Next time I’ll be more careful when choosing and I will never willingly drink another pumpkin spice beverage.

We spent the hottest (?) part of the day hiding out in the AC before heading to the beach one more time in the late afternoon. We took a beach umbrella this time because we wished we’d taken one this morning.  We appreciate them being available to us in the apartment. 

Once again the water was lovely and we spent more time in it.  We were at a slightly different location and the tide was higher so no standing on the sandy bottom for me.  However, when the water is this salty, I can float on my back, something I can’t do in fresh water. 

And that was our day. Later, we went to a restaurant called “Little Italy” for dinner. We shared a Caprese salad and spaghetti with seafood, which was maybe not enough, but a third item would have been too much, in my opinion. We didn’t order dessert but our server still brought us each a small glass on Limoncello on the house. We will have to bring our bottle out of the freezer occasionally.  Back at the apartment, we had our own dessert, finishing off the raspberry sorbet I’d picked up when I got the laundry detergent a couple of days ago. 

So that was our day. Only one photo taken by either of us—of a bottle of beer.