September 30, 2022
Antibes to Nice
Our final day and we end with a bang.
Pack up is slow this morning. It’s a fine day and looks good for cycling into Nice where we have an Airbnb stay, a street or so back from the Promenade des Anglais.
Earlier I went out to buy bread and walked along the beach looking to Nice beckoning in the near distance. The sea looked inviting and fishers were at it already. In the morning, the confusion of the night before vanishes and with clarity we see Antibes just down the coast-and a cycle way that stretches back in that direction.
We breakfast and drink our coffee in the sun before getting onto the wonderful cycleway stretching all the way to the centre of Nice. Nearing the city we mix with the cyclists and runners and view the swimmers making the most of the autumnal warmth by throwing themselves into the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean. A nice feature of Nice is that by far the majority of the beach area is open to the public. No attempt to keep out the hoi polloi as on some Riviera and Italian beaches.
Once in the city, we seek out Boutiful Cycles and ask about bike boxes. Come back tomorrow, they say. From here we have only a short distance along the same road to our accommodation. It’s here that Ann, in the joie de Vivre, generated perhaps by the knowledge that we are on our final 500 metres, does something inexplicable. She decides to turn and mount the footpath- a non! non! on a fully loaded bike. The climb to the footpath is only a couple of centimetres, but its edge is smooth like marble and she goes into a slide, landing on her elbow. Later she explains that she thought the road was flush with the curb. Time, as they say, stands still, while bikes are retrieved and we gather ourselves and Ann spends time sitting and recovering. It doesn’t look good as her arm feels incapable of much movement and she feels faint. We retrieve a boiled sweet from the bottom of her top box and this has the desired effect. Our Airbnb is a mere 500 metres and we walk slowly there.
Once there, our host Monique, a nurse as well, is very solicitous and helpful. The upshot of talking to her is that we repair to the close-by pediatric hospital, (which has an adult emergency doctor service only), sign in with the voluble but pleasant nurse/receptionist and wait for treatment. A wait, as to be expected, accompanied by loud children.
Eventually at our turn, the doctor, business like but not without feeling, confirms, ‘E is broke.’ He raps rapidly on his keyboard and this is followed by copious sheets of paper flying out of the printer. Radio - X-ray to confirm, bandages and painkiller prescriptions. The doctor takes a strip of soft material and rapidly ties it in a knot, as if he were tying a fashionable scarf, and drapes from Ann’s neck, artfully but expertly arranging her arm in it.
Ann notes that although details of her accident have been made public, there has been no mention of another scrape, in Scey. Michael’s shin is nearly healed after his interaction with a curb, and with ongoing care from his first aider.
Fortunately, the French are big on pharmacies and their flashing green cross can be seen everywhere, so we will have no trouble finding one or a place that does that does x-rays.
We leave, buy dinner (pizzas) and return to our new home, grateful we have a place so close and so pleasant to stay. The ‘if onlies’ assail our thoughts but it’s too late for all that now . Just as well it didn’t happen at the start of our trip.
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1 year ago
1 year ago
Tomorrow is bike box day!
Today's ride: 18 km (11 miles)
Total: 1,582 km (982 miles)
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1 year ago
1 year ago