Biot

It was a gorgeous day, nice and hot. Biot is very small, just a few short streets, it's an artist community, painters, sculptors, glasswork and things like that.

We're still in Provence

It's scenes like this that is so evocative, so quintessentially European, that's what we go to Europe for.

We arrived at 9.30am in Nice but our room wasn't ready yet, so we waited. The second we could check in, we did and headed for the bus station. I love Nice because the public transportation is so handy, you can go places on the train or on the bus. It takes you everywhere, even out of the country to Zurich, Barcelona, Rome and I am everywhere in Europe or just the next village or villages in all directions. So the possibilities of day trips from Nice are endless. I've been there so many times that I've seen most of the nearby villages. So that day I decided we'll go to Biot, high in the hills. It's a small village, an artist community. There wasn't anything direct, we have to take the Antibes bus but stop half way at Biot station, from there take the Biot bus to Biot. We were dropped off at Biot station and weren't sure what we were supposed to do next. There was an English couple at Biot bus stop, they said there wasn't another bus for Biot for hours. (They were wrong).

Upon hearing that we decided we'll walk to Antibes and see if we can find some transportation from there. It was hot and after a few feet, I decided to ask our wisdom of walking, to where and to what, I ask? I had no clue, neither did Sophie. We stopped at another bus stop and were stymied as to what to do next. Just then we saw a bus coming with the sign, 'par Biot'. I waved it down and asked the driver if he was going to Biot. He said, 'oui' and off we went with him. Turns out, it was a free bus, we tried to pay, he said, 'gratuit'. So we arrived at Biot. It's pretty. We had some lunch, some spaghetti, it was cheap. We don't always eat the fancy local food, we see cheap spaghetti and we go for it. Sophie doesn't eat pizza, so we never eat pizza.

On the way back, we should have stopped at Biot station and waited for the Nice bus there. Instead we took the Biot bus to Antibes and couldn't find the station for the Nice bus. I know there is a train connection between Antibes and Nice, so we walked to the train station, asking people all the way, 'where is the train station'. We found it finally, got on the next train and came back to Nice.

While I know mostly where to go and what to do, sometimes I do change plans during the trip, that's when I let serendipity take over and I get lost and eventually things turn out anyway. It's disconcerting and uncomfortable. You just have to ask a lot of questions, in English, they reply in Italian or French, we understand, 'over there, right, left, straight ahead'. Most of the time, they just shrug. So we ask other people and more people.