Nice, France to Malmö, Sweden

On our last morning in France, Kathleen and Amy went for a morning swim in the sea while I packed up. We walked to the train station with our luggage on a very humid morning and were all soaked with sweat by the time we got to the Nice Airport. After a 2.5 hour flight to Copenhagen, Denmark, we boarded a train and crossed into Sweden on the Öresund Bridge, over the strait that connects the North Sea and the Baltic. Map link: Øresund Strait. At Malmö Central Station, we got an Uber to Mathilda’s apartment, where Amy would bunk; Kathleen and I had a cozy guest room on the 5th floor of the adjacent building. We went to dinner with Mathilda at a neighborhood pub with authentic Northern European food, then relaxed until bedtime. 

Bonus Question: What institution invented the sports of basketball, volleyball and racquetball? (answer at end of post)

Bonus Question Answer: Basketball, volleyball and racquetball were all invented at the YMCA. Basketball and volleyball were created in the 1890s in Massachusetts, while racquetball was invented in 1950 in Connecticut. 

Ventimiglia, Italy

We had one more full day on the Riviera, and decided to visit Italy, only 19 miles away. Kathleen, Amy and I boarded the eastbound train in the late morning, traveled from France to Monaco, back into France and then to Italy. We stopped in Ventimiglia, a Riviera town just four miles across the border in the Liguria region of Northern Italy at the mouth of the Roia River. The city’s name is derived from Album Intimilium, which was the capital of the Intimilii, an ancient Ligurian tribe, although it is commonly thought to mean “twenty miles,” which coincidentally is “venti miglia” in Italian. Remains of Roman structures dating back to the early second century are still visible here and the historic old town, called Ventimiglia Alta, was built during the Middle Ages on a hilltop to best protect it from frequent medieval raiders. Map link: Ventimiglia, Italy

We went up the hill (by elevator, to save wear and tear on my bad hip), enjoyed the amazing views of the town, and walked through the winding cobblestone streets to the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta (Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption). The current sandstone building was constructed during the 11th and 12th centuries on the site of a previous cathedral from the 6th century, which replaced a Roman Pagan temple to the goddess Juno. We took our time taking in the architecture and aura of the ancient church and underground crypt and baptistery.

Bonus Question: We all hate CAPTCHAs, those annoying online “I’m not a robot” gatekeepers that verify we’re human. What does CAPTCHA stand for? (answer at end of post). 

It was a hot and humid day, we were done wandering, and descended back down to sea level and found an outdoor table in the shade at Pasta & Basta, an Italian restaurant near the shore. We ate a leisurely lunch, taking our time in the European fashion—something we’ve admired in our travels but have found surprisingly difficult to emulate. After our meal, we visited the beach and marina across the street, then walked back to the train station, where me met Amy’s classmate Gabriela and her Columbian parents, who were switching trains on their way to Milan. After they left, we headed back to Nice, and Kathleen and I ate our leftovers from lunch and Amy met friends in nearby Antibes. 

An accidental pic of the sun through the
inside of my pants pocket. I really like the colors!

Bonus Question Answer: Invented in 1997, the Completely Automated Public Turing test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) was designed to prevent spam and bot attacks. Ironically, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have made it easier for many computers to solve these challenges faster than humans. To keep up, developers have modified CAPTCHAs to be fuzzier, more squiggly and harder to read, making them more frustrating than ever. 

Cannes and Ile Sainte Marguerite, France

Amy spent Saturday with friends, all wanting to maximize their time together before leaving France and scattering across the globe. Kathleen and I hopped on a train and headed east to the Riviera resort town of Cannes, about 20 miles away. The city dates back to the 2nd century BC, and is known internationally as the host of the Cannes Film Festival each May. The festival’s origins date back to 1938, when the event was created to compete with the Venice Film Festival, which had developed a fascist bias under Benito Mussolini. Today, the event draws more than 40,000 film industry professionals and more than 200,000 total visitors to this community of 75,000. Map link: Cannes, France

At the busy waterfront, which was preparing for the Cannes Yachting Festival, we ran (I actually limped) to catch the ferry to Île Saint Margeurite, which lies a mile offshore. The largest of the Lérins group, the island is best known as the home of Fort Royal, built in 1617 and converted to a prison in 1685. Its most famous inmate was the Man in the Iron Mask, an anonymous prisoner who was held for 11 years in a special wing out of view. Under orders from King Louis XIV, his identity was never revealed, and guards were directed to immediately kill him if the mask were removed. The mystery has been the subject of great historical interest, and the story was romanticized in Alexandre Dumas’ 1847 version, which included the legendary Three Musketeers and inspired at least four movies. The Man in the Iron Mask spent a total of 34 years in four French prisons, including the Bastille in Paris, where died in 1703. Map link: Ile Sainte Marguerite

Back in Nice, we ate a late dinner in with Amy, then went out for gelato and took a stroll through Old Town, staying up until midnight. 

Bonus Question: What is heliotropism? (answer at end of post)

The Palais des Festival et des Congrès,
home of the Cannes Film Festival 

View of Cannes from Iles Sainte Marguerite

Fort Royal

Greek amphorae recovered from local shipwrecks

The prison cell of the Man in the Iron Mask

Old Town Nice at night

Bonus Question Answer: Heliotropism is the biological process where plants turn from east to west during the day to follow the sun and maximize photosynthesis. At night, an internal circadian clock twists the stems back so plants face east again the next morning.

Nice, France. Amy’s Graduation

Thursday, Sep 3: I woke up to loud street noises at 6:00 AM, then fell back asleep until 9:45 AM, still working through some jet lag. Kathleen went for a run, Amy had an appointment, then the two of them went grocery shopping while I walked around Nice’s Old Town, established during the Middle Ages. Amy had another meeting in the afternoon, so Kathleen and I ate lunch outside around the corner at Restaurant La Claire Fontaine, across a small square from the Cathedral Sainte-Reparte de Nice. 

We met Amy in the evening at La Tresorerie near the Nice-Ville train station. Amy and four of her classmates, nicknamed “The Grandmas,” for their low-key leisure habits, arranged a happy hour in a private room for the graduates and their families to meet before tomorrow’s official ceremony. We had a marvelous time, socializing with the international group of students and relatives: Mathilda from Sweden, Lena from Switzerland, Laura from Germany and Gabriella from Columbia. The air was abuzz with English, German, Swedish, Spanish and French, with most everyone fluent in more than one language. Later, Kathleeen and Amy went for a sunset swim in the Mediterranean Sea, meeting several of Amy’s classmates at the beach. Map link: Nice, France

Bonus Question: True or False? The hidden object book Where’s Waldo? was once banned. (answer at end of post) 

Friday, Sep 4:  We spent another lazy morning, then went for a swim in the Mediterranean, followed by shopping in the Cours Saleya outdoor market, which sells flowers and produce in the morning and transforms into a clothing, jewelry, crafts and souvenirs market at night. We ate lunch at our Airbnb—a third-floor walkup apartment right in the heart of Old Town—then Amy left to get ready for her graduation ceremony. 

Later, Kathleen and I dressed up and took the local tram to the Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen (CUM) on the waterfront, where the 34 graduates of the MARRES program at the Universite Cote de Azur would receive their master’s degrees. Graduation ceremonies with lots of pageantry are uncommon in Europe, and it was delightful to see the French version of this important milestone. After the official ceremony (in English, as were Amy’s classes), we celebrated with a glass of champagne before reconvening for an entertaining, student-run program. This was followed by a short walk to Blue Beach, an oceanfront restaurant, where a delicious buffet, unlimited wine and dancing awaited us. Kathleen and I left around 11:00 PM with the party in full swing, and we walked back to our lodgings along the busy promenade on a lovely evening.

Bonus Question Answer: True. The original 1987 book Where’s Waldo? was banned in 1997 in certain New York school districts. One of the search puzzles is a beach scene in which a woman appears topless, and complaints from parents led to the book being banned from school libraries. See below.

Paris and Nogent-sur-Marne, France

Kathleen and I returned to Europe, this time for Amy’s graduation from the Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. We decided to spend a couple of days in Paris visiting family before meeting Amy on the French Riviera later in the week. 

Sunday, Aug 30: Our 8:00 PM flight on Air France was crowded, but comfortable enough during the 8-hour trip, albeit with little sleep and a 7-hour time change.

Monday, Aug 31: We landed at 11:15 AM, Paris time, cleared immigration (all biometric, no agent contact), picked up our luggage, then took an Uber to our niece’s apartment in Nogent-sur-Marne east of Paris. We visited Marjorie, husband Murli, son Nathan and daughter Pia, in December for the holidays and had a wonderful time (post link: Nogent-sur-Marne, 12/31/25). Marjorie walked us down the street to meet her neighbor, Katherine, a Swiss woman living in Nogent who often hosts visitors and agreed to put us up for our two nights in town. She showed us to her third floor bedroom, where we napped, then walked in a brief rain shower to the nearby apartment of Kathleen’s sister Elizabeth and her husband, David. We were pleasantly surprised to see Maria, Liz and David’s younger daughter and Marjorie’s sister, visiting from Atlanta. We stayed with Maria and her husband Mike at their Brookhaven, GA, home in February before flying to Honduras (post link: Atlanta, GA, 2/17/26). Pia and Nathan were also there, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting before walking back to Marjorie’s. Most of us ate dinner at Giacomo, a neighborhood Italian restaurant where Marjorie’s family is well-known. We finally made it to bed at 11:00 PM, jet-lagged and exhausted but happy. Map link: Nogent-sur-Marne, France

This dragonfly welcomed us at Katherine’s

Tuesday, Sep 1: We woke up at 7:05 AM, showered, dressed then ate breakfast with Katherine, enjoying fresh figs from her backyard. We took the train to Paris and ate second breakfast at Café du Rendez-Vous on a perfect day, grateful that we missed the heat wave that plagued Europe last week. We had a 10:45 reservation to see the Catacombs of Paris, the world’s largest underground ossuary, which is a repository for human skeletal remains. The Catacombs began as a rich limestone deposit on the left (southern) bank of the Seine, and was quarried for centuries, leaving a network of unmarked and largely forgotten tunnels and caverns below ground. As Paris expanded, buildings were eventually constructed on top of these old quarries and a series of cave-ins and collapses in the 1770s led to a major public works project to map and shore up more than 175 miles of these cavities. Also during the late 18th century, Paris was facing a public health crisis from overcrowded cemeteries in close proximity to population centers—one cave-in emptied a mass grave into neighboring cellars. It was decided to create an underground graveyard, and the remains of more than six million people were exhumed and relocated to the tunnels over a two-year period. They opened to public viewing in 1809 and remain wildly popular, with slots selling out as soon as they become available—we only got tickets by booking a package tour with a Seine River cruise. Map link: Catacombs of Paris

We took the Metro to Port de la Conférence, for the river tour part of our package aboard the Bateau Mouches (“fly boat”). Our niece, Rachel, who studies at nearby American University, was finished with classes for the day and met us at the dock, then joined us for the cruise, a tour inside Notre-Dame Cathedral and lunch at La Crème de Paris Notre-Dame. Since reopening in late 2024 following a catastrophic 2019 fire, an estimated 30,000-40,000 visitors tour Paris’ most famous church each day, and minor exterior and artistic restoration work continues. Getting inside the cathedral was a must-do for this trip, after long lines and cold weather dampened our enthusiasm back in December. Kathleen made reservations in the morning, and we only waited 10 minutes in line. On the way back to Nogent, we made a quick stop at Les Halles mall, then went to Marjorie’s for dinner, which was Indian food cooked by Vasanthi, Murli’s mom, who lives with them for half the year. We got back to Katherine’s at 10:00 PM, packed for tomorrow’s travel, and went to bed. Map link: Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris

Compulsory Eiffel Tower photo

Scaffolding from ongoing restoration is visible
in the windows 

Bonus Question: I made a Connections puzzle! Sort the following 16 words into four groups of related items (answers at the end of post):

Barouche, Montecristo, Anvil, Elba 

Landau, Kelpie, Hammer, Giglio

Chimera, Brougham, Pianosa, Griffin

Stirrup, Wendigo, Cabriolet, Cochlea

Wednesday, Sep 2: Kathleen was up early (my snoring woke her up), then we showered, packed up and said goodbye and thank you to Katherine for her outstanding hospitality. We left our luggage at Marjorie’s, then took Pia—who doesn’t have school on Wednesdays—to Karamela pastry shop, where we bought croissants and pain Suisse (actually French, not Swiss), then spent the rest of the morning at Elizabeth and David’s. At Noon we picked up spring rolls for lunch at Laka, then took the train from Nogent-sur-Marne to the Gare du Lyon in Paris. There we weaved our way through the busy station and boarded the high-speed train to Marseilles, averaging more than 140 mph over the 475-mile trip. I’d always wanted to see the French countryside by train and it did not disappoint, although many parts looked parched from the heat and drought. We changed trains in Marseilles, with enough time to get dinner, then watched the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea as we took a local train to Nice, arriving at 10:00 PM. After a short taxi ride and a winding walk—the streets and alleys in Vieux Nice (Old Town) are too narrow for cars—we met Amy at our third-floor AirBnb in the busy heart of the city. We had a fair bit of noise coming in through the window, but all quickly fell asleep. 

Gare de Lyon

Bonus Question Answer:  Stirrup, Hammer, Anvil, Cochlea: Parts of the inner ear.

Barouche, Brougham, Cabriolet, Landau: Types of horse-drawn carriages.

Chimera, Griffin, Kelpie, Wendigo: Mythical creatures or spirits.

Elba, Pianosa, Montecristo, Giglio: Islands in the Tuscan Archipelago.