The French Riviera For My Four Years with Brandon

  Nice, Provence, France
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

This weekend Brandon and I went to Nice, France to celebrate our Four Year Anniversary.  We both took eight hour trains on wednesday to get to Nice so that we could use our Eurail passes.  I had a bit of a stressful day because I had to take an Italian test at 12 and my train left the Florence train station at 12:27.  My teacher told me that the test would only take ten minutes and fortunately it did.  I then ran to the train station (which is less than 5 minutes away from my school) and hopped on my train.  I had to take three different trains to get there and was pretty proud of myself for making it all the way there on my own.  It was a long day but it is nice to travel by train because you get to see the countryside.  The train to Nice is especially gorgeous because I saw lots of beaches along the way, including Monte Rosso which is a gorgeous Italian beach! Needless to say I was releived and excited to see Brandon when I got there! We then found out that the last bus to our hotel, which is actually up in the hills above Nice, had already left.  The train information people kept saying oh no La Gaude (the name of the city), very far, very expensive.  I called the lady at the hotel and she said that we would have to take a taxi and hopefully the driver would find it!  Fortunately he did.  It was a very expensive taxi but we made up for it the rest of the weekend by reserving a bus that only cost one euro to get down to the train station that could take you to the cities along the French Riviera.  We also never missed the bus which is good because the lady at our hotel said that we should "hurry up becaues the bus, it never waits!" Haha french people are very funny!

So we finally made it to our hotel.

Our Hotel Location in the Hills

Our hotel was a resort up in the hills and it was geared towards sports and it included tennis courts, ping pong, swimming, volleyball, basketball you name it.  It also had a weird bunny area and some animals. The next morning we found out that we could not take the bus down to Nice until 2:30 but we made the best of it and enjoyed the pool at our hotel and a nice lunch by the pool.

Our Own Pool

  Then we spent a quick day in Nice because the last bus to go back to our hotel left at 6.  Although it was kind of inconvenient to go back and forth to the hotel the hotel was in a nice and quiet location and a lot cheaper.  It was kind of nice to relax there after exploring during the day.  Plus our last night we had to stay in a hostel in Nice because our hotel was booked that night so we got to stay in Nice that whole day and night.

Beach in Nice

For our few hours in Nice we went to the beach, walked up to a look out point and explored the city.   The water and the beach in Nice is gorgeous.  The water is relatively warm and it is the prettiest shade of blue.  Brandon loved swimming in the water!

View of Nice

At the lookout point we got to see the beautiful coastline.  Nice is unique because there are all of these beautiful old buildings lining its coast and we loved that.

Fountain in NIce

Then we walked around and saw some elaborate fountains and some of the city.  That night we had a lovely dinner at the little restaurant in our hotel.

On Friday we went to Monaco Monte -Carlo for the day.  I had been there before but it was nice to get to spend a whole day there exploring and relaxing on the beach.  The center of Monaco (by the casino) is this really cool street that has a park area with fountains down the center and nice shops to either side.

Lunch on the Beach

We spent a few hours at the beach and had a really nice lunch right on the water that was reasonably priced.  Then we went back up to the center of town and went inside the Casino. 

Monte Carlo Casino

We were excited that we got to go in because we found out that they just lowered the entrance age from 21 to 18! We looked around and brandon played the slots for a few minutes just to get the feel.  It was kind of confusing though because we had to get special coins and tickets just to play with our five euro but it was a cool thing to have done.  After that we walked around the shops in Monaco, it is such a beautiful and enjoyable city.  Then we took the train back and barely made out bust back up to our hotel in La Gaude.  We had to grab sandwiches for dinner because our hotel was pretty secluded and that day was the first day that the restaurant would be closed for a couple months in the off season.  We asked a person at the hotle what we could do for dinner and she seemed to just realize then that it did "pose a problem" that there was nothing there to eat haha.  But we enjoyed our "American" steak and french fry sandwhiches anyway.  Plus it was a good way to save money that night. 

On Saturday we checked out of our hotel and took the bus and then the train to Nice to check into a hostel near the train station for our last night.  We then got to spend the whole day in Nice and had so much fun!  We went back to the beach and ate at a restaurant that was literally on the beach.  I saw the first chicken caesar salad that I had seen in Europe on the menu there so we had to eat there!  

Lunch in Nice

We enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch on the beach (partly because of the nice day and partly because of the slow french service) and then layed out for a bit.  The beach is a rocky beach but they had brought in a bit of sand so we layed out there.  Brandon loved swimming in the water so he went in a few times while I tanned!  Later that day we tried to find this palace that we had seen online.  We got confused by the directions and never eneded up finding it but we got to see a lot of the town.  We walked through the smaller side streets that are really old and quaint.  We also found a different palace and the hall of justice.  After a few hours of exploring we got ready for dinner.  One of Brandon's presents to me was a coupon for a nice dinner in Nice.  We got dressed up and at at this cute place on one of the side streets.  We had a really nice dinner and enjoyed getting to just sit and talk.  It was so nice to be together after being in different countries for three weeks.  Then we walked around and saw the beach and the city at night.  

Nice at Night

Like most of the places we have been in Europe, Nice is a lot different at night than in the day time.  There are different people out and lots of music being played and people gathering.  The next morning we got up early to take our trains back to Spain and Barcelona.  We had an amazing weekend in the french riviera and feel so lucky to be having these unforgettable experiences