Gone Since November: Nice!

Nice, France

- We traveled from Andorra to Nice.

- We took a train that stopped in Toulouse, seemed like a gross place with lots of police and armed guards in the train station dealing with one petty incident after another while we waited for our trains.

- We rode the trains from midnight until 8am. The ride for the last two hours was really nice as the trains voyage snaked along the coastline with bright coloured houses and villages on one side with the ocean on the other. A great view of the southern point of the French Apls too

We stayed at a great place that was situated on the hills overlooking Nice. It was an old residence for nuns that was turned into a bed and breakfast. The owner of the place was keen to talk to each of the guests to give them maps he had created for his business as to what sites to see in day trips, the best way to tour around and the costs.

We rode the Tram down to the train station from our hotel. Hopped on a commuter train to stop on Antibes on the way to Cannes ( a nice tip by our hotel owner that we would not have otherwise known)

The train ride to Antibes was 20 minutes to the east of Nice and Cannes was a further 10 minutes past Antibes to the east.

Antibes was an old walled city that has a large marina with gigantic yachts parked in it. The one giant yacht must have been the size of the old Maple Leaf Gardens. It was monstrously large. We walked out along the old wall of the city that extended out to separate the marine from the water. A great view of Nice, the harbor and the ocean. We walked back through the gates of the old city passing markets, patio restaurants and many other stores. It’s amazing to see how all of the towns were squished together within the old city walls hundreds of years ago.

We had lunch and then went into the Picasso museum. The museum was an old castle, ( we think) that was owned by the Girmaldi family (the people who are the royalty of Monaco) and they sold it to the town of Antibes a long time ago. Picasso was invited to spend a few months at the castle to complete art work. Much of the art that he created when he was in Antibes was donated to the town and since then the building had been transformed to become a Picasso musem. It’s a small collection with many sketches and random pieces of art. It was fun to visit and “get cultured”

After four hours in Antibes, we left thoroughly impressed feeling we could have stayed longer but we needed to get to Cannes at some point in the day. Cannes had a nice waterfront walking path, but it is crowded and full of wallahs with fake purses, ice cream, and other tourist trap material. The old hotels that lined that water were interesting and trying to imagine how much it would cost to stay a nice place and if they places have squat or western toilets (sorry for the Nepal joke).

We walked along the waterfront, returned back of the street with the high priced shopping and then back to the train station. We arrived at the station to see a train was just about to leave for Nice so we ran aboard. We then realized the train was much nicer than the one we had rode in to Cannes. We realized that the train was actually a high speed long distance train that was on its way from Paris and had dropped off people in Cannes on the way and we probably should not have been on the train with our passes. We enjoyed the ride back to Nice anyways and experienced just how nice the long distance trains are to the bigger city. (Did you see what I did there?)

We really enjoyed Antibes and are happy that our hotel man told us we should stop there. He explained it as Antibes is a town you really want to see where Cannes is lacking a lot of substance. He was exactly right. One would think that with the Cannes film festival being held there each year it would be the best spot. Maybe Cannes has the convention centre so it holds the show, but Antibes was the real star of the day.

Day two we journeyed to the west for our day of Eze and Monaco. Eze is a hillside town that features a castle that overlooks the water and the surrounding countryside. Sixteen km’s beyond Eze to the west is the micro country of Monaco.

We rode the city bus up along to the mountain side west of Nice to the town of Eze. The bus ride was great in itself as the road climbs up the size of the mountains as it departs Nice which provides great view of the area as it winds along to Eze.

Our few hours in Eze allowed us to walk up to the castle and enjoy the view from the gardens at the top of the old castle. It is a really nice spot and whoever owned the castle imported all kinds of cactus to the top of the castle. We snapped a few photos and had some lunch before travelling onto Monaco.

After we departed the bus in Monaco, we completed the walk along the top of the harbor to get a good view of some more monster yachts and the famous Monte Carlo Casino. We entered the Casino front doors into the main room, which anyone is allowed to do for free, but we declined to pay to go into the main gambling area, as we could see people lose their money for free at the casino next door. We have no pictures from inside the casino as cameras were not allowed, so you will have to take our word for it that it was a good looking place.

We walked around the town trying not to get run over by expensive cars or yelled at by the men with the silly hats in front of the hotels for walking in the wrong areas. Monaco is a beautiful city situated on the size of the mountain and I am sure would be a great place to have an tax haven bank account or moor a three hundred foot yacht registered to the Cayman Islands. Maybe we will do that someday.

With our time complete in France we hopped back on the train to continue on to Italy. We were on the way to the Parco de National Cineque Terre on the Italian coastline just east of Genoa.