174 Nice, Monaco, Cannes

Day 37, 05-08

Went for one last morning walk, to MONOP to buy train lunch etc. The train to Nice is 4 hours so we needed to be well supplied. Slept most of it, and we arrived to Nice just before 4 in the afternoon. We are finally in the French Riviera (Cote d’Azur)! Our wee hotel Little Palace was just a short walk down the road, and the PERFECT location to the shops, trains, beach, and lots of yum food places. We finally met up with Shalini!! Who had gotten here earlier in the morn so had already had time to walk around the area. We spent the afternoon wandering more, walking down to the main street filled with restaurants and shops. We also managed to find some alleyway markets which Shal had seen earlier – a windy snake path of cute little home-ware, yum food and souvenir gifts. Nice is pretty chilled, as a seaside town should be. It has the usual mix of shops, expensive food, and a laidback but upmarket vibe. After passing by an especially delightful gourmet supermarket which would soon be our go-to, we decided to opt for a DIY dinner – fresh bread, smoked salmon, crème fraiche dill dip, cured ham, camembert, with gourmet chips on the side, and strawberries and brownie for dinner. We took this back to the hotel and indulged – miam miam! A quiet and relaxing first night in as all of us were pretty tired.

Day 38, 06-08

Breaky at a nom café around the corner – brioche. Today we spent the morning seeing more of the town – and more importantly the beach. As I was expecting, beaches here are nothing like the ones back home. Nice’s beach was pebbles instead of sand, and while most people like to blob out in this free zone, the more luxurious pay to hire a beach lounger with sun umbrella. It was still cool walking along the boulevard, the whole strip seemed very Americanised with the expensive beach side cafes, massive palm trees and casinos. We went back to yesterday’s little markets for lunch, and found a very popular store there selling all sorts of local traditional foods. Me and Shal tried socca (a Nice specialty – Provencial chickpea flour pancakes/crepes), deep fried zucchini flowers and an assortment of stuffed vegetables. So good!! We came back to our hotel to get ready for an afternoon in Monaco – the second smallest country in the world (under 2km squared) only surpassed by the Vatican City. Really weird that now I have been to the two smallest countries in the world! Monaco is famous for the late model turned actress turned Princess Grace Kelly, and also the most central part of the city-state Monte Carlo which houses the world famous Casino. After figuring out the windy confusing roads (no signposts, lots of dead ends) we managed to get into town and up the hill to the Palais Princier area, which had a fabulous view over the harbour and city. Monaco from above is a very steep cliff town, with expensive houses, a bit of high rise, and a harbour filled with super yachts. The relatively peaceful environment is only broken by the sounds of disgustingly expensive zooming around the racetrack roads. There were cute little alley ways with little eateries; tempting us to get crepes and ice cream. We walked back down, around the lower town area a bit and then made our way up to the other side – Monte Carlo. Here’s where it was all happening! The common car here was a Ferrari, such a crazy sight seeing the world’s most expensive cars lined up. It was actually quite a sick display of wealth, but all the same we loved it and got our share of photos. The Monte Carlo casino is an elaborate baroque building and I was quite excited to go in, however there was an entry fee and with our amateur gambling abilities we decided to give it a miss. We found a smaverage place for dinner down from the casino plaza, then had a walk around the top again; saw Buddha Bar etc. After dinner we played a bit of pokies at the not so big casino; me and Nush lucking out leaving Shal to win big time doubling her 5 euro starter. Woop woop! We got back to Nice just before 11. It was a crazy surreal afternoon/night!

Day 39, 07-08

Went back to the local, to try their pain aux raisins and an apricot tarte. HOMG apricot tarte was absolutely spectacular. The pastry was buttery, light and flaky, and there was some sort of hazelnut custard bottom, and lots of juicy tasty apricots on top. Today we trained to Cannes, another beach town along the Cote d’Azur. Cannes is most well known for it’s Film Festival. We did a mini walking tour of the town – through the old town fresh produce markets, up to the Museum which had a great view from above, and then back down to the beach. The heat was ridiculous and we were pretty dead by the time we came back down. After passing by an old building adorned with Cannes Cinemas paintings on it, it came to us that we needed to see Harry Potter 7 right then and there. We found the actual cinema and at 2pm we were seated, ready to watch Version Originale in 3D! Besides a wee lame nap in the middle, the fight was tres amusant. We walked over to the beach in the late afternoon – similar to Nice in craziness but this time there was sand, music blaring from a pontoon in the sea, lots more palms and lots more people. The Europeans might not have said this beach was full but it sure looked like it! Orange brown bodies everywhere!! We trained back to Nice for night and had dinner along the main restaurant strip – I finally got to try Moules Frites (mussels and fries specialty of Nice) (onion and white wine sauce – pretty good but not amazing). We shared profiteroles and tiramisu for dessert – the profiteroles mustn’t have been served straight away as the ice cream was half melted so by the time it got to us we were at it like dawgs racing to get the delicious chocolately delights in. us. now. The tiramisu was good – with more marscapone, less liquid and one more layer it would have been perfect.