NICE

After Paris, we all caught our overnight train down to Nice, as easy as this may sound, as the decision was made hastily by the others to join us, all was not as organised as we perhaps would normally have it, and in the mix-up the train was booked for the wrong month. Luckily after some pleading the lovely French man let them on the train anyway as it was not sold out.
We were very lucky in Nice with where we were staying, as we were 4 we were able to book an apartment 10 min walk from the beach and in the town centre. We hadn’t had much planned for Nice as we wanted it to be about relaxation & the beach, but our contact for the apartment Frederic was amazing & filled us in on a few great tips including 1euro bus trips to Monaco-Monte Carlo
We spent most of our days strolling the town, window shopping & relaxing on the beach, once we got used to how to of course. The beach was a very new experience for us...it was a cobblestone beach. The stones are quite large and although all the locals seem to have the hang of it, we were all making quite the fool of ourselves oohing & ouching our way into the water, and from there it only got harder. You have the option of swimming, or staying out. Wading in the cobblestone water is very difficult as your footing is constantly challenged with the movement ^ it can become quite painful. I think the Europeans must have tougher feet – or better balance, something up on us either way.
While Benny & I practiced our sun smarts, Blairy decided he would be fine without & it was quite amusing for a day or so as he had a really red belly & legs. To our dismay though, he did tan & not peel, bastard!
The beach area is full of shops & cafe’s and i think we did fairly well to eat as much French food as possible and fit in our daily glass of wine (however long it took to get the cork out without a corkscrew)
Our day trip to Monaco was something else, it is an absolutely stunning city, and we thank Chris for telling us to go. We “hiked” to the top of the hill and took in the breathtaking views then worked our way down, around the bay, through the GP course, and the pits, and out to the casino & park on the other side. We were very lucky in some ways that they were setting up for the GP as we got to do some things I think were fairly unique. We got to go through all the old GP cars some dating back to the 30’s as they were having races with the older ones in the week leading up to the F1 GP. We also got to walk through the pits which was really cool as it already had the names of the spaces & so forth, and we got to walk out onto the “world’s most famous hairpin” I actually wasn’t that sure of the title, but I’m sure it has merit.
With the good though comes the bad, and i think we missed out on the beauty in some ways as everything had the stands up & the park had portaloos everywhere and such, regardless though it was amazing.
Our last night in Nice, our last day in France we decided we had to have some real champagne. I have never actually drunk champagne before & it was definitely nice to do so in Nice, not to mention it was quite a bit cheaper than home!

So we finished up with a bit of class, Blair & Pippa shelled out on the Antipasti Platter & we enjoyed our champagne & wine & our last night together.
The next morning we said goodbye to Pippa, Blair & France & Hello Italy.