I want one of those.

As a surprise for Cazzie's birthday, I organised for both of us to spend 4 days on the South Coast of France in Nice. My parents have been there and so have Andy and Karen and the reviews were excellent.

The first thing Cazzie knew about our trip was when I told her on the Sunday evening. This gave her 2 days to do her hair, pack and re-pack. I hadn't paid for us to take suitcases on the EasyJet flight from Liverpool, so we needed to fit 4 days worth of stuff in hand luggage.

Our flight was due to leave at 7.15am from Liverpool which meant a 4.30am start. After another seamless check in and security check, we had a few minutes to grab a breakfast before we were due to board. It's only 2 hours to Nice and once there, it was only a 15 min taxi ride to our hotel. We arrived at the hotel at about 11am, but we were unable to check in, so we dumped out stuff with reception and headed out to see what Nice had to offer.

We walked along the sea front, known as the Promenade Des Anglais. The beaches here are pebble ones so they are not great to walk on. It was funny to see the sun worshippers hobbling back from swimming in the sea and back to their towels. It looked very painful! We had our "beach" day planned on Thursday and it was something we were not relishing!

Anyway, we kept walking and decided to divert off the main hike and into the back streets. These were typically Mediterranean. Long narrow streets with little shops, cafes and boutiques dotted all along, with apartments above them. It was lovely. We wound our way through these streets, often stumbling across a little square or plaza with a statue, monument or fountain in it. The only hazard was the cars and crazy people on mopeds that tried their best to knock everyone over. After about 2 hours of wandering, we came across a large area called Rue De France that had restaurants all around the outside and a market selling everything in the middle. Throw in a whole load of bars and a sprinkling of street entertainers and you have a hive of activity! We decided that this was a great place to grab a spot of lunch before heading back to our hotel. We checked in and took full advantage of the roof top pool area that our hotel had. After an afternoon of snoozing and sunning, it was time to shower and head out for something to eat.

This was the greatest sunbed ever - all sunbeds should have a pull down face shade.

We were now ready to eat and couldn't think of anywhere better to go than the place with all the bars and restaurants. estopped off for a bottle of wine on the way and after an hour arrived at the Rue des France again where we found that all the market traders has packed up for the night and all their stalls had been taken over by the restaurants and the whole area was an outside eating area. It was great - but so amazingly busy for a Tuesday and we couldn't work out why. We waited a bit for a table and once sat, tucked into another bottle of wine before ordering pizza.

Towards the end our our meal, we kept hearing loud bangs which turned out to be fireworks, so we quickly settled up the bill and went to see them. There were 1000's of people watching this very impressive firework display, so we figured out that this must be some sort of celebration / anniversary. It turned out that it was Bastille Day, which the French seem to take seriously. The best part about this was on our walk home, we came across a beautiful fountain that we had seen earlier on the in the day and someone had poured a bottle of washing up liquid in it with terrific results.

I don't think I could ever tire of seeing this happen. One more bottle of wine on the way home and it was time for bed. The next day was soon upon us, and after clearing the hangover we hopped upon the Nice tourist trolley which took you around the city in about 45 mins. We discovered that we had been to about 75% of the places on our walk the day before, but enjoyed it nevertheless. Back to the hotel in the afternoon for more sunbathing before heading back out to the Rue Des France for more food. Muscles were on the agenda tonight and were excellent. A couple more bottles of wine and bed again as we had to be up early tomorrow to catch the ferry to Monaco.

Thursday morning – Cazzie’s birthday- came around very quickly and neither of us embraced it with open arms! We grabbed some breakfast on the run from the local boulangerie and headed to the port to catch our ferry to Monaco. Cazzie did not enjoy the ferry ride too much and spent most of it below deck running between the comfy ferry seats and the not so comfy toilet seats! The ferry got us into Monaco at 10am and we were given 7 hours to explore and our first point of call was the changing of the guard at the palace. After a coffee we made the steep climb up the steps to the palace where all took place at 11.55 sharp!! Again, like Nice there were 100's of little side streets with cafes, souvenir shops and boutiques. After witnessing the changeover, we headed to Monte Carlo. Our route took us past the port and this is where I fell in love. I want a boat. Nothing too fancy, but I still want one. These things were amazing and there were loads of them, so they can’t be that expensive can they??? The most expensive one we saw was £7m and I'm convinced it was worth it. These beauties have at least 4 levels, bars, leather sofas, sun decks, hot tubs, huge bedrooms, lcd tvs, satellite TV, lounges, dining rooms, kitchens...the list goes on. I decided that I couldn't afford one but how about hiring one for 2 weeks and port hopping around the Med??? All I would need is 6 other people and surely it would be affordable......anyone got a spare £50,000 for 2 weeks rent??? Oh well - dream over, but here's one to drool over.



So, we arrived in Monte Carlo and under recommendation for Andy, Pezza, Mum and Dad, we plonked ourselves down at the Cafe D'Paris in Casino Square for a drink and to people watch. This place ooooooozes wealth. Not the flash cash you see in the trendy bars in Manchester or London with people poncing around in their Mercedes and BMW's, but the kind of people that have much more money than they know what to do with. Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris are the norm here. People are minted and they like to show it. Tourists come here just to see these people and how much money there is. After our drink, we wandered around to see the Prada. Gucci, Cartier and Christian Dior shops before it was time to walk back to our ferry.

After another couple bottle of wines with dinner we were done.

Thursday was our last day in Nice and after we took advantage of the hotel buffet we checked out and headed to the beach to top up the tan. As luck would have it, this was the only cloudy day of our holiday, but the clouds soon dispersed and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon on the private hotel beach.

Overall, Nice is great. Only 2 hours away, cheap to get to, great weather, lots to do and I was surprised how reasonably priced everything was in there as well. If you are looking for a quick 3 - 4 days away, Nice is the place for you.

Finally - if you want to get regular updates whenever I update my blog, just fill in your email address on the top right of this page and follow the instructions - just make sure the email doesn’t end up in your "spam" folder!!

Catch you soon

Stuoobs

xxx

The final leg....

Hands up who knew that Philadelphia was America's first Capital City? My hands are not up. It served as the Capital during the first Revolution. This is where Betty Ross sewed the first American Flag and where the Liberty Bell is. The Liberty Bell is one of the most prominent symbols of the American Revolutionary War and has been described as an icon of liberty and justice. It was the Capital for 10 years while they built Washington DC. The place is full of many different cultures - there is a China Town, a Little Italy and numerous communities.

Cazzie and I arrived here in Philly on Thursday 25th June for our final 3 days in the States. We did not know what to expect here either. We manage to find the hotel with no problem at all as we had hired a car to take us from Washington and had TomTom to guide us. After a very easy check in where the hotel offered us a suite for $20 a night, we had to return the hire car to the Avis centre. The TomTom new exactly where this is but we needed to get gas. I plugged in "gas stations" in the sat nav and it brought up quite a few in the area. I picked the one en route and followed the instructions. I do not know why the TomTom would lie to me but after 15 minutes of dashing about to find fuel (due to the fact that we needed to get the car back to the Avis garage in 20 mins), we decided that it would be cheaper to return the car half full of gas that risk getting charged another days hire. Upon our arrival at the Avis garage, we were told that they shut in 2 hours so we had time to fill up. We were informed that there is only 1 gas station within the Philadelphia city limits. Again, why would my TomTom lie???

All got sorted and we took the short walk to the hotel. I have stayed in a few hotels in my time, but the Sofitel in Philly has the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. I'm not sure it's worth the visit alone, but it's a good tip. I would like to mention at this point that we learnt that Michael Jackson had died. It was quite good (if that's the right expression) that we were in the US and especially Philly. There was a huge African American community here and there seemed to be a really positive reaction to his death. Every 10 minutes we heard a car with it's window's down blasting out Jackson songs, all the TV channels had 24 hour coverage and it was the talk of the town.

As it was late on we walked to China Town, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then we hit the comfy bed.

Friday we were up and about early and headed to the Art Museum. The steps up here are the ones made famous by Rocky - the ones he ran up during his training session!
















There was a queue to get your picture taken with the Rocky statue and the obligatory "local" wearing a Rocky T-Shirt trying to screw a dollar out of you for the privilege.

After a long walk in the park that is larger that Central Park in NYC, we headed to the more historical part of town and this is where I decided that the Americans love their water features. It seems around every corner there is another one. This time it was in JFK Plaza. This concluded our stalking of JFK for this trip. In the Plaza there was a free music concert going on and the reason for it was free was that is was performed by kids. They were OK but not good enough for anyone to pay for! The Liberty Bell was next on our list to do followed by a visit to Betty Ross's house. The Liberty Bell was smaller than I imagined and has a huge crack in it. It was only used for a few years before it was silenced. Repairs were carried out a few years later, but cracked again after the first use.
















We had worked up a thirst, so after a quick shower back at the hotel we headed out for food and drink. We had a lovely meal washed down with 2 bottles of wine and asked for direction to a good selection of bars. We tried one or two and ended up in a student bar which was great fun!

The next day involved a lot of walking. Philadelphia, along with many other US cities, has a terrific market called the Reading Market. This place is brilliant serving up dishes from every corner of the world. It was that good we returned the next day for lunch!

It was time to head out and get ourselves a famous Philly Cheese Steak and we had 2 options. We could either eat at Pats-Kings of Steaks or Gino's-The best steak in the world. So did we go for the Kings or the Best. We flipped a coin and it was Pats that got the nod. I don't think it mattered as there were 50 queueing outside each place anyway, so either would have been OK. I ordered a "steak wit American cheese wit mushrooms and fries wit cheese whizz". It was a bit of a panic order but it was worth the 30 mins walk, the 60 mins queue and the worry about finding a toilet for Cazzie. This was the biggest surprise as there was no mad dash and the moment passed.


























Later that evening, Cazzie wanted to go to a wine bar on 13th street - rated in the lonely planet! The barman was a friendly chap who proceeded to inform us that if we waited around for long enough we would see some prostitutes. Not your normal type of prostitute, but midgets or gay transsexuals. After a long discussion, Cazzie decided she didn't want to get one so we headed to our hotel!

After a good night's sleep and another visit to the Reading Market, it was time to head to the airport.

All the pictures can be found here.

Philadelphia didn't seem to be so great at the time, but having written this blog, looked at the pictures and chat with Cazzie about it again , we decided that Philly is a great city to visit. I think it didn't stand out against our visits to Vegas, Washington, Boston and Houston, but it is well worth a few days.

So that concludes my USA blog. We were away for a total of 21 days, visited 6 cities, travelled over 6,400 miles (just in the US), saw 2 baseball games, had the best steak ever at Abe's & Louie, met a lot of new people (and a puppy) and had an amazing time!

I can highly recommend it.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Their Nation's Captial

The next stage of our USA trip took us to Washington DC. The flight from Boston was a short one, but Cazzie still managed to get a good hour's sleep in!

We arrived mid afternoon and decided it would be a good idea to take the subway to our hotel. This seemed like a flawless plan until it was time to get off the subway and walk the "very short distance" to our hotel. After about 30 mins of dragging our ever increasing in weight suitcases around in a very large circle while the temperate got warmer and out clothes wetter, we decided it was time to give in and ask directions. It seemed that we have been doing laps of our hotel!

The hotel was lovely and we managed to check in with no problems. After a quick shower we headed out to have a little wander around while trying not to go and see any of the numerous sights that we had planned to do for the next 2 days. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and a coffee before it was time to meet with Don and Glenna, a couple of my parents friends who live near Washington. We had about 30 mins to kill after getting ready so we popped across the road for a quick drink and this is where we saw that there had been a massive crash on the Subway on the line we were on about 4 hours ago with a few dead and 100's injured! I guess it wouldn't be the same if we visited a country without there being some form of disaster!

The meal with Don and Glenna was lovely. They took us to a suburb of Washington called GeorgeTown where we had Italian, share stories about all our various holidays and future plans, and Don picked up the tab - result! They dropped us back at our hotel just before midnight.

The plan for the next day was to take the hopefully open subway to Union Station which is sort of like Grand Central Station but in DC. This is where we would pick up our tickets for the open top bus tour. The ticket we got was valid for 48 hours and we were delighted it was as there was so much to see and do!

I could detail every single sight we saw, but I think that would even bore me, but there were some real highlights which included Capitol Hill, The White House, The Mall, The Monument, The FBI building and The American History Museum, but there were 2 places that stood out for me, The World War II Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The WW2 Memorial was completed in 2004 (in fact, all the historical building we saw looked like they had just been completed in the last 5 years!), and was there to show all the states that took place during the war. At either end of the monument were the two oceans - Pacific and Atlantic with a fountain in the middle. The whole thing was terrific.













Then there was Arlington National Cemetery. I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really know what this place was all about and the only reason we went there was because it was on the bus route, but I' so glad we did. This is the place where members of the Armed Forces, members of their family and pretty much anyone else connected to a war that the US has been involved in are buried. It receives 4 million visitors a year. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It's 420 acres and I could not even start to guess how may are buried here. It seems as well that any soldier that died while they were actually serving in the forces got one type of headstone and anyone else who used to be a part of the forces got a choice. This is what got me I think.























This was just one view of one area from one direction. And further more, all these headstone and lined up not just horizontally and vertically, but diagonally too. It was stunning, precise, clean and perfectly maintained. There are other nationalities here too including Korean and Japanese.

President JFK is also buried here, and is one of only 2 Presidents to have that honour. We felt like we were stalking him!

Again, I could go on abut what else is here, but if you are interested, follow this link.

That pretty much brings us to our final night in Washington where we headed back to GeorgeTown for dinner and a drink. After an OK meal we found a piano bar - winner. We got right on it despite that fact that the piano dude was awful!! We decided to go for a wander to see if we could find another bar that tickled our fancy, but being America, a lot of that bars are in hotel and restaurants, so we ended up back in the piano bar. In true style, we finished the night sat round the piano, singling very loudly and telling the guy how great he was!

Overall Washington is a great place. You get to visit all the places you see on the telly and there are some lovely areas to shop, eat and drink as well as lots of suburbs, huge parks, endless fountains and monuments. It's well worth spending 3 days here as there is loads to do!

All the pics can be found here.

One funny stories from DC. We knew that Barak Obama was in the White House when we visited it and he was conducting an interview with Good Morning America. Everytime Cazzie saw a black man she asked me "Is that him???"

Now it's off to Philadelphia!!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx