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.
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Catch you soon
Stuoobs
xxx
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