Link to all of the picturesSo I went to Nice, France for a week and was in LA for a week before that. LA was really nice and it's always good to see close friends.
I flew from LA to New York on "Song" the low cost airline created by Delta. I had never been on Song before but they seem to be trying to compete with the likes of Southwest, which I have traveled with a few times. Song seems to be trying a little too hard though. They played techno music during the beginning and end of the flight which was a little annoying. No first class either, not that I ride up there often. But they offer the only mile high martini bar but I still got the feeling that the flight attendants were told they had to be cheery. I will say that the plane was fairly new and had a nice in-seat video system which included live satellite tv. It was funny to watch it lose the signal as the plane banked and went through clouds. My flight was made more pleasant by a fun couple in front of me that busted out some vodka. What better way to start 13 hours of flight time?
I arrived in Nice early in the morning and had some minor trouble in the hotel. My debit card wasn't working so I had to pay them cash for my entire week's stay. That wiped out my pocket cash and I was glad I exchanged more dollars for Euros at the airport when the clerk kindly suggested that I could avoid a transaction fee if I converted more. So now I'm practically broke with a debit card that doesn't seem to work. What should I do? How about go to the beach? I might as well since I'm a block away.
Fortunately I didn't see any schlongs but there were a handful of dudes in speedos that I could have done without. But all in all it was ok, the tougher thing to handle was the beach itself. It was all large pebbles with no sand and it looked strange to see people lying on it. Here's a picture from Promenade des Anglais:
It was nice to be on the Mediterranean though, the temperature was about 80 most days although it was a little humid.
Back at the hotel I had my first run in with large smoking population of France. I requested a non-smoking room and told them I needed Wi-Fi (wee-fee as they pronounce it) but they informed me that they didn't have rooms that had both at the time. I decided to try a smoking room and it was fine, I never would have guessed it was a smoking room. It probably helped that the hotel was new (Mercure Nice Cap Aeroport 3000). There are good number of smokers in France but it wasn't overwhelming and most of them are courteous which is fortunate since you could smoke at all of the restaurants I went to.
People were friendly, I hear people are much ruder in Paris. Maybe that's because Paris gets more American tourists whereas Nice has more European tourists. I know a little bit of French so that probably helped. I even got to laugh with the waiter as a British couple ordered "Fill-ette Mig-none" next to me. They were a nice couple though and were visiting from Wales. I like the cozy seating at most restaurants, makes it very easy to meet people but it could be annoying at times if you didn't want to be that close to someone or if they were smoking while you ate.
Speaking of the restaurants, I've never eaten better in my life. There would be just restaurant after restaurant in some areas and it wouldn't matter which one I went to, the food was always good. There were very few chains as well. I'm not a huge wine drinker but I always had something they would recommend. I love sitting outside to eat and they feel the same way, everyone sits outside and it's pleasant to take your time with your meal (the service usually prevents you from rushing).
I sat down for lunch at one cafe and they asked me what I wanted to drink and I instinctively ordered a beer (this was on my 2nd day there) and when they came back with the beer they asked me if I wanted wine to go along with it. Yes! An excuse to double fist
My hamburger was raw, no cheese was available (I thought this was the land of cheese
and didn't have a bun (I thought they love bread here
but that was still a very good meal:
Don't worry I learned to order more properly food-wise after that. I got a pizza at the hotel one night when I was tired and it came unsliced and with a dinner knife. That was a little difficult. When I order random drinks in Austin people look at my funny (the ones that don't know me) but ordering wine that way didn't throw them off at all.
I rented a car while I was there and had requested a air-conditioning and automatic transmission. My vehicle did have a/c but was a stick shift, no biggie since I've never owned an automatic in my life but I wasn't expecting this:
A very fancy Citroen micro-bus! I wasn't going to pick up any chicks in this car but then again most of the cars there were puny by American standards.
Driving was fun, at first I didn't like the traffic circles but they are nice when you're not sure which way to go since you can just keep going in circles until you make up your mind. I'm sure some of the other drivers were wondering what the hell I was doing. The lanes have tendencies to end or become turn only lanes but there is very little honking and people just let you in. I guess the French are still good at surrendering. Just kidding.
It can be a little difficult to navigate though since the signs don't use simple terms like north or west. You have to know the name of the towns in the direction you are going. For example to go to Cannes, you need to know to take A8 to Antibes and the towns that follow before Cannes.
The toll booths convienently take credit cards and are very fast. As quickly as you insert it in the machine will pop it back out to you. Unfortunately I don't know how much it was charging me so maybe there's a reason why they accept credit cards. Oh well I hate coins and throw them away all time which really pisses off bums after I tell them I have no change for them.
GSM phones are great, when I arrived at the airport I was able to get a free local French cell number which was much cheaper to use than my home cell service. Just pop in a new sim card give them a credit card to charge you when you leave and you're set. I did have my Lingo internet phone with me which made for a fun setup.
To use my internet phone I had to do this: laptop getting wireless internet via 802.11b (2.4GHz) sharing that connection with the laptop's wired network port, plug that port into my internet phone adapter and then plug my cordless phone into internet phone adapter. Since the cordless phone I brought was a 2.4GHz phone using it had the fun effect of degrading the wireless internet signal that I needed to use the phone! Fortunately it didn't seem to cause too much trouble.
Turns out I got lucky the week I was in Nice. Next to Bastille Day, one of the biggest days to go out is the first day of summer on June 21st when they have a big music festival. There were a TON of people out at the restaurants and some areas even had a Brazilian Carnaval feel to them. That was on a Tuesday and my European sales guy told me when we had to go out for the festival and I'm glad he knew about it.
I went to Cannes one night and it was nice, had another fantastic dinner at a place called Farfalla's. Cheese plates for dessert rock. There was some goofy advertister's exhibition going on but I could see how the area would come alive for the film festival.
Later I went over to Monaco. The drive to it was amazing, I went through the mountains and for the way back to Nice I drove along the sea.
They say Monaco is one of the richest areas on earth and I believe it. I've never seen so many Bentley's, Roll's, Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, and other fancy cars around. Then to see the yachts, my gosh! Check out the big index of pics too but this was one of many lines of nice Ferrari's in front of the Monte Carlo:
I met some couples that had driven down from London for some kind of charity rally and we fawned over some of the cars there but I think they came down in some fancy rides of their own.
I'm not much of a gambler but I felt obligated to go into the Monte Carlo, there were a huge number of people just hanging around outside checking out the people and cars. It was 10 Euros (about $13) just to go into the casino. I went inside and watched some table games and then followed some high school girls (at least in appearance to me) into the slot area. I played for about 5 minutes before winning $150 on a 50 cent slot. I suck at gambling so I took my money and left. It turns out the extra money was useful since Monaco was pretty expensive. I had a nice dinner on the harbor which took a fair amount of my winnings. After that I asked the waiter for a bar recommendation and he sent me to a place called Stars and Bars. I guarantee no one there knew what the name really meant. They kicked me out at 2am but told me there was another place just a block away that was open until 5am. Turns out it was dance club but at this point I didn't have a choice so I went in and actually had a good time dancing which is rare for me. I went home at 5am with no money left, Corona's were about $8, ouch! I tried to ask the girl I'd been dancing with to come back to my hotel but I blame her amused response on the poor quality of my French not my dancing ability. Front of Monte Carlo:
I walked across all of Monaco which took a few hours but it was nice to see some of the more residential areas. My hotel was only a few meters from the start of the Monaco Grand Prix and had a nice 2nd floor balcony, kinda reminded me of good times in New Orleans.
The other cool thing you can do in Monaco is that instead of driving half an hour to get to the airport you can take a helicopter that you gets you there in 6 minutes! I didn't ask how much that cost but judging by the parking lot...
On the way back from Monaco I stopped in the small village of Eze on the top of a mountain. It was a hike to get up to the top but the view was worth it.
I had a 6am flight leaving Nice and ended up staying up all night and the night before was my 5am night in Monaco but that led to me being able to sleep the majority of my trip home. It was also sweet to listen to Horns baseball game via the internet in the middle of the night when they won Game 1 of the finals of College World Series. I got back just in time to see the win in the Austin airport. What a nice treat to return to!
Nice, Cannes, and Monaco were all worth visiting and I'd easily go back again and I'd recommend it to anyone else.
Cheers!
Link to all of the pictures
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