Spring Break; a Novella by Amy: Part 2- Nice

On Sunday(before Easter) we flew out of Nantes to Marseille. Our flight was very early, so we had to walk to the shuttle stop due to the fact that trams were not yet running. It took about 45 minutes to walk to/locate, and other than the fact that we were passing people who were on their way home after a night of celebrating…it was painless. The airport was a joke, I’m not sure why, but they don’t make you take your shoes off in security, my belt didn’t set it off, and Leah forgot to take her liquids out of her bag. Were we stopped? Not.at.all. weird right? Comforting? Not when you’re used to the ocd process that happens in u.s. airports…

Anyway, once we were in Marseille, we waited a little while for the shuttle to take us from one airport to a different one, where we could take a train into town…from the train in town we got on a bigger train towards Nice (rhyming with meese, not mice) and voila. It made for a long day of traveling and things, but about halfway to Nice I could see the coast and beautiful blue Mediterranean out the window…and I knew the travels were worth it.

Once in Nice, we wandered back and forth a few times until trecking uphill to where our hostel was. And by uphill…I mean up the side of a freaking mountain. Le sigh. We made it almost all the way and saw the last stretch of road in between us and our hostel…and it was STEEP. We were all a little out of breath, more than a little tired, and growing cranky, so we decided to sit for a second on the side of the road. Just as we put our stuff down, a van stops and a peppy Australian girl hops out and asks if we’re staying at the Saint Exupery…we were. She laughs and tells us they offer a free shuttle from a tram stop…down the hill…so we pile our bags into the van/shuttle, and squeeze 5 of us into an already full van.

Okay so getting there was a pain, but my god the hostel was the nicest one we stayed at. It was once a monastery, and is now run completely by Australians and is a hostel complete with free wifi, and a few computers. Oh did I mention they give you free breakfast, and during happy hour beer is 1E? If you plan a trip to Nice in the future, I strongly suggest Villa Saint Exupery Gardens…just stay away from the evil cat, he gave us bad juju.

I won’t go into every detail about Nice, because it would take me a very long time, but I will give snipets. We saw all the basic sights, all while trecking up, down and around that damn hill mountain.

We went thru the Roman ruins there, which were actually quite extensive, and the museum was actually very interesting. After the ruins, we wandered down into town and managed to chill at the beach for a long time. While the water was freezing, the sun was out, so we had a nice afternoon enjoying the sun, and I ended up sun burned.  We wandered to the other side of town to check out the port and things, which was of course beautiful.

The next day we hit up the flower market/plain air market to get some souvenirs/ lunch items. We packed a picnic, and got on a bus to Monaco. The ride there was hot, and long…but we drove along the coast the entire way, so it was breathtaking. Once in Monaco, we wandered around and behind the Monte Carlo and eventually sat down on a bench to enjoy our picnic lunch. Monaco was too expensive to actually do much in, but we enjoyed the scenary of stores we’ll never buy things from, and cars we’ll never own. (The main strip was filled with Gucci, Prada, LV, Hermes, and the cars were just as overwhelmingly pricey and unattainable)

Our trip came to an end when we had to pack up and catch our train into Marseille…but that my friends will be another post ;)

Random things learned in nice:

-The beaches are all pebbles..or small rocks that are chalky, and when you lay on them, you end up with white residue on you afterward…also they aren’t all that comfortable.

-Many people will speak English to you, but if you’re on the tram and speaking English, a rather creepy man might stick his face in your hair (or Liana’s) and ask “If you can speak French, why do you speak in English?”….

-Gelato/Ice cream can be found everywhere and it’s delicious.

-They put weird toppings on their pizza; think ground beef and tuna….and when you ask for it without seafood, they still include tuna…

-If a hostel bathroom door doesn’t have a door handle, don’t assume it will open again when it is closed (*cough* Nikki*cough*) It will , in fact, lock you inside of the small room while everyone else laughs and eventually finds a nice Australian to rig the handle enough to get you back out…only to have stupid girls come in at a rando hour of the night to do it again…this time it won’t be as funny, and instead of a peppy Australian, there will be a foreign man repeating how ‘he shouldn’t be in the girls dorm’.

-Australians love Nice. And beer.

-Nikki is a stage 5 mingler, I am about a 1. Which puts me at about awkward turtle mingler.