Straight from the Home of the Rich and Famous
Well here we are, in the beautiful French Riviera...Home to many Hollywood stars, ambassadors, and countless other affluent dignitaries from across the globe. We arrived here late yesterday night and checked into a happening hostel at the top of Nice. Basically, the French Riviera is made of of three main parts. Nice, which is the main point, Cannes which is to the west, and Monaco which is to the east.
This morning we wanted to accomplish three things, go the the chateaux atop of a mountain overlooking the entirety of Nice city as well as the ocean front. We also wanted to the Cannes ( home of the Cannes film festival), and Monaco (where the world famous Monte Carlo Casino is).
This morning we showered, ate breakfast at the hostel and headed directly to the Nice train station to book our eurail seats for the rest of Europe. The way the eurail works is that even if you have a eurail pass, you still have to make reservations for each leg of the trip, which costs anywhere from 3 euros to 24 euros. For example today we booked trains to Florence, Rome, Venice, Munich, and Prague.
After this was done we were already running a bit late and decided to walk the Nice beach all the way to the foot of the chateaux hill. The Nice beach had beautiful water and many tourists, however one downfall was that the entire beach was rocks instead of sand which made it uncomfortable to walk. Nevertheless it was great scenery. We also stopped by at a local French Bakery to indulge in some typical French baguettes.
We then climbed numerous hills to reach the beautiful chateaux. This area used to be occupied by an ancient chateaux, but today it is just a ruin which has been converted into a modern day chateaux complete with a waterfall. Form this point you can see the entire city of Nice and its beaches of stunningly blue water.
From here we took a two hour bus ride to Cannes, which we heard had the best beaches in the area. These beaches were pristine and comprised of sand rather than rocks, so needless to say we were anxious to see these beaches. Once we got there, the sun was a bit overed and most people had left so it wasn't as exciting as we had imagined. However we did walk past numerous Bentley's and Ferrarri's as we walked by the Ritz Carleton hotel overlooking the beach. The shops were all psh and expensive and yachts littered the port--this was truly the home of the rich and famous!
We caught the 9 pooh bullet train back to Nice and after much debate decided Monte Carlo was not going to happen. Since it was about an hour away and the last train was at 5 am we would have to spend the entire night there, we decided against it. This was one of the first times on our trip something we really wanted to see didn't work into the plans. For those of you who don't know, Monte Carlo is like the Vegas of the world and is completely high stakes gambling..So maybe its a good thing we didn't go :)
As our time in France draws to a close, we turn our attention towards Italy (we depart to Florence tomorrow at 10 am.) Finally, we are all hoping for some delicious food because so far food in England, France, and Spain has been quite bland.
One final note...GO MAVS..I am jealous of all of you who get to watch the games...keep us posted! Until next time...keep checking the blogs. Thanks!
-The Eurotravelers
This morning we wanted to accomplish three things, go the the chateaux atop of a mountain overlooking the entirety of Nice city as well as the ocean front. We also wanted to the Cannes ( home of the Cannes film festival), and Monaco (where the world famous Monte Carlo Casino is).
This morning we showered, ate breakfast at the hostel and headed directly to the Nice train station to book our eurail seats for the rest of Europe. The way the eurail works is that even if you have a eurail pass, you still have to make reservations for each leg of the trip, which costs anywhere from 3 euros to 24 euros. For example today we booked trains to Florence, Rome, Venice, Munich, and Prague.
After this was done we were already running a bit late and decided to walk the Nice beach all the way to the foot of the chateaux hill. The Nice beach had beautiful water and many tourists, however one downfall was that the entire beach was rocks instead of sand which made it uncomfortable to walk. Nevertheless it was great scenery. We also stopped by at a local French Bakery to indulge in some typical French baguettes.
We then climbed numerous hills to reach the beautiful chateaux. This area used to be occupied by an ancient chateaux, but today it is just a ruin which has been converted into a modern day chateaux complete with a waterfall. Form this point you can see the entire city of Nice and its beaches of stunningly blue water.
From here we took a two hour bus ride to Cannes, which we heard had the best beaches in the area. These beaches were pristine and comprised of sand rather than rocks, so needless to say we were anxious to see these beaches. Once we got there, the sun was a bit overed and most people had left so it wasn't as exciting as we had imagined. However we did walk past numerous Bentley's and Ferrarri's as we walked by the Ritz Carleton hotel overlooking the beach. The shops were all psh and expensive and yachts littered the port--this was truly the home of the rich and famous!
We caught the 9 pooh bullet train back to Nice and after much debate decided Monte Carlo was not going to happen. Since it was about an hour away and the last train was at 5 am we would have to spend the entire night there, we decided against it. This was one of the first times on our trip something we really wanted to see didn't work into the plans. For those of you who don't know, Monte Carlo is like the Vegas of the world and is completely high stakes gambling..So maybe its a good thing we didn't go :)
As our time in France draws to a close, we turn our attention towards Italy (we depart to Florence tomorrow at 10 am.) Finally, we are all hoping for some delicious food because so far food in England, France, and Spain has been quite bland.
One final note...GO MAVS..I am jealous of all of you who get to watch the games...keep us posted! Until next time...keep checking the blogs. Thanks!
-The Eurotravelers
posted by Jay Tatachar at
6:27 PM
