The Fabulous French Riviera

             A week and a half ago, my friend and I went to Nice for the long weekend.  We spent five days in the beautiful French Riviera. 

Monaco

            Whenever we travel together, we have found that something always goes wrong but ends up miraculously working out.  This trip was no different.  Our train trip took about eight hours with two transfers.  We got off the train for our first transfer in Marseille only to find out that our next train was late, meaning we would miss our third train transfer in Toulon.  On an impulse we found another train to Toulon that left in less than five minutes and hopped on.  We were apparently not the only ones with this idea as the train was packed. 

Casino at Monte Carlo

Safe on the train, I decided to munch on some pretzels I had brought with me, but I pulled them out upside down and spilled hundreds of pretzels all over the floor.  It was hilariously embarrassing.  We could barely move it was so crowded, but we managed to pick them all up.  Luckily, the people on the train were very nice about it! We didn’t get a single dirty look! In addition to spilling pretzels all over the place, we were also in the way the whole time.  The train conductor had to hop over our bags every time we stopped and he had to get off onto the platform, but he could not have been more good-natured about it. 

Grand Prix Racetrack

            When we finally arrived in Nice, we found the hostel near the train station.  We walked into a nice lobby full of business men in suits checking in.  We automatically assumed we were in the wrong place and stood around like idiots for about 10 minutes trying to figure out if it was our hotel or not.  Checking in was an interesting experience.  When I checked in, I discovered that the man at the desk did not keep anyone’s reservations on file and instead asked me how much it said to pay when I booked it online.  I offered to pull up the reservation on my email, but the wifi wouldn’t work.  He didn’t require it anyway.  We also had to pay for our four night stay in cash, which we obviously didn’t have on us at the time.  It was strange.  The hostel was on the top floors of the hotel and was actually not too bad.  We met some cool people that stayed in our room with us.  One was even from Arkansas! I was overjoyed to find a fellow Razorback half-way around the world!

            Our first night, we took a walk around Nice and ate gelato by the beach.  We soon found out that there were lots of creepy guys in Nice that tried to hit on us and ask for our names.  We thus assumed new identities.  My new name became Caroline Craft for the remainder of the trip.  Yes, if you’ve seen Mean Girls, that happens the name of the mathlete that loses to Lindsay Lohan at the end of the movie.  

            The first day, we went to Monaco.  I can understand why the wealthy have dubbed it their personal playground – it was so beautiful! We saw the casino in Monte Carlo and walked along the beach.  My friend had a bit of a bad habit of cutting off people’s heads when snapping photos, so at her request, we had an impromptu photography lesson in Monte Carlo. We also saw the most extravagant children’s birthday party of all time.  It was exquisitely decorated complete with pink marshmallows on the tables and a giant inflatable pink castle on the beach in Monaco. 

            We then proceeded to the Japanese Gardens.  It was a lovely little park so obviously we started taking a bazillion photos.  The most adorable park ranger basically followed us everywhere we went and offered to take photos of the two of us together.  He was so sweet! He even gave each of us a lovely flower from the gardens.  It was a lovely time and the weather could not have been more perfect. 

Nice Old Town

            After that we walked along the Grand Prix racetrack set up for the Formula One Race the following weekend.  It was surreal! We then climbed a hill to see the old town and royal palace.  The views were incredible.  Then we walked through a beautiful park and headed back to Nice.  That night we had an amazing dinner, and I tried Magret de Canard (a.k.a. duck) for the first time.  It was so delicious!

View of the City

            The next day was not quite as nice weather wise so we spent the day shopping and exploring Nice.  We went to the open air market and got some fruit for a picnic lunch on the beach.  Then we climbed up the hill that overlooks the city and spent some time up there.  We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in the Old Town.  We found lots of little interesting shops and even stopped for crepes and coffee at an amazing little creperie. That evening we went out for seafood.  Again, the food blew me away. I had shrimp and red snapper.

Antibes

            The next day we went to Antibes and Cannes.  The weather when we got to Antibes was awful. It was terribly cold, windy, and rainy.  We were expecting sun as we hadn’t been able to check the weather forecast since Wednesday since the hostel’s internet didn’t work.  We still managed to have a good time and enjoy the lovely little town.  We went to an incredible market and looked around.  We also found a neat little English book store that we spent some time in.  Then we took a long walk by the exquisite coastline.  It was beautiful.

"La Sirga" Cast and Crew

            After that we headed to Cannes for the Cannes film festival.  We ate pizza for lunch before meeting our friend who was there with his company to throw a big a-list party on the rooftop of a castle the next day.  We walked around the festival, spent some time on the beach, and went to go see a film.  It was a Columbian film called La Sirga about a girl who loses her family and goes to live with her uncle.  The best part of the day was the atmosphere of the festival.  There were so many people there from all over the world and there was just a really neat vibe. 

We then went to the red carpet to sneak a peek at some movie stars.  We managed to see Shia LaBeouf which was pretty cool.  My friend had gotten to see the cast of Madagascar the night before.  That evening, we stuck around to see a screening of a film on the beach; however, unfortunately the showing was canceled due to the weather. 

By the red carpet

Beach in Cannes

In Cannes, we had some interesting experiences unrelated to the awesome festival.  First, as we were walking past a group of business men chatting on the sidewalk, my sweater got hooked onto the zipper on one of the men’s bags.  He didn’t notice, but I was stuck there frantically trying to unhook myself.  It was so embarrassing! The second involved being attacked by water balloon fire from the roof of a building on our way back to the train station that evening. The next day we headed back to Toulouse.  The trip was absolutely incredible – beautiful places, lovely people, and lots of cool experiences!