Advertisement
Published: July 16th 2011
Edit Blog Post
We arrived at Nice airport in France on Saturday afternoon and after one of the more ridiculous flights we had endured, we collected our bags and headed for the bus stop. But firstly, I suppose I should tell you why the flight was bad.
It all started when we arrived at Barcelona Airport that morning at around 6:30am so we would be on time for our 8:45am flight. We knew we had to fly via Dusseldorf in Germany which was already stupid as this made the travel about 8 times longer than a direct flight to Nice.
We waited in line to check in and load our bags and waited for nearly an hour and a half without moving because the computer was having trouble with flights connecting in the US. So finally one of the airport monkeys had the same bright idea that we both had an hour earlier, to open another desk and put through all the passengers that weren’t connecting in the US and sort out the problems without holding everyone else up.
We finally got our boarding passes and headed towards customs which went off without a hitch thank god.
We then got onto the plane and
proceeded to wait on the tarmac for another hour while the engineers fixed some problem. Mind you no one made an announcement in any language to let anyone know what was going on which just infuriated everyone more. So we finally take off and it becomes apparent that the pilot is either Michael J Fox or they obtained their pilots license from Kelloggs. The only flight I have ever been on when the pilot decided to bank left at 45 degrees while we are still over the runway!!! The rest of the flight was fine except for a little turbulence (or maybe Parkinson’s I’m still not sure). The landing however projected the same horror onto the entire cabin as the takeoff did, and I was pretty sure we were going to die with how much the plane was swaying as we landed. Amazingly the aircraft stopped in one piece and we got off as soon as we could in Germany. We had a bite to eat and then headed back to our gate for our connecting flight to Nice in France. The same airline as before, Air Berlin was responsible for another 30 minute delay on boarding time but at
least we had a slightly more comfortable journey.
We touched down in Nice and then waited what seems like forever for our bags. This was probably made more uncomfortable as we were waiting beside some German dickhead businessman whom Sarah had spilt food all over while adjusting her seat on the aircraft.
So there we are that was just the flight.
We then got our bus to Monaco from just outside the airport and were dropped off at the tourist information centre. We then walked to the train station where we caught a cab thinking it would only be a few euros as we were less than a km away. NOPE! €15.00 later and yet another argument with someone, we were at the hotel and only 500m away. Little did we know that we could just walk up two flights of stairs from the train station and our hotel was practically in front of us? Monaco is not somewhere you want to catch a taxi. Robbery is the only word that can describe how they charge their fares!
We checked into our hotel which was on the border of France and Monaco in a little town called Beausoleil, although still
walking distance from the tourism centre of Monaco. The receptionist was so helpful. She gave us an idea of where everything was from the hotel and told us where all the main attractions were and which ones were worthwhile!
the rest of our afternoon was pretty much settling in and relaxing as we had just spent nearly 12 hours travelling to somewhere that would take a normal and probably more mentally stable person around 1 hour.
That night we headed out to the Indian restaurant down the road and got some dinner and then to the supermarket to pick up some food as, much to our delight, our hotel came with a kitchen.
The next morning we were up around 9am to make some eggs Benedict as we could now cook!!! After a delicious brekky, we headed towards the Jardins Exotique to see the prehistoric caves. We got there only to find that the EFTPOS machine wasn’t working and that the lady wanted us to walk another half hour each way in the 30 degree heat to get money out. After kindly rejecting her ridiculous offer, we headed back towards the city centre of Monte Carlo. Here we strolled
around the waterfront and Sarah got to bathe her feet in the water in the harbour. I was wearing shoes so this wasn’t going to happen. After this we headed along the route of the Monte Carlo Formule 1 track which is basically like the old Surfers Paradise track except tighter corners and more things to crash into… like a harbour!!! We then thought the heat was getting a bit too much so we got some souvenirs and headed back to the Indian restaurant to pick up some dinner and back to the hotel. The rest of the afternoon was spent booking the rest of our accommodation in Italy. That night we just had a quiet night in.
The next morning we had yet another home cooked breakfast and had another day of lazing around. We didn’t go out until that night when we headed back down to the city centre to see the famous Monte Carlo Casino and the Louis XV restaurant. The casino wanted to charge us €10 for the privilege of taking our money when we gamble so we thought better of it. We then passed the restaurant which is reported as the most expensive restaurant
in all of France and Monaco. Judging by the violin playing waiters and the line up of cars that would make even James Bond jealous, I think whoever said it was the most expensive is right! We then walked back towards a gelato shop for some ice cream that we saw earlier to find it was closing. No ice cream at 11:30pm on a Monday night, how dare they!!! We headed back to the hotel and spent the next few hours reminiscing over old photos from when we first met and from all the nights at Allister Crescent, (my old house).
We woke up on our last morning and got ready and packed our things. This time we did walk down the stairs and caught a train to Vertimiglia on the border of Italy and France. We missed the first train by a few minutes but there was another one coming so we thought it would make no difference to our connecting train to Milano in Italy. It did. A very big difference! I sit here writing this blog as I now have 3 hours to kill until the next train to Milano arrives.
Well that’s it for
now, hope you are all doing well? Sarah and I miss you all extraordinarily and sometimes wish home wasn’t so far away so we could drop in and see everyone. Not too long now, Sarah tells me we have 100 days left. Already 44 days gone!!! Time does fly when you are having fun.
Anyway I’ll be sure to check in from Milano in about a week or so.
Au Revoir!
Love Dan & Sarah
xoxo
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0636s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb