European Getaway - Day 6 - Nice (and Monaco)

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Day 6 - Nice

Today is our free day on the French Riviera, Most people want to head to the beach today but I’m not fussed about the beach so find a group who want to explore the town. Kristeen, Sam, Jodie and Kayene are my friends for today. We head down to the beach briefly to get some sense of direction. We then head over to a local market place, this is the most typically French thing I have ever seen. There are lovely little stalls selling sweets, fruit and veg, fish, meat, art etc. We cannot help ourselves and buy fruit and croissants, enjoying the opportunity to speak a little French and blend in with the locals.

We then head up the many stairs to the lookout point over the beach. The view is amazing on such a sunny day. At the top of the climb there is also a nice waterfall which we take photos at. On the way down we bump into my roommate Chin, my observation on Chin is that he is always smiling, he is indeed one happy chap.

We pop back down the hill and head to a restaurant for lunch. We have been told Nice has the best pizzas, even better than Italy, so we grab a couple of pizza’s and calamari to share amongst us. The pizza is delicious.

Next stop is the main shopping street in Nice, where my mates, being female, do what comes naturally and stay in shops for a while, which I don’t mind until we hit like the seventh store, where it gets a bit boring, so we decide the split up. I head to a mini market to get a huge bottle of sprite, for only a euro, and then head back to the hotel, briefly getting lost.

I then get dressed up as tonight we are hitting Monte Carlo, everyone looks very smart. We arrive in Monaco and have a brief look at the palace and the views over Monte Carlo, and then get driven to the Casino area of town. On the way we pass through the tunnel, made famous by the F1 circuit, as an F1 fan I get pretty excited. We then exit the bus and walk up to the casinos. As we are hitting the casino’s we were told to leave cameras on the coach as the casinos don’t like cameras. However I am dismayed as we walk past the slowest corner in F1, the grand hotel hairpin, on our way to the grand casino, fortunately one of my kiwi friends has a camera and takes a photo of me at the corner (hurray). We then head to the casinos. The Grand Casino cost €10 to enter and the minimum stakes and drinks are expensive, therefore the inner accountant points me towards the casino next door, with free entry and lower minimum stakes.

I have set myself a limit of €20 for the night and I begin with video dealer roulette, which has a real roulette wheel but computerised betting. I then have a go on the slots before moving back to the roulette. I also watch Lance play a bit of blackjack, for bigger stakes than I have been betting, it is very exciting, like the movies, however Lance is extremely unlucky and loses the chips he has. I end the night about €2 up. Gerard, the Kiwi, won over €300 and the biggest loss of the night was about €70. All in all I had a really fun night and enjoyed the company of my bus mates. It was my first trip to a casino and I would like to go to one back home in Sheffield as I quite enjoyed myself.
When we get back to the hotel a few of us pop out to Mackers (Which is becoming quite regular), however I had not had any dinner, so the mackers went down well.

Overall I enjoyed Nice more than I thought I would, before the trip it was a place on the tour I wasn;t that bothered about at all, but I have enjoyed my time here and the trip to Monaco was imense.

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