Day at the Beach

---

The original plan was to spend a day in Aix-en-Provence. That pretty much went down the drain last night when I went on S.N.C.F's (French train company) website. A return trip from Nice to Aix would have run me almost 60 euros. I really shouldn't have been surprised; I knew train travel in France wasn't cheap, and that the Côte d'Azur regional trains are merely exceptions to this rule.

Hence, having no three hour (per direction) train trip to look forward to, I let myself sleep in today. I needed it, as one of my dormmates almost matched the record I observed set in my London hostel for the most inhumanly loud snoring ever. Anyways, with some time on my hands, and no real desire to wander through the shopping paradise that is Nice, I got on a train for Antibes.

Antibes turned out to be quite nice. Both Antibes and neighboring Juan-le-Pin have some very nice public beaches, and I spent quite a bit of time on them. There are still a lot of visitors here, but not so much tourists. The visitors are a blend of residents of other parts of the Côte d'Azur and people independent enough to make their own way here. In short, you don't have any buses unloading hordes of people that take the place over. The beachfront is obviously very service oriented, but if you walk a few blocks in, you actually get a very tranquil town. There are actually people here who don't understand a shred of English. I got to practice a bit of charades when inquiring into whether there were any places that rented bikes, because I forgot how to say "for rent" in French.

I had some cravings for good food, so I ended up eating in Juan-le-Pin. I just sat down a a random restaurant that seemed to have a decent prix-fix menu. I ended up getting lucky; the place served good food in huge portions. I was almost full by the end of the salade du chef. My eyes thus bulged when the Bavette Marchande de Vin (beef brisket) arrived and was bigger than my hand. I almost contemplated skipping the mouse chocolat. Almost.

I'm off to Barcelona tomorrow (6 hour trip), and I'm a bit disappointed that I'm not stopping in Avignon. I couldn't book accomodation on my own, and it wasn't until I was on the bus into Nice that I realized accomodation wouldn't have been a problem; the guide clarified that they have a hotel that holds a certain number of rooms for Busabout. By then, I had booked Barcelona and San Sebastian already back in Cinque Terre. Given the timing (running of the bulls in Pamplona), Barcelona and San Sebastian are two places right now where you don't mess with reservations, you just consider yourself lucky you have them. Hence, I find myself forced to skip Provence. You win some (I'll be in Pamplona for the running of the bulls!), you loose some. Provence can wait until my next trip....

---

Photos

Antibes
There were no shortage of people of all ages enjoying the rather large stretches of public beachfront.

No Parking Tickets!
Your car just isn't going anywhere until you pay...
This is the first time I've seen this variety of pay parking enforcement.