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Published: June 18th 2015
Nice waterfront
Mix of public and private beach areasEarly on Monday the 15th, we walked the few blocks to the Desiree Clary Metro station to ride the 3 stops to the train station to catch the train to Nice. It was a comfortable 2 1/2 hour ride from Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles to Gare de Nice-Ville. Hotel La Villa Nice Victor Hugo was about a 10 minute walk from the train station in a nice part of town, only a couple of blocks from all the restaurant and shops and 5 blocks from the sea. As we arrived at 11:00AM, only one room was ready. We dumped off our bags and headed out for lunch at "Le Gustave 5" restaurant on the Promenade Des Anglais along the Mediterranean coastline. The water is a startling blue colour; more like a swimming pool than the sea. The beach runs for a few KMs around a huge bay which Nice is on and for countless KMs in each direction beyond. The coast is a mix of public and private beaches and thousands of people were either suntanning or jogging, walking, cycling along the promenade.
After lunch we took the Hop-on, Hop-off bus for a one-hour tour of Nice. We always like to
do that for a quick orientation of a new city we're visiting. The city is filled with wonderfully old and beautiful architecture, parks and squares and remarkable mansions overlooking gigantic yachts in the harbours. After our tour, we got checked in to our second room then after a rest and shower we headed out to explore the many open-air restaurants. We chose Le Maori restaurant for our supper and enjoyed Risotto, Steaks, and Sea Bream. All of the narrow, curving streets are a mix of walkway and driveway and we often had to move to the side to let cars go by. We were eating early by European standards and the restaurants were only beginning to fill up as we finished around 7:30. Almost all of the shops were closed as we wandered around after our dinner but we did find a few open to give us a chance to leave some Euros around town. When we returned to our hotel we decided to have a night-cap in the hotel lobby/bar. The desk clerk is also the bartender and came over to serve us at the small bar. The hotel is a very nice 3-star with beautiful old architecture, reasonable
sized rooms and very good and friendly service. The breakfast is not the greatest but we stayed there the morning of the 16th for convenience as we were getting picked up at 9:00AM for our Riviera tour.
All of our tours were purchased through Viatours. The drivers have all been knowledgable and friendly and I would highly recommend their service for quality, reliability and value. Our driver this morning was Rolf. A little more formal than the others so far, in his black suit, and definitely more talkative (non-stop for 8 hours!) but incredibly knowledgable and helpful with everything from history, horticulture, and even unmarked bathrooms that we would never have found on our own.
He said he had no specific itinerary so we told him we wanted to see Antibes, Nice, Monaco and Eze and exactly what we saw in each place we left up to him. Everything is really very close together here but the heavy traffic can greatly increase the hours it takes to get anywhere. So we were in for a very long day but anxious to experience everything we could. We started out with a tour around part of Nice and some incredible
views from Castle Hill.
From here we drove along the coast road, the Boulevard de la Plage, winding our way through the coastal villages and mansions, around the small bays and beaches, viewing the yachts and sail boats, until we came upon Antibes.
Antibes (originally named Antipolis) was founded as a 5th-century BC Greek colony settled by Phocaeans from Massilia (Marseille). Due to its naturally protected port, the town of Antibes has long been an important trading centre. Antipolis grew into the largest town in the region and a main entry point into Gaul. Although the whole region fell into disarray for several centuries, from around the middle of the 19th century the Antibes area regained its popularity, as wealthy people from around Europe discovered its natural beauty and built luxurious homes here.
Today Antibes is a resort town for the wealthy. Mansions surround the beaches full of huge yachts, little shops and restaurants fill the sidewalks and narrow streets running up from the beach road. Rolf, as usual, knew of a great viewpoint so we stopped there for some photos before continuing on towards Cannes.
Cannes of course is mostly widely known for the annual
Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals and for the many celebrity signed hand-prints embedded in the cement surrounding it. Everything in Cannes is more beautiful, the beaches are sandier, the yachts are larger, and the airport is full of private Lear Jets. I took photos of a number of the hand-prints, we wandered around the docks, then we were back in the van and heading along the faster inland highway towards Monaco.
Monaco is an independent microstate on France’s Mediterranean coastline known for its glitzy casinos, yacht-lined harbor and prestigious Grand Prix motor race, which runs through Monaco’s streets once a year. Monte Carlo, its major district, has an elegant casino. ornate opera house and many 5-star hotels, boutiques, nightclubs and French and Italian restaurants. Nestled between France and Italy, you see signs in both languages as well as hearing Italian spoken as much as French.
After parking the van, we walked along a park-like sidewalk, past the private homes of Princesses Caroline and Stephanie, by the cathedral where Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) married Prince Rainier III on April 18, 1956, and into the Place du Palais. We had lunch in an outdoor cafe facing the palace
Julie Andrews
Celebrity handprints at the 'Palais des Festivals' in Cannes, France then went on a short tour of the palace. No photos were allowed but it was quite spectacular. The interior was similar to the palace in Versailles.
The Prince's Palace of Monaco is the official residence of the Prince of Monaco. Built in 1191 as a Genoese fortress, during its long and often dramatic history it has been bombarded and besieged by many foreign powers. Since the end of the 13th century, it has been the stronghold and home of the Grimaldi family who first captured it in 1297. The Grimaldi ruled the area first as feudal lords, and from the 17th century as sovereign princes, but their power was often derived from fragile agreements with their larger and stronger neighbours. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the palace and its owners became symbols of the slightly risqué glamour and decadence that were associated with Monte Carlo and the French Riviera. Glamour and theatricality became reality when the American film star Grace Kelly became chatelaine of the palace in 1956. In the 21st century, the palace remains the residence of the current Prince of Monaco.
The yachts here are definitely more abundant and larger than anywhere else
so far, the casino parking lot had Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, and every other extremely expensive car you can possibly imagine. I was the only one with the required ID to enter the casino so I paid my 10 Euro entrance fee and walked in to see how the rich gambled. But, all I saw was a room full of the same slot machines you see in every Vegas casino. The ultra-wealthy gamblers were all in the private salons and unfortunately I was not wearing the proper attire to check those out. So I stuck 20 Euros into a machine, lost it all in 15 minutes, walked around a bit, gawking at the incredibly beautiful architecture and paintings, then headed back out to the van.
Rolf took us for a drive along part of the grand prix roadway, then we headed out of town back towards Nice, with one more stop planned, in Eze. Eze is a medieval village perched on a narrow rocky peak overlooking the Mediterranean sea. The village forms a circular pattern around the base of a castle and has beautiful gardens and fantastic views, apparently, but we were there only to visit Fragonard, the perfume factory
and store.
The factory is quite small and although everything is made by hand, the guides and sales girls outnumbered the factory workers. After a short tour we were led into the store and given a variety of fragrances to smell then let loose to shop. Nothing appealed enough to any of us to drop down any Euros so off we were again, this time back to Nice and our hotel.
After a short nap and shower, we were refreshed enough to head out into the streets for our final dinner in Nice. We found a nice outdoor cafe (aren't they all outdoors here?) and enjoyed a relaxing evening eating and drinking Rose. John (from Ireland) and his two teenage daughters struck up a conversation next to us and we had a very pleasant extra hour talking to them before we headed back towards the beach for a final walk along the Côte d'Azur to say goodbye to Nice.
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