First Stop, France: Nice and Monaco

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December 13th-15th: Nice and Monoca

Our first stop in our Europe crusades is the lovely French Riviera. I only know what I have heard in magazines and tv: freaking paradise. We left Oxford in the afternoon after some tearful goodbyes and made our way (long way) to Gatwick Airport. Mitch and I had purchased some new backpacks in the London ghetto to replace our old ones because we just had to have wheels on our bags. My back was broken and Mitch was over the whole “hey let me a gentleman and carry your bag thing”, no way. It’s every man/woman for themselves. None of this sissy girlfriend stuff. So, we had to get wheelie/backpack bags because 32 days is a long time to have a 50 pound pack on your back. Anyway, when we got to Gatwick we realized that they were too big to carry on SO Easyjet kindly checked them for us free of charge at the gate (only because we had sneaked by the security and bag check spot). We got into Nice around 10 pm and it was pouring rain. We had checked the forecast before we left and it said in big bold letters: RAIN! It was a bit depressing at first, but we have had such great weather everywhere so far that a little rain won’t make us melt. We were going to make the best out of it. Our hostel was easy to find and we checked in and then went to dinner…Italian feast in France? Yeah, it was all we could afford and plus we can’t read French to save our lives and almost nobody speaks English.

We woke up to rain just pouring down, but we rallied and got out onto the streets of Nice for a day of exploration. The biggest mistake we made was NOT bringing our camera or video camera because of the fear of the rain. I was afraid somehow mine would get soaked and it would die, so I didn’t bring it. Anyway, we went walking through the streets and it was beautiful. Nice is a very quaint and sleepy town during the winter, but you can tell that during the summer it is an awesome beach town. The streets are cute and lined with shops and restaurants (the majority of which were closed during winter). The city had a lot of character and almost every brassiere had 10 or 20 people sitting outside drinking espressos and smoking, it didn’t matter the time of the day. On our way through the city, we decided we should go to the train station and try and get out Euriail passes figured out because we were going to use them tomorrow for the first time. Good thing we did. We got reserved the last 2 spots on the train from Paris to Geneva Switzerland on the 26th of December. It would have cost us 146 Euro if there were no available Eurail seats. We definitely had an angel or two on our shoulders. We got our plans all squared away and our itinerary is as follows: Nice to Avignon, Avignon to Marseilles, Marseilles to Bourdeaux, Bordeaux to Tours, Tours to Paris, and Paris to Geneva. I know, it sounds crazy but we are taking advantage of our pass. We are basically starting in the South of France and going west until we wrap back around to Paris and then going east to Geneva. It’s a really good thing we went early because we were able to reserve seats on all the days we wanted. After our great organizational planning, we walked around and went to the Christmas market and decided we should get on the bus and go along the coast to the state of Monoca and Monte Carlo. After all, I have heard so much about it that I just had to go. See if all this crazy talk was true. We were not really expecting much from the bus ride to Monoca, I mean it was only 1 euro and so far from what we learned from Europe is that doesn’t get you much. We were so wrong. The drive to Monoca was just absolutely breathtaking. The road runs right next to the ocean and since it was a rainy and windy day, the waves were enormous and ferociously crashing against the beach. The water was the craziest colors either of us had ever seen. It was a mix of aqua, turquoise, milky white, and a deep blue…Really strange and exotic looking. Our little bus wove through the windy roads and cliffs. There were gigantic tunnels that had been blown through the rocky cliffs in order to take us to Monaco. The French coastline was unlike anything either of us had ever seen. The cliffs looked as though God took his finger nails and scraped them against the hard rocking leaving deep dark dirt striations in the face of the rocks, leaving behind clumps of brilliant green grass scattered throughout. The cliffs were sharp and fierce and waves raged against them, it was incredible. The little towns that lay in between each twist and turn of the bus were colorful and quaint. They had a kind of warm and adorable feeling that your average U.S. city lacks. Mitch and I were just glued to the window, our breaths making the glass all foggy. At this point, Mitch and I were pretty bummed that I didn’t bring my camera and he didn’t bring his video camera, but hey you can’t get everything, right? At least he brought his little digital camera. We got to Monoca after 20 minutes or so….Monoca is a province, and has its own legislative body. It is the 2nd smallest state in all of Europe (the first being the Vatican city). Fun fact for the day is that the citizens of Monoca have to pay no tax whatsoever for anything. I know, a pretty great idea. The city itself is extremely small and really made up of two areas: the hill upon which the royalty lives, and the harbor area near the casino and shops. We first trecked up some 100 stairs to get on top of the hill so we could see all of Monoca and admire the prince’s palace. The view was awesome as it looked right down on the harbor and the all the buildings and hotels that are wedged into the cliffside. Monoca seems to derive its income from the tourists as the majority of the buildings are either condos or hotels. The harbor was home to some of the most expensive boats Mitch and I had ever seen. We are talking million upon millions of dollars invested in these huge and luxurious yachts. We walked around the harbor admiring all the shiny boats. Right now, if Mitch and I had to rent a boat it would be the dingy with the holes in it…that’s in our budget range. We climbed up a hill our of the harbor that led to the elegant and expensive hotels. The Hotel de Paris was absurd, there were all these exotic cars parked in front. Mitch said it put Newport to shame. The cars were ridiculous and the people getting out of them even more ridiculous. The Monte Carlo Casino lay to the right of the hotel and people were gambling in there day and night. We walked in in our tennis shoes and jeans…me with my uncombed hair and Mitch with his wet umbrella. We didn’t get too far as you have to pay even to get into the gambling rooms. Can you imagine that? They actually make you pay to lose your money…We looked in the rooms and saw some high rollers. It’s just a whole different world that seems more foreign to me than the French Menu. The whole area outside of the casino and the hotel just radiated this sense of elegance and wealth. It almost tricked you into thinking you were rich. It truly is the land of the rich and only the rich. We had to go back to Nice to eat because the Monoca restaurants were far beyond our budgets, Italian dinner once again!
In the morning, we woke up to the pitter patter of more rain, not really surprised actually as the rain just seems to be following us. I finally bought an umbrella after 3.5 months of living in England with nothing. We went to the train station and realized it was the time when we had to write on our train passes. Scary. You can’t mess up on your Eurail passes, they can’t be erased and can’t be written over, you mess up then you lose that travel day. We have ten travel days and have them all carefully planned out. So we wrote in perfect form on our passes but then suddenly realized 15 minutes before our train was coming that we had to get them validated. So, we ran over with our bulky piece of crap bags (my freaking handle already snapped off on the 2nd day!) to the line where you can validate your pass. The line was really long and we knew we couldn’t wait in it and make our train. So, Mitch whipped out his dashing smile and chicken legs to one of the agents and everything got taken care of in a matter of minutes. However, when we looked down at our pass, the validator guy had scribbled the dates into the pass and it looked like a bunch of gibberish. Mitch looks at his and goes “what the hell is that? Is this guy serious?”, If you know Mitch, you know the look and the tone of his voice. It was hilarious, I thought it was funny, Mitch did not. So we ran back to the platform where our train was going to leave and saw on the board that the train to Avignon was “retard 40 minutes” so we were ok. It was a tense moment though. The train finally came and it was a high speed TGV train (they go up to 325 miles an hour, the fastest in Europe) to Avignon. We didn’t know too much about Avignon other than it was in the heart of the Provence country and that the guide book said it was a must see. When we got into the train, we tried to kick these French men out of “our seats” but then realized that we were idiot Americans who can’t read where our seats really are. They just laughed at us and pointed to the ticket and we then pointed to the seats and the ticket and then we both laughed and walked away. Silly Tara and Mitch. So, once we figured out the whole train seating system with all the different coaches etc, we settled into our big comfy seats. This kicks the crap out of a plane ride. The ride was incredible and the countryside was beautiful…We both wouldn’t trade these moments for the world.

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