En Reconnaissance de Paris: Le sud de France: Au paradis

Rebonjour mes lecteurs!

In spite of all that has been hectic about this past week (last week of classes!! What is this?!), I have made sure to remember every detail of our weekend in the south of France. We did a ton over the course of these five days, and I hope you're ready to hear it all:

On Thursday, we arrived in Nice at around 4:30 in the afternoon. By the time we found our hostel and checked ourselves in, it was around six. This left us with the perfect amount of time to explore the city a bit before finding someplace to have dinner.

We walked immediately outwards, towards the water. We found the beach in absolutely no time, and were excited to see that even at this somewhat late hour, the sun was still shining and the Speedo-donning Europeans around us were still basking in it. After walking a ways along the promenade, all the way down to the port where we saw some magnificent boats, we turned back inwards towards the Centre Ville. Here we became quickly overwhelmed by the aromas of fresh meats and fish and the waiters who shoved menus in our faces as we passed their restaurants.

Finally, we chose a place called La Favola. We started with some beautiful rosé wine from Provence, which is absolutely perfect this time of year. Then we shared an order of mussels and clams in an incredible butter sauce, followed by a rigatoni lasagna-type dish, whose mozzarella-and-meat-sauce filling was a mouthful of oozing goodness. We left dinner practically toppling over and fell asleep immediately, ready to get up early for our first full day in Nice.

When we woke up Friday morning, we went straight to the train station so we could plan our next few days. We figured out our south of France travel schedule and then turned around and headed to the beach, stopping in the grocery store along the way. We picked up some apples, a fresh baguette, meat, cheese, and raspberries. By the time we settled ourselves down on the rocks along the water, we were starving. We picnicked as the beach warmed up, and by the time we were finished, it was hot enough to strip down to our bathing suits and bask in the sun. Fortunately, the supermarket had been fully equipped with gallons of sunscreen, and we made sure to reapply all day long.

We stayed on the beach the entire day, never seeing a cloud in the sky. We returned to the hostel to shower and assess Abbey's sunburns... only to find that there had been a miracle! Not a burn on her body! I, unfortunately, had sustained some minor reddening on my left knee.

Anyway, eventually we made our way back out again. We decided to head back to Centre Ville to eat, for there had been so many amazing-looking places to choose from the night before. This time, we found a really great looking Italian place. Nice is extremely interesting as far as its cuisine because there is such a heavy influence coming from Italy. This is why we figured pizza would be a good choice.

As it turns out, we are brilliant. This restaurant had the actual best pizza ever. I mean, I'm not kidding, this pizza blew Italy out of the water. (Sorry Italians. At least you still have pasta?) Abbey ordered a veggie pizza with sauce, cheese, eggplant, peppers, olives, and mushrooms, while I had one with cheese, sauce, garlic, oregano, olives, and mushrooms. We paired this with some great red Beaujolais wine, and once again staggered out after our meal. The sun and the wine had really worn us out, and we planned on getting up early. So again, we passed out immediately.

Saturday morning, we caught a 10am train to Eze. The train ride was easy-- only fifteen minutes-- and after just another twenty minutes on a bus, we arrived at the incredible mountainside village. Although I had visited Eze once before in high school with my French class, it had not lost it's effect on me. At this time of year, the weather is amazing, and we wandered through the little shops and art galleries as we made our way up.

Finally, we reached the highest point, where we entered le Jardin d'Eze. This exotic plant garden had us in awe. We took in every detail from one corner to the next as we examined the bizarre cacti and extraordinary flowers. Abbey took pictures with a few Aloe plants-- the two have developed a very special bond over the years, as aloe has helped to heal some of the sun's more severe attacks on her body. We looked out at the amazing views of the coast along the Mediterranean and declared that we were never going to leave.

A few minutes later, however, we amended these plans as we remembered that Monaco awaited us. So, somewhat reluctantly, we walked back down, took the next bus, and got on the ten-minute long train ride to Monaco.

Monaco, as you probably know, is not very large. In fact, it's the second smallest country in the world, next to the Vatican City. Therefore, it did not take long to orient ourselves and realize that we wanted to be in the opposite corner from where we were. So, we hopped on a taxi boat for just one euro and in a matter of five minutes found that we had literally reached the other side of the country. Weird.

Along the water we saw some of the most remarkable yachts I have ever laid eyes on. We strongly considered hijacking one and riding off into the vibrant blue waters, but alas, we didn't feel that a foreign jail cell was where we wanted to spend our last weeks abroad. (Although I imagine the prison facilities in Monaco are just dandy.)

Anyway, once we reached the other end of the Island, we walked upwards through the gardens. We snapped a ton of pictures all around, and finally sat down for lunch. We hadn't eaten much that day, even with all the walking we had done, so we decided we would really feast for this meal.

Lucky for us, we found Fredy's. We cooled ourselves with a rosé de Provence and started off with a warm thai style calamari. The taste was so different from what we were used to, but we really enjoyed them. Then, abbey ordered a pesto linguine, and I had linguine with a goat cheese cream sauce. I know this sounds a little bizarre, but if you can even imagine what French goat cheese is like and then picture it gooey and warm, you will understand the appeal... and I know none of you would have judged me as I licked the plate clean.

After this meal, we needed to walk a bit, so we wandered over to le palais. Unfortunately, we could not go inside, but we got to see the guards and some really cool views from the castle walls. Next, we wandered around some shops and headed to the Oceanarium.

The Oceanarium is actually more awesome than you'd think-- we ran around like silly children, screaming at one another across the room to come and witness what we had discovered. Among our favorites were the sharks and the brightly colored tropical fish, but unfortunately for them, they were beat out by the coolest fish of all-- the tiny worm-like creature that was featured on our ticket stub. This fish lives an interesting life, burrowing half it's body in the sand and waiting patiently for food to flow his way. Looking into the tank, it was almost hard to find this little guy, but as we stared deep into his little black eye (yes, "eye") we knew he was thinking big thoughts. What a life.

After literally being forced out of the Oceanarium as it closed, we trekked back down to the water-side where we taxi-boated back to the other side of the country (hehe). We wanted to try to see the famous Monte-Carlo casino before training back to Nice. We wandered up, knowing we were going in the right direction as we passed Prada on our left and Hermès on our right.

Fortunately for us, we wandered upon a tented exhibition by the garden club of Monaco, which was only set up for the weekend. Specifically, it was the 44th Concours International de Bouquets-- or the international bouquet competition. Because it was closing for the evening shortly, we were able to quickly wander through for free. The exhibition advertised "quatorze rêveries sur les jardins", or "fourteen daydreams in the gardens", which referred to the fourteen different contest themes going on. The entire competition honored South Africa, but the specific categories encompassed a large variety. We just had the time to see the jewelry (all made of plants and flowers!), the dining table set-ups, and the rainbow-themed centerpieces. The entire place had a really cool South African ethnic vibe to it, and we were really amazed at some of the work that was done with such delicate flora.

After the exhibition, we found Monte-Carlo. Before actually walking through the casino, we stood outside for a while, prepared to meet a celebrity and gaping as we were passed by dozens of Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis with license plates from countries everywhere from Germany to Dubai. Once inside, our plan was to play a slot machine with just one euro so we could say we had gambled in Monaco. Unfortunately, we were unable to do this, as (sorry to our parents-- I know how much you have invested in putting us through college) we could not figure out how to work one. Eventually, we realized that one euro was below the minimum for gambling at this top-notch casino, so we left, the lamest gamblers Monaco had ever seen.

We got on the train back to Nice and had a quick dinner at a local Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant before returning to our hostel and crawling into bed. Sunday was another big day ahead of us!

The following morning, we woke up and headed to the train station again, this time in the opposite direction-- to Cannes. Almost immediately upon getting off the train, we fell upon a big patriotic event occurring outside the Hôtel de Ville, or City Hall. We stood politely, observing as some men carried flags and shook hands with one another. It wasn't until after the fact that we learned this was a ceremony to commemorate the end of World War II-- and that these men who had been standing ten feet away from us were the Mayors of Cannes. Whoops!

Next, we wandered along the water, coming across some really cool events being set up. We realized that the Cannes festival, which of course includes the famous film festival, would be starting in just a few days. We were able to see the tents where major events would be going on, and even the stage and screen where the film festival would happen.

Finally, we reached the port, where we took a five-euro boat ride to one of the Îles de Lerins. We chose to visit Île Sainte-Marguerite (the other is Île Saint-Honorat). Somehow out here, we found that the water was even more crystal and the sky even more blue than anywhere else we had been. We explored as the sun shone down on us, walking around the island's unbelievable fort and back down around the island's footpaths. We visited a small observatory around one of the island's lakes and then made it all the way out to Pointe du Dragon, where the views were simply breathtaking. We sat out on the rocks for a bit and then headed back to where we started to eat (at one of the only two restaurants on the island).

At the restaurant, l'Escale, we lunched on more pizza, which again, put Italy to shame. (It's not like you can accuse me of not having tried Italian pizza...) We split a four-cheese pie with bleu, emmential, mozzarella, and chevre, and a simple margarita pizza as well. Again, we had a Provence rosé with it. After eating, we walked the three feet down to the water's edge and laid out on some more rocks, taking a short nap in the sun.

After our nap, we headed back up to Fort Royal to visit the museum that had been closed when we arrived earlier. This was a very small but pretty cool place where we were able to see the prison cell where the mysterious Man in the Iron Mask had lived for over a decade. We felt goosebumps as we stood inside this room and wondered who this man had been. Was he really the brother of Louis XIV? Was he an innocent peasant, used as a political tool? We desperately wanted to know the answer. We felt sorry for this man who had spend so many years of his life in this space, but we were also grateful that we had decided not to hijack that yacht back in Monaco after all.

Finally, we shuttle-boated back to Cannes, where we walked through le Susquet, or the old village. We saw some cute little apartments on our way to le Musée de la Castre. Unfortunately, we had not come with enough time to walk through the exhibits, but we were able to climb up to the top of the observation tower. We witnessed the entire city of Cannes from above and could see out to Île Sainte-Marguerite, where we had just been. The experience was absolutely surreal.

We walked back down, traveling along the famous shopping street, Rue Meynadier, and coming across a cute crafts market before heading back to the train station. By the time we arrived back in Nice, it was too late to sit down for dinner. Instead, we ordered some Asian takeout and enjoyed it from the comfort of our hostel.

We woke up on Monday, sad to find that it was our last day in the South. But, alas! This was not the time for sadness. The sun was shining and the beach was waiting, so we headed down and soaked it all up.

After a few hours at the beach, we packed up our things and headed into Centre Ville for the last time. We walked through the antiques market and eventually into a pub for lunch. This place was called Waynes, and we were pleased to find that as we ate our nachos and burgers, the band that would be performing that night was having their sound check. They were actually pretty good and entertained us while we dined.

Unfortunately, after lunch it was time to go back to the hostel to shower and grab our bags. The flight home was bittersweet as we watched the sun tuck itself behind a mountain and as we eventually descended upon our city, the Eiffel Tower lit and shining. We took in every detail as we watched the buildings grow around us, aware of the fact that this would be the last time we were descending into Paris for more time than we can say.

Our time in the south of France had been incredible, and it was the perfect way to conclude our semester abroad weekend travels. We still can't believe that we will be home in just one week. Comme le temps passe!