Ahh, the French Riviera…sun-drenched coastline, easy breezes, middle-aged men in speedo’s…do
es it get any better than this?
At first impression, yes, it could get better. Being stuck in traffic on the road from GVA to Nice brought out the latent road-rage that had been festering in Sophia for the past year, and reminded us that our tram passes are about to expire and we really need to go renew those! However, once we got to Nice, I got to take my turn, as I circled the streets for about 45 minutes searching for parking. Not a good way to start the weekend…
However, as frustrating as that can be, Nice’s charms quickly caught us. The promenade along the Mediterranean is just about perfect, while the narrow alleys of the old town keep the walks interesting. It’s really a beautiful place, and while I was unimpressed at first, it only got nicer and nicer as the weekend went on. Or dare I say "Nice-er and Nice-er"? Ok, sorry, I’ll stop…
The first night we met up with Heather and Karen, fresh off their whirlwind trip of Europe. I always find it funny how girls will get invited to way more "local" parties when traveling, than couples do…go figure. So we went out to dinner, walked around, and did most of our exploring of the city. We knew we had to keep it simple, because we had a busy day of sitting a
t the beach ahead of us!
The next day we got up early, hit a bakery (French bakeries rule), walked through what Soph has claimed to be the best market in the developed world, and hit the beach. We actually reserved chairs, which was a great idea, as the Nice beaches are basically just large rocks, and as such are not very comfortable to sit on. However, they’re fun to look at, and you don’t get any sand on you, which is pretty cool. So we sat there all day – literally, for over eight hours – and then went back to get a bottle of wine, and bring it back to the beach to hang out some more! Hey – it was vacation, and it was a cool beach! I can’t think of too many reasons not to spend an entire day on the beach if the opportunity presents itself…so it was a good day.
Sunday, while we were sad to leave Nice, we decided to stop at Monaco, to A) add it to the list of countries we’d set foot in B) see the ridiculous amount of wealth there C) try to find the Prince so that we could pawn off one of the girls on him and then have a standing invite on his yacht. That last piece wasn’t my idea, but I was more than willing to go along with it, especially after seeing the yachts – they were absurd! Anyway, Monaco is a cool place – I believe it has the highest Fe
rrari-to-human ratio of anywhere on the planet. You could tell that this was real wealth – not this multi-millionaire stuff we normally see, or even star-athlete wealth. I’m talking real, serious, filthy, my ancestors-screwed-over-your-ancestors wealth. Therefore we decided that, for lack of meeting the Prince, any one of these guys would do as far as pawning one of the girls off. Hey – pimpin’ ain’t easy!
So that was Nice, and Monaco; well worth a weekend trip, and I’m kind of surprised we hadn’t done it before now. After that, we headed back on the road to Geneva, and then the next day we sadly had to say goodbye to our visitors. In the attached picture you can see just how sad Soph and I were to see them go…
Next week: Chamonix!
Nice, France
