The French Riviera

After a summer spent bundled up in Ireland and England, it was finally time to get away to the sun and the sand. Our destination: the French Riviera on the Southeastern coast.

Friday, September 11th - Marseilles & Nice

In order to save on the flights, we arrived in Marseilles, which is not officially in the Riviera, but is a couple of hours west. It is the second largest city in France, and we thought it would have a few things for us to do. It was probably a bad omen when we had to find an extra travel book when our Rick Steves' France and Lonely Planet Western Europe didn't cover the city.

Needless to say, we could have lived without Marseilles. We went into the city and saw a few of the major sites - marina, fish market, and a few other forgettable sites. After about an hour, we realized our mistake and headed to the train station to catch a ride to Nice.

We arrived in Nice in the late afternoon, checked into the hotel, and headed out through the town and down to the beach. Nice is a pretty good sized town, and has over a mile of beach front. Unfortunately, that beach is made very rocky, so it isn't the most comfortable. There are several bars on the beach that thrive off charging €15 for a chair, but it seemed like most of the cheapskates, including us, just accepted the pain of the rocks.

We spent about an hour on the beach before our dinner bells started to ring, we decided to have a walk along the main promenade and through the town. Much to our chagrin, we very shortly came across a sandy section of beach - it seemed like they had basically shipped in a bunch of sand and dropped it on top of the rocks. We really wished we had seen that an hour earlier, but we were able to take advantage later in the weekend. We were really confused because there were tons of people laying on the rocks right next to the sandy section, and we could figure out why they didn't move over 50 feet to the comfortable stuff. Maybe the French don't feel pain? Something to look into...

Anyway, after walking along the beachfront and through some of the little shopping neighborhoods, we headed off to dinner. The cuisine here is more Italian than French (lots of pastas, not any snails). The Italian border is only a few miles away, and this section of the country actually used to belong to Italy. Back in the time of Napoleon, Italy was restructuring its provinces and gave the region the choice of what it wanted to be. With the popularity of the French emperor, they went French, but they have kept a lot of the Italian heritage, including the food.

Saturday, September 12th - Antibes

Antibes is another small town nearby - about 20 minutes by train from Nice. This is known as one of the best places in the region for the beach, as it is not quite as big and packed with tourists as other places like Cannes, but it is still a good size town with long, white sand beaches.

It is also home to some ridiculous yachts. The French Riviera is home to some of the richest people in the world. All of the towns have marinas full of the most outrageous boats you've ever seen. This is one of the mid sized ones in Antibes:

The owners of a lot of these boats live far away (like London), so they don't get to use them all the time. As such, a side business of yacht rental exists in the area. One the size of the one above could be yours for the low, low price of $30,000 per week (captain and crew included). We saw lots of yachts during our time in the area, but the largest concentration was here in Antibes, including one so big that it couldn't fit in the marina and had to dock out in the sea. Don't worry, though, the owner could still get to town quickly and easily in the helicopter that was sitting on the boat!!

Antibes was incredibly relaxing and really just great. We literally did nothing here other than sit on the beach. We slept in, had a late breakfast, caught a mid-morning train, went straight to the beach, and didn't leave until dinner time. Jenna was in heaven, I dealt with it. Not exactly my ideal vacation, but it was relaxing to just sit and read, nap, and people watch, and I was able to break it up with the occasional trip to grab lunch or drinks.

For dinner we headed into the town, just away from the beach, and had some more great Italian food in the cellar of a nice little restaurant. The place was cool as the basement seemed like it was a cave cut out of the rocks. it also didn't hurt that the food was really good - pizza for Aaron and pesto for Jenna. Yum!! It was a perfect end to this very relaxing day.

Sunday, September 13th - Nice, Monaco, and Villefranche

We didn't have a ton to do on Sunday, so we headed to the beach in Nice first thing. We grabbed the small patch of sand mentioned above, and hung out until lunch time. For lunch we went to the town's market square to grab some Socca. This is a local specialty, made by only one place, and people literally line up to get it. It is basically a crepe, but made out of chickpeas and quite a bit thicker than the crepes you'd find elsewhere in France. We heard that they do run out, so we go there at 12:15 (early lunch for Europe) and waited. Lucky we got there when we did, because after 45 minutes, we got the very last portion. We even ended up having to share, since they couldn't give us the 2 portions we'd ordered. It was pretty good, but to be honest we probably wouldn't eat it again, especially considering the trouble you have to go through.

After lunch we went off to visit Nice's Russian Cathedral. Back in the 1800s, Nice was the spot for European aristocrats to take their holidays, and it was very popular with the Russians trying to get away from the terrible weather. Since they would spend months at a time here, they needed a place to worship, so an Orthodox church was built. It was very interesting to see, as of course it is very different from the standard cathedral you see everywhere else.

After checking out the church, we hopped on the train to Monaco. This you'll probably know as the home to the most famous and extravagant casino in the world - the Monte Carlo. Monaco itself is actually its own separate country - the 2nd smallest in the world next to the Vatican. 800 years ago a man snuck into the town, killed of the ruling family, and established himself Prince of the small region. Today, his great, great, great........great grandson is the prince, making it the oldest surviving ruling family in the world.

Monaco is a world of excess. The marina was outrageous - boats bigger than my college dorm and our current flat. There are 30,000 residents, but only 1/3 are real natives - the rest have just moved there for the tax breaks (0% income tax). The per capita income is also the highest in the world. It was really just kind of ridiculous. Parked in front of the casino (mind you in the middle of a Sunday afternoon), we saw a Lamborghini, and Aston Martin, 2 Bentley's and 7 Ferraris. There were also several Mercedes and other nice cars that we could never dream to own, but paled in comparison to their neighbors. This is definitely the land of the haves, and the have yachts!!

We spent about 30 seconds in the actual casino. It was really disappointing, because they charge a €10 cover charge to even get in the door. We didn't have any money to lose, so we didn't want to gamble, but we did want to see the casino floor. We were unwilling to pay a cover to enter, though, so we peeked our heads in as much as possible and then turned around and left. Guess the cover charge works, because it kept at least 2 people out that day who didn't belong.

Overall, we weren't super impressed with Monaco. Yes, it was very nice, and the boats and casino and everything were something to see. It was also nice to check yet another country off the list. But in all, unless you plan to actually go and gamble, there isn't really much to see or do, so we left filling pretty unfulfilled. Maybe some day when we're rich and famous we'll dock our yacht next to the Lady Moura, valet our Rolls at the front, and spend an evening rolling the dice, but until that day comes, I don't see us making it back to Monaco.

When we left it was about time for dinner, so we headed to another nearby town - Villefranche Sur Mer. We had a little walk along the beach here before going into town to eat. We ended up at an overpriced touristy place, but the food was decent and there really aren't any restaurants other than that anyway. The dinner was so-so, but after dinner was great. The town has a small footpath leading along the water, through part of the town, and past the marina. It was a beautiful evening and a very romantic walk, made even better by the gelato that we picked up before we started. A wonderful way to end the day and a huge pick-me-up from the downer of Monaco.

Monday, September 14th - More Nice

The last day of our trip was literally spent doing nothing again. We got up late and headed to the sandy section of Nice's beach. We stayed there all day, had a picnic lunch, read, slept, etc. It was a great way to end the vacation. It was a full day at the beach - our flight wasn't until late in the evening - but I really don't have anything to say about the day other than that we spent it in the sun.

In all this was a great vacation. Somehow this post has turned out to be pretty long, but it really felt like we didn't do a single thing while we were there. And to be honest, that was wonderful.