Cote d ' Azur

Rouen > Nice – Day 1

Unfortunately, it was not the wind that had given us a tickle in our throats. D and I had both gotten sick, which made our day of travel just a trifle more uncomfortable. We did have the morning to wander Rouen, so we took the car back to the rental place and wandered into Old Town. We picked up some medicine at the pharmacy for my sore throat (a spray and tablets to suck on), neither of which lasted for very long. I ended up just grabbing large packs of gum, and started chewing like mad. We did some shopping along the main drag, before heading back to our hotel and picking up our stuff. As the train station was farther away that we’d originally anticipated, we decided to try out Rouen’s metro system, which turned out to be quite efficient. We took the train from Rouen to Paris, metroed to Gare de Lyon, and go on the train for Nice. It was a roughly 5 hour ride, and I tried to ignore my sore throat and sleep, while D got some work done. As we arrived at the coast, everything looked different–the architecture was much more Spanish or perhaps Italian, there were palm trees abound. The coast was beautiful, but as we edged closer to Nice, we passed through a spectacular thunderstorm, with a very heavy downpour of rain, which was a trifle ominous. Mercifully, when we rolled into Nice, the storm hadn’t passed over yet, and so we booked it to our hotel, just beating the rain.

Day 2

We awoke to beautifully clear skies, but still sick. We put on our beach gear and headed for the beach, which was only a few blocks away from the hotel. The beach in Nice is actually rock (smooth pebbles and rocks), but that didn’t seem to stop anyone. The sun felt nice, and we both hoped to bake out our colds. After we’d had our fill of sun, we headed back to do some laundry, and I went on a run to invest in a large pack of tissue packets. The heat/sickness tended to tire us out, so we took a nap before heading out to find food. We walked towards Old Town and found a square, lined on all sides with restaurants. D had a hankering for carbonara, so we found a restaurant serving it. Had some tasty mussels and gnocchi before heading back to the hotel, to watch more Top Gear and call it a night.

Day 3

Rental car day! Which came as a welcome relief, as it meant for a start, we didn’t have to walk everywhere, which, when one is sick, can get a little taxing, and secondly, we’d have the opportunity to explore a bit. We picked up our car, a Citroen C2, relatively without incident, and grabbed a map of the Provence-Cote d’Azur area before heading off. The weather was fabulous, warm and sunny. We drove along the Corniche Inferieure, a scenic road running along or near the ocean. We passed through or above several beautiful coastal towns, Villefranche-sur-Mer and Beaulieu-sur-Mer to name a couple, with their terracotta rooftops and pretty trees and flowers. It was not long before we were in a Monaco (country #2!) and Monte Carlo. We parked under the infamous Monte Carlo Casino and went to take a look around. The city looked very posh and expensive…even just walking around, you knew that there was no way in this or any lifetime, we could ever afford to live there. We wandered by the casino–wasn’t sure if we could go in except for at certain times. Came across a Porsche Carrera GT, which D spent much time ogling and explaining the fabulousness of (and rightfully so, since apparently they haven’t made very many). From there, we walked through the casino gardens and to a view of the harbour, where many an expensive yacht was moored. I did enjoy the sign posted with regulations for the park–one point mentioning that “children’s games will be tolerated only if they do not disturb the public’s tranquility”. Sweet. We determined that Monte Carlo would be too expensive to have lunch in, so we headed off towards the Italian border. We stopped for lunch in Menton, the last major town before the border.

Then, it was off to Italy (country #3!)…though we didn’t really have any general plan once we arrived, and figured a general meandering of the countryside would do. We drove along the coast, through Ventimiglia, past a town called Latte, much to D’s delight, and through San Remo. The roads were lined with trees and flowers, but we determined we were going to need a map if we were to keep going. We finally found a bookstore, and I ran into grab a map of northern Italy. So we took the first road that headed north and quickly found ourselves in some beautiful country. Along the Argentine River, we saw a few old villages and farmers toiling away. Through the village of Badalucco, the road kept climbing upwards through the hills, becoming twistier and slightly more hairy. We stopped for a quick look around in the village of Andagne, and then set off for some more tight bends and climbing roads, most of which are too narrow for two cars to actually go by each other easily. The map informed us we’d be on some of what they designated as “Other Roads”, which we believed once we hit some less well-kept roads big enough for just one car. D was having a fun time steering our little Citroen through these meandering roads, though I was more than a little nervous, as the edge of the road (and therefore of the cliff) was rather close. Thankfully, D was an excellent driver and refrained from blasting up these roads at high speed, and we were safely puttering along at around 40 kilometres per hour. The road up through the Rezzo valley was truly spectacular, and we stopped at a wide bend to take some pictures and simply soak it in, looking down at the little Italian villages and their fields dotting the landscape. We could see all the way to the ocean from where we were! It was largely downhill from there, and came to a fork in the road (which I couldn’t find on the map), so we opted for right.

A good choice, as we came across the Subaru World Rally team tuning a car for a test run. So naturally, D had to get out and have a look, while I attempted to determine where we were (approximately). We kept heading north from there in the general direction of Ceva, though I was feeling increasingly headachy from all the twists and turns in the road, and the changes in altitude were playing havoc with my congested sinuses. We did come across some random cows in the road, just plodding along, we assumed towards home, as it didn’t look they were being led by anyone. We arrived in Ceva and looked for a place to eat, but nothing seemed to be open at 7:30, so we grabbed a coffee and headed on towards Mondovi. Mondovi was a bigger town, and it felt very old and worn-in, but with similarly little luck in finding an open restaurant. We continued on to Cuneo, the biggest city in the area–it had a broad main strip, lined with pretty buildings and neon-signed stores. We turned south, back towards France, but I did still want to try and find a place to eat before we left Italy.

The last major town before the border was Limone Piemonte, which reminded me a little of Whister Village–had a very alpine town feel to it. The town looked pretty closed, which always was odd to me..you rarely saw anyone walking around or any shops open. Thankfully, on the way out of town, we found a roadside restaurant called Il Camino. There, D indulged in one of the best pizzas he’d apparently ever had, and I tried their gnocchi (which we finally determined is pronounced [nowki] rather than “know-chee”). Satisfied with our Italian dinner, we headed back into France, requiring us to go through a 3 kilometre long tunnel, that was scarily only about 1.5 cars wide. Thankfully, there was little traffic other than us. It was fully dark when we got out, which made the twisty roads all the more nerve-wracking, but D seemed to be enjoying himself. We actually crossed back into Italy, but were soon onto the A10, a delightfully straight highway that allowed us to blast back to Nice. Getting into Nice and back to the hotel proved to be the most challenging, as the signage wasn’t the greatest, and we kept getting funneled back onto the highway. We finally made back to the hotel and called it a night. Quite the adventure!

Day 4

We slept in late, which set the tone for the rest of the day…a lazy day for the most part. We meandered down to the beach and walked along the boardwalk for a bit. We managed to find a video rental place (yay!), which meant we didn’t have to re-watch Top Gear episodes for a bit, though that was still fun. We rented Sin City and Transporter (the latter didn’t work on D’s laptop), so we exchanged it for Equilibrium. We ventured out after Sin City for some dinner, some tasty pork filet mignon for me and veal for D, before heading back to the hotel for another movie. Both of us weren’t feeling full of energy, with some pretty nasty coughs plaguing us for most of the day.

Day 5

We headed down to the beach, determined to not waste another day of beautiful sunshine (and apparently there are on average 300 of them in Nice per year). Laid out on our towels for a bit, and D took a quick dip in the ocean, before laying out to bake. We both went in to the water after that, and it was a trifle chilly at first (D described as being enveloped in air-conditioned room or hiding inside a refrigerator on a hot day), but eventually it warmed up. D threatened to dunk me, though much splashing, and several mouthfuls of salt water later, we headed back out onto the beach. After much baking and discussing of our Top 5s of the trip, we headed back to the hotel to change into our fancy pants gear. We walked into Old Nice, which seemed to be the main shopping district in town, with lots of cafes and restaurants and shops of varying price ranges. Near the Place Massena, we came across one of the most remarkable street performers, who was playing an upright piano, on the sidewalk! He was quite the virtuoso pianist, and we could only just stand and stare in awe. From there, we went in search of a sandwich and Orangina, and then had delicious Amorino gelato (the same chain as in Paris). After our tasty treats, we went in search of a restaurant we’d read about in a travel guide called La Petite Maison and secured our dinner reservation. With 45 minutes to kill before we could eat, we wandered down the boardwalk and found a place in the shade to sit. Dinner rolled around, and we had some foie gras to start..D was anxious to try their bouillabaisse (a local specialty) and I daringly ordered the lobster linguini, which, to my surprise, came with an actual half lobster, in all its glory. D found the bouillabaisse gastronomically symphonic, and proceeded to make many a loving noise and face towards it. I was rather perplexed with my lobster and how to extract its meat from its fixings. After dinner, we took a walk along the packed boardwalk–Saturday nights in Nice are certainly busy–and back to our hotel.

Day 6

Feeling a little crispy from the day before, we decided to forego sunbathing and opted for a walk through Old Town, after breakfasting on our usual breakfast fare. Iron Man was going on, which had all of its tents and festivities set up along the boardwalk, so we walked the back streets into Vieux Nice. It was very pleasant to walk through all the narrow streets, with their little shops and restaurants, and laundry hanging from tiny apartment above. We meandered a zig-zag path to the beach at the end of the Quai des Etats Unis, before hiking out into the hot sun and around a bend to the other side of a small hill into the port. Deciding that it was indeed much to hot out in the sun, we ventured back into Old Town to find our Amorino gelato place for a cooling snack. Having tired ourselves out (it’s hard work walking around in the sun/still be sick!), we rented another couple movies to watch back at the hotel before dinner…Planet of the Apes and Casino Royale–which I had originally thought was set in Monte Carlo, but was actually Montenegro, which D had rightfully informed me of while we were in Monaco. After chowing down on a baguette and some delicious camembert and watching our movies, we headed back out to find a restaurant for dinner. We did have to wade through Iron Man runners…many lean, tired folks running around in spandex…coming into the finish line, though it seemed to be winding down. I’d wanted to have mussels for our last night in Nice, so we found a restaurant, and indulged ourselves in much fish, mussels and oysters, and of course some creme brulee. Once we were overly full, we wallowed out to the boardwalk, and, to our delight, discovered the same virtuoso pianist playing on the Promenade des Anglais. We sat and soaked in some fabulous classical music before heading back to pack.

Nice > Paris – Day 7

It was a relatively early morning, as we had to be on a train by 9:30 am. We gathered our luggage and made our way to out favourite boulangerie, which was not far from the train station. The 5 hour train ride was uneventful, consisting primarily of sleeping, music listening and a little working (by D). We found our new hotel in Paris fairly easily, as it was a half a block from the Metro station. The room was small but clean, and would do just fine for our remaining 2 nights in Paris. Planning on meeting up with Dillon for dinner later in the evening, we set of in search of a snack. We took a walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg, a beautiful park that seemed to have everything (tennis courts, petanque courts, pony rides, a palace). We meandered our way through the side streets and met up with Dillon, heading over to a nearby restaurant for some tasty roast chicken and duck. We dropped into a Scottish pub for a couple drinks…I tried my hand at darts for the first time, which was actually pretty entertaining (though I could see it being potentially dangerous if one were a little more inebriated). As Dillon had an early morning (3am!), we called it a night and headed back to our hotel.