Bonjour de Nice!

Hello from Nice!

Collin and I got here a few days ago, and we've been taking it pretty slowly. Coming in, we knew that there was nothing important to see while we are here. True, they do have a few museums, but they're almost just for good measure. Nice is really just about tropical flora and the cote d'azur.

Our hostel is not as nice as the one we had in Florence, which has been a little hard to get used to now that we've been in what would stand for a 5 star hostel. But at the end of the day, all that matters is that we have a personal bathroom and air-con (as our Aussie and Kiwi tripmates call it). The neighborhood we're in is filled with cheap ethnic food and trash in the streets, but just 10 minutes down the main street is the gorgeous bright blue Mediterannean Sea. Just before you hit the stoney beach (which is a pain in the ass) there are beautiful pastel colored buildings with typical French architecture--intricate details around the windows and tiny iron balconies. The last two days, Collin and I have laid on the beach and swam in the cool water and tried to relax on the stones. Afterward, we come back to the hotel and read our books in the air conditioning.

Yesterday, we walked through Old Nice, which is filled with tons of little shops along streets that are about ten feet wide. The buildings have old shutters and pastel paints, and everything is expensive. It was a charming walk through a typical old district of a European town. But today we were treated to a climb up the Colline du Chateau, which is a butte at the east end of the Nice beaches that is covered with tropical flowers and trees. It was hot but there were water fountains sporadically along the trail along with charming viewpoints that overlook the miles of beach that curve toward Cannes, the site of the international film festival, where we will venture tomorrow!

We were promised a misty waterfall when we arrived at the top, but when we got there, there were two man-made holes about two-feet in diameter in some rock with water trickling from it. It was pretty, but small and unimpressive after being promised a cool, misty waterfall. Having seen the "cascade," we sat on a ledge that overlooked the sea and picnicked on baguettes, brie, and salami that we had picked up from a grocery store on our way to the butte. After that, we had spent so much time in the sun that we were ready to jump into the cool, turquoise waves, so we descended the hundreds of stairs that led down to the shore and looked into some of the private beaches because there were chairs instead of stones and umbrellas that wouldn't blow away in the wind. After looking into three different private beaches, we realized that we would have to pay between 30 and 40 euros, which was out of our budget to say the least, so we decided that we would spend another afternoon enduring the stones and the sun. But when we got to the beach, I asked the lifeguards about getting "un parasol," and we realized that we could rent one for 5 euros! So we enjoyed another warm afternoon on the Cote d'Azur. When we got home, our Kiwi roommate Kevin was euphoric after an afternoon driving a Ferrari in Monaco. Apparently, for 90 euros, you can, with a trained driver as a passenger, drive a 300,000 euro vehicle for 15 minutes going 120 kilometers per hour along the roads that line the Cote d'Azur in Monaco! Something only for car enthusiasts or men in their 60s (yes Dad, I thought of you and thought that you might enjoy such an experience). But even our roommate in his early 20s got a bang for all those bucks he spent on it. He was still swooning after coming back to Nice and talking about it for three hours.

Tonight, we plan to read ourselves into a comfortable night's sleep in the air-con, but we're planning to go to Monaco and Cannes in the next two days before we head to Barcelona for 7 nights!