A weekend on the Côte d’Azur!

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in awhile! I have a nasty cold that seems to be going around, so everything has been taking me longer than usual.

Last week, on Thursday afternoon, I caught a plane with my friend Florence to Nice, France! The city is called Nice la belle (Nice the beautiful) for a reason! Our other friends joined us on Friday evening, but we rented an apartment for the four of us in the center of Nice. Another friend, Renata, also joined us for sightseeing, but she stayed in a hostel. Luckily, the air traffic controller strike is this week and not last week, so we had no trouble with our flight!

On Friday, I went sightseeing in Nice with Florence and Renata. We started off in Place Masséna. Although unfortunately much of the Place was under construction, the center of it was really lovely. The buildings surrounding Place Masséna (and in most of Nice) are beautiful shades of red, orange, pink, and yellow.

Place Masséna

Place Masséna

We really lucked out with the weather! It was supposed to rain all weekend, but most of the time we had lots of sunshine. It was only bad weather on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

After seeing Place Masséna, we walked through Cours Saleya and down to the Promenade des Anglais. The Promenade runs right beside the beach, and I cannot possibly describe how beautiful the ocean is in Nice! It’s the Mediterranean Sea, and the water is a very deep turquoise. There is a reason they call it the Côte d’Azur! (This means the Azure Coast, also referred to as the French Riviera.) We walked on the beach a bit too, although the beach is all rocks and no sand.

Promenade des Anglais and the beach

On the beach in Nice!

On the advice of an American resident of Nice who we met on the beach, we climbed up to the highest point in Nice. I haven’t been able to clarify if this is called the Château or the Mont de Château, but it is the high hill (mountain is too generous) that you can almost see behind me in the above picture. There used to be a château there, although now it is mostly a handful of ruins with a public park at the top. There were a lot of stairs on the way up, but it was worth it for the fantastic views! I even met someone on the way up who does real estate work in Francestown. Small world.

At one of the view points from the château, overlooking Nice.

View of Nice

Checking out the waterfall at the top of the château hill.

Florence and Renata walking down through what I think are ruins of the old Château

After all that climbing, we went and had lunch in Cours Saleya, and then saw Vieille Nice (Old Nice). It was quite pretty, although I will show a little bias and say that I think Vieux Lyon is cooler.

Vieille Nice

On Saturday, we got up early to go see the marché (market) in Cours Saleya. It was definitely the biggest one I’ve seen! Half of it is a flower market, and the other half was food, although I think in the summer there are different markets every day. We bought breakfast at the market, and then stopped in a café for coffee and people-watching.

Marché in Cours Saleya

Flower market in Cours Saleya

For the afternoon, we took the train to Cannes. Unfortunately, this was the only afternoon we really had bad weather. It didn’t rain, but it was quite cloudy and a bit chilly. To our surprise, there really wasn’t much to see in Cannes. We went to the beach, which was sandy, unlike Nice, but it wasn’t the nicest day. We had lunch and then tried to see the Palais du Festival, where the Cannes Film Festival is held, but it was a pretty ugly building! So, we only stayed for a few hours. But at least we can say we’ve been there!

In Cannes. From left- me, Florence, Renata, and Allison.

Saturday night was the last night in Nice for Florence and I, although Renata, Nicole, and Allison were staying an extra night. Nice is really beautiful at night!

Place Masséna at night. From left- me, Allison, Nicole, Florence, and Renata

On Sunday, we spent the day in Monaco! Monaco, or more accurately, the Principality of Monaco, is a sovereign city-state that is about a 20-minute train ride from Nice. It is the most densely populated country in the world and is a constitutional monarchy (the monarch is still actually very powerful). You might have heard of Monaco because of Grace Kelly, an American who became a princess in Monaco, or because of the famous casino Monte Carlo.

Luckily, we had beautiful weather, even though it was supposed to rain! Monaco has a surprising amount of hills, so we had to walk all the way down from one of the highest points in town (where the train station is) and then back up another hill to the Palais du Princier, which is the official residence of the Prince of Monaco.

On the way up to the Palais, with one of the ports in the background

Palais du Princier

We had a picnic lunch near the Palais, and also walked around a bit and saw the Cathédrale of Monaco. We tried to catch the changing of the guards, but it was a bit hard to see through the crowd, and my pictures didn’t come out well.

After eating lunch, we climbed back down to the bottom of the hill and walked along the port towards the beach. We were so lucky to have such a beautiful day! I have also never seen that many luxury boats in my life. Monaco is definitely, as my host parents put it, for “le jet-set.” We were surprised at how small the beach was, but we did spend some time hanging out on the sea wall. Luckily I didn’t get too badly burned, as my sunscreen was too large to put in a carry-on bag!

On the seawall in Monaco

Trying to spell out LYON

The clouds looked a little threatening for a moment, so we went to see the Japanese Garden to make sure we saw it before it rained. (It didn’t end up raining, but it was a close call for a moment!) The Japanese Garden is probably better in the summer when more things are blooming.

After that, we walked up yet another hill to the famous Monte Carlo Casino! We had to kill a little bit of time before it opened at 2pm, but quickly found that the cafés around Monte Carlo are not for normal people (one ice cream sundae costs 18 euro!). We didn’t have to wait too long, however, and we were fortunate that the casino didn’t have a dress code in the afternoon! In the evenings, it is strictly formal attire. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the casino at all, but it was beautiful inside. It was like a castle. We each decided to spend 5 euro on the electronic games (slot machines and other digital gambling games) so that we could say we had gambled at Monte Carlo. It was pretty funny, as none of us had ever been to a casino before, so we didn’t know how to start. Finally a casino employee came over and explained the different games to us. Much to my surprise, on my last turn, I won back my 5 euro and 21 euro more! I was the “big winner” of the afternoon.

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

After celebrating and cashing in my winnings, we walked back down to the port, passing the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on the way. We had ice cream by the port (a much more reasonable price than that sundae by Monte Carlo!) and then headed back to the train to go back to Nice. Florence and I caught a late flight back to Lyon.

Relaxing after Monte Carlo- Allison, Renata, and Florence

Not much new has happened this week, except for this nasty cold and cough! Hopefully it won’t be too bothersome this weekend, because tomorrow morning I am leaving for the Dordogne region of France! This is a trip with the Penn program, so we will be going by bus and staying in a hotel. There is a great itinerary planned for us, but I’ll save that for my next blog post about the trip! Hope everyone is doing well at home!