Nice and Monaco

November 9th, I headed to Nice for a little vacation. Good ‘ole easyJet provided for some cheap flights (we’d booked for this trip a long time ago). I’d never been to Nice before, and although it wasn’t the summer (you know, the French Riviera, the beaches and such), I was excited to visit this place that I’d had a vision in my head about. We knew that we were also going to take a day trip to Monaco, and I was really excited about that too.
As our plane was landing, I looked out the window and saw that we were flying low above the water and the lights (it was pretty late at night) from the city made the place look so magical (remember my weakness for lights). We were driven to the hotel and we could see palm trees and more lights. We hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so we headed out into town to look for a restaurant to go to. I didn’t really think about the fact that we were right on the water, but that night, I started my fabulous string of seafood meals. Sure, it was 11:30pm, but I was hungry and I was going to eat a full meal. Especially when it was a seafood tagliatelle…delicious. I was stuffed, and then I went to bed. Yes, not the best thing for your body, but still...it was yummy.

The next morning, we decided to spend the day looking around Nice. First stop, Chagall Museum. I don’t really know anything about Chagall, and I’m not really big into museums, but I’m sure glad I went. The paintings (although religious in nature, so I didn’t know what was going on) were beautiful. The vibrant colours that were used on the huge canvases were incredible. The museum itself was nice.
It was like something I would imagine, in a chic place in New York. It was a really small museum with only a couple large canvases, but it was so classic. White walls, large windows with white blinds, a couple black leather benches in the middle of the room. The main part of the museum was just one large room and those painting were definitely the main attraction. It was a beautiful museum.
On the way to and from the museum, we saw a clementine tree. It was so cool! I’d never seen one before! I won’t lie, we took some clementines to eat, even though it was obvious that the tree was on private property. There were also orange trees along the side of the street, but after careful inspection (read: climbing the tree to grab some) we saw that they were rotten.
At the same time last year, I was in Belgium and Karl Lagerfeld’s H&M collection came out. I remember not being very impressed by it. There was this tacky pouffy dress in the collection. This year, Stella McCartney’s H&M collection came out. I think it sold out (well, the clothing items – the keychains and purses were still there) in an hour or so. I guess I can’t say that I saw it on the shelves at opening, so I didn’t touch and see the collection up close, but the items that were on the mannequins in the window weren’t very impressive. And they were (naturally) more pricey than normal H&M wear. Someone else told me (a week or so later) that they thought that the line was actually very reasonably priced. And not even compared to her own line, but to H&M standards. I must have seen the wrong items. So, I think that H&M is taking over the world. They’re everywhere. I wonder who they’re going to get as a guess designer next year. I wonder what country I’ll be in for that. I wonder why they picked this date to open.
Next stop: beach!!! It was so exciting to walk out and all of a sudden see a large body of water in front of you. The sun was shining (it was really warm still), and the water was so blue. Playing in the Mediteranean ensured and soaking up some rays to gain some vitamin D (among other things).
The old town of Nice was very similar to old towns in other European cities. I really liked the small alleyways and curious little boutiques selling some bizarro wears. I found the prices in Nice to be a little higher than I expected. Was it because it was a tourist town perhaps? There were quite a lot of tourists there even though it was the low-season. Lots of British people.
While wandering around, I stumbled upon this confectionary store. I felt like I was stepping into a movie. They have to get more places like this in Toronto or something. It’s places like this that I will miss if/when I leave Europe. There was also an amazing olive oil store that had a similar kind of appeal. It really does make the shopping experience that much more enjoyable.
Obviously being in the south of France and with the reputation that the French Riviera has I wasn’t surprised to see palm tress (I guess sort of like how I should have expected the orange trees), but when I saw them I was surprised nonetheless. The gardens were beautiful (yes, there was some skipping involved – especially through an arched…trellace?!? – is that the right word?) and I could sit there for a long time just daydreaming and soaking up the sun. The flora they had there looked so exotic, but obviously this was only because they were specials that lived in warmer climates than I usually reside in.
We ate lunch outside where we could do some people watching. People are so interesting. What they wear, how they hold themselves, how they react to and interact with people...I could just sit and watch people all day long. That’s something I love about Europe. There’s so many more outdoor café’s where you could sit, not even having to continually pay for services, even by yourself...it’s all good. No one will think twice about the fact that you’re staring at other people. It’s so much more fun to do it behind sunglasses too, because that way you feel all conspicuous and stuff.
If there’s one thing that I always like to see in the different cities that I visit, it’s the opera house. I don’t know why, but I do. It’s not like I’ve ever really seen an opera or anything. Most of the time though, the opera houses are spectacular. The one in Nice was completely white, and looked very much like the Paris opera house.
We walked up to the park on the cliff to get a view of the city, beach and port below. It was just like I imagined in my head. We watched the sunset, the colours in the sky, reflecting on the water below, albatros soaring above.
Dinner was moules and frites. Yummy. It got really cold at night. As soon as the sun went away, the temperature dropped. Even still, we ate outdoors for some reason, and you know those heaters that restaurants and café’s have on their patios and such? In French, they call them "mushrooms". Ha ha. It makes complete sense, because they’re shaped like big mushrooms, but the name is still funny nonetheless.

The next day, we decided to go to Monaco. I really don’t know why this place is so famous and stuff, expect for the fact that I wanted to see some yachts and the casino. Oh, and I thought it would be really funny if there was a place called Club Monaco there.
I can’t believe how close everything on this part of the continent is. Just a short train ride away and we’re in another "country". The train station didn’t look like anything so special, and the walk down to the harbour wasn’t anything particularly exciting, except for the fact that there was a little market on the way down there were these amazingly soft persimmons on sale, and I really wanted to buy a couple, but I didn’t want to eat them at that very moment and they were so soft that I was worried that they would explode and get all squished and stuff…so then I didn’t buy them. Which I was a little bit sad about.
So, Monaco is pretty obsessed with their royalty right? There was a portrait of King Albert (actually, just Prince at the time) in every single storefront window; even in some personal home windows…it was a little bizarre I thought.
At the harbour, yes, I was expecting it, but the yachts really surprised me. They were HUGE!!! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boat that big, unless it was supposed to carry over 1000 people. I can’t believe it. I want to know who or what companies own these yachts! I wanted to hop on board one of them just to take a look around to see what the inside of one looked like, but of course every single one had a sign on the gangplank that said "private property", "do not trespass", blah blah blah. Darn. One thing that made me laugh (or maybe just be in even more awe of the situation) was that on shore, in front of the walkway to each boat was a fancy monogrammed mat special to the yacht. And a lot of the yachts had those preppy loafers beside the mats. I guess they don’t want to bring dirt from the street onto their yacht right? The people cleaning the yachts seemed normal enough, but who knows if they are the same people who own them?
So we keep walking around the port and through a tunnel (apparently used in the Grand Prix race – which seems a little scary to me...fast cars in confined areas?!?), through a strangely situated souvenir shop (in the middle of the tunnel) which was beside an elevator up to another part of Monte Carlo (so that’s why the shop was there...). From here, we could see the port down below and the palace on the top of the hill in the distance. This was also the way to get to the Monte Carlo Casino!
It did look pretty impressive from the outside (nothing at all like casinos in Las Vegas of course) but it wouldn’t be open for a couple of hours, so we decided to walk around for a bit (to let me get my fix of window shopping – I fell in love with a hat from Hermes by the way), eat lunch and go to the beach.
For some reason I was really really tired on this day, so I was hoping that a good lunch would make be feel better. Disapointingly, the dish that I wanted to order had run out, and even though it was listed on the menu, they didn’t have any Badoit in stock.
After lunch, we head across the tunnel again and rest at the beach for awhile. They had these really chill patio bars that I wouldn’t have minded staying at longer, or even going to later on that night. Lots of lounge chairs and pillows. Clean lines and cool atmosphere. Interesting people too. We decided to go to the casino, and after paying the 10 euro entrance, we entered the most beautiful and old style glam room I’ve ever seen. See...Versailles is tacky...this was nice. Really nice. (No cameras allowed inside, or else I would have definetely taken a bunch!) The side room had slots (didn’t stay there for long at all), and the main room had roulette, black jack and some other game that I don’t really understand, but it tres European. There were side rooms that could be rented for dining, and of course the special VIP room. I wonder what that place looked like. Being the people watcher that I am, I really enjoyed watching all the action and also looking at the stats of the numbers that would show up on the roulette wheels. I was so tempted so bet on 17, but couldn’t bring myself to do it for some reason. And it (or numbers very close to it – I probably wouldn’t have just bet on 17, but the numbers near it) kept popping up. Like, 5 times in a row! Strange! I didn’t really want to leave, but we needed to figure out what we were going to do for the rest of the night.
We walked around the harbour to see if there was anything interesting happening, and after visiting a couple places and weighing our options, we decided to take the train back to Nice.
In Nice, we found a nice place for dinner, walked around a little bit longer, checked out one place, but after a little bit, we decided that we were too tired to do anything else. Traveling is relaxing, but often exhausting.

The next day, we packed up, headed to the airport and jetted off to Paris...

All in all, I really enjoyed Nice. The weather was really pleasant (good escape from dreary Neuch) and the old town was fun to walk around. I would visit it again, but only in the Spring or summer when there are more people and after I’ve crossed every other city that I still need to visit off my list. Ditto for Monaco. There just wasn’t enough going on while we were there, but it was November. Super low season. I would have liked to window shop a little longer (too bad, no extravagant purchase for me) and hung out in the casino longer as well. That place is just too cool. It was still a good trip though. I’m glad I went because I’d really wanted to see what the big kerfluffle about the French Riviera was (would still like to visit Cannes – but now know that I would only go if it’s the summer time), and I would have maybe liked to stay there for one more day, but it wasn’t too bad a length of a trip. Especially since I knew that I’d be traveling to two other major cities within the span of the next week.