Feeling Not so Nice in Nice

Our balcony - Can you spot a very sick Rob in the room on the left?
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The train ride between Milan and Nice took us via Genoa, and the portion of the trip between Genoa and Nice [about 3 hours] was amazing as the tracks run directly along the small towns and villages of the Italian and French Rivieras.  The Med looked fantastic lapping the pebble and sand beaches and we were very keen to reach Nice so we could go down to enjoy them ourselves.  As you pass through the Italian-French border and Monaco the train line runs through a number of very long and impressive tunnels under the moutains.  Our train ran late by about 45 minutes, and so we arrived in Nice at a little after 9pm.

The amazing view from our room and balcony over Nice
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We had met up with a few folks on the train and also with a German girl (Jana - welcome to the Blog - see you in Barcelona!)  just outside waiting to go to the same hostel as us, so we joined forces.  The Hostel is great and offers a very cool pickup service so we called their toll-free number and a few minutes later were picked up by mini-van.  By this stage I was feeling a little under the weather - the slight sniffles that I had on the train had progressed to a head cold and I was keen to grab some food and crash.  The 10 bed dorm we had booked turned out to be clean but very cramped and we decided to ask about upgrading after dinner.  The hostel has one of the best common rooms you can imagine - situated in the old chapel of the monastery.  With 12 internet terminals, lots of comfy couches, a well stocked and very cheap bar etc. it was a welcome refuge.  We were just in time to grab dinner - chillie con carne and pear pie.  After dinner we moved to a slightly better 5 bed dorm which was already clearly occupied by at least two less-than-tidy guys who we only met at 08:30 the next morning when they stumbled back in from a long night on the town.  Our third dormie was an artist from the DRC who has been in Europe since 1994 - he even has his little workshop here at the hostel.

The gathering storm - a good mirror to our health in Nice
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By the time the next morning rolled around my head cold had moved into the fever phase.  Fortunately we moved again to a private room - with a great balcony looking out over the whole of Nice.  I can´t write much about yesterday since my fever reached 38.8 and I was totally out of things all day - Denise tells me she spent the day reading and napping too.  After a rough night, mirrored by a strong thunder and lightning storm outside, the fever broke.  The after-effects weren't much better and the rest of Wednesday was spent in our room.   The rain and colder weather also persisted - in fact the entire time we spent in Nice was wet and cool  - in spite of the fact that Nice advertises itself as having 300 days of sunshine every year!  it seems that we arrived in fact at the tail end of a very long drought period - so its hard to begrudge them their much-needed rain.  The fact that it coincided with a period of not feeling great also helped in that we didn't feel too bad about not being outside and on the beaches.