Day 28: Villefranche-Sur-Mer

Villefranche-Sur-Mer
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Yup, that´s right, we made it out to Villefranche-Sur-Mer.  We decided to get on up  a bit early and since we had lots of time until our train left for Barcelona (our train leaves tonight at 8:30 p.m.), we hopped on a train for the nearby town of Villefranche-Sur-Mer about ten minutes to the east of Nice.  While it still has many tourists that come to visit it, Villefranche-Sur-Mer is a sleepy little beach town that has some of the clearest water we´ve ever seen!  It´s a rather small beach, but that only adds to the "quaint-ness" of the town.  Families are abound at the beach with coastal cliffs as their background.  We had had enough of the French Riviera sun in Monaco, so decided to do a little exploring.  Villefranche-Sur-Mer is in a sort of U-shaped bay with its very own little fort/castle sitting on one end and beautiful villas lining the U-shape.  It was quite a hot day, so we decided to walk along the water for a while and watch all the people with their boats wishing we could be on one also.  We even found a local fisherman who set up shop right on the side of the water with some of the freshest fish we had seen - - the fish were still moving!  After walking along the water for quite some time, we found a narrow street that seemed to lead to nowhere.  To our surprise, it led to a plethora of little shops and restaurants on narrow, cobblestoned roads.  Churches on every corner, little alleyways of seeming "nothingness".  We absolutely loved Villefranche!  We have decided that when we are nice and rich, we are DEFINITELY buying some grand villa here right in the heart of the French Riviera! =)

The beautiful coast of Villefranche-Sur-Mer
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We decided it was time to head on back to Nice and stroll around for a while before grabbing our bags and heading out to the train station.  It really was quite a hot day!  We sat for a while by the beach and people-watched again.  The waves were quite strong today.  We could see them crashing people down onto the pebbly beach.  That really must´ve hurt!  We decided to grab an early dinner before heading out on our long journey to Barcelona.  There´s a really cute restaurant downstairs from our hostel, called La Faubourg Montmartre.  The cute old lady calls herself "The Pink Lady".  It was about 6:00 and we saw her inside her restaurant setting up.  We popped our head in and asked if she was open yet and she informed us  that she would open for dinner at 7:00 p.m.  Aww shucks.  We had to head on to the train station, so we headed upstairs and grabbed our bags.  When we headed for the train station, we saw "The Pink Lady" again and she looked confused.  Melissa told her in French that we were about to leave.  "The Pink Lady" was so adorable.  She put her little hands to her cheeks and replied "Ah non!  Je suis tres desolee!" telling us how sorry she was.  She really did look kind of sad!  We told her it was no problem at all and that we would simply have to come and visit her another day!  On to the train station we went to take our overnight train to Barcelona.  The end of the trip is coming near.. we feel it!