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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“15 euro a round isn't a shoestring, it's half my pants!” |
The Barcelona to Nice train sucks.
The train takes 10 hours — including a 2 hour stop over at Montpellier, where machine gun armed guards wander around not smiling and looking like something out of Predator — and the only train leaves at 8.50am.
Nice, however, is nice. Very nice.
Nice (as in niece) is a beach town in the south of France, very close to the likes of Monaco and Cannes (yeap, the very same). The beaches here are beautiful, with water bluer than the bluest blue-blottle at a blue themed blues party. The beaches are not sand beaches, but pebble beaches, and the pebbles get quite large — like palm of your hand large. It's not that comfortable at first, but you get used to it, and it has the advantage of not getting sand, well, everywhere.
With a number of supermarkets around, we decided to buy our breakfast for our time there and even bought ingredients for dinnner on one night. It wasn't until day three, however, that we discovered the flower market down near the beach. Contrary to the name, the market sells significantly more than flowers. With everything from strawberries (which we bought — 2 euro for a large punnet) to mini-pizzas (which we bought — 85 euro cents) and weird bready/bacony things (which we bought — 90 euro cents), it was a recipe for deliciousness.
The hostel we stayed was really good. Patrick, the owner, was a very friendly chap who gave us all kinds of weird directions on our map to restaurants and other places of interest. He wasn't the only friendly chap (or chapette) around, and we met a myriad of friendly people at the hostel, most noteworthy of which being Michelle (from Canada), Maryellen (sp?) and Frank (from Ireland), and the Canadian couple who's names we forgot (sorry!).
The most recommended and popular nightspot in Nice appears to be Waynes. Waynes is very much like an Irish pub, with live music et all. Waynes, however, is not the cheapest place in the world — a pint of lager will cost you 7 euro, making it easy for a deuce round to cost you around the 15 euro mark. What I don't understand is why it's in the Lonely Planet: Europe on a shoe string book. 15 euro a round isn't a shoestring, it's half my pants!
On the second day we headed to Monaco, which was only a 30 minute train away. The two major sites we saw were the casino and the royale palace. The casino seemed great. I saw "seemed great" because there was actually a 10 euro entrance fee to get passed the main entry area. <rant> I mean, come on! You're a CASINO, I'm going to give you my money in just a moment, can't you wait? Your entire business revolves around taking people's money; is the millions of dollars you make a day not enough? Well? Isn't it? </rant> Needless to say, we calmly and quietly thought it best not to pay the entrance fee. We did, however, throw 5 euro (the minimum) into pokey machines (outside the main casino area), so that we can say we bet at the casino in Monte Carlo, and left. The prince's palace was beautiful, and frankly I'm considering purchasing it from the old chap. For some reason, they don't have kings in Monte Carlo, only a "crowned prince" which sounds kind of lame in comparison. "Hi, I'm the crowned prince Richard", "You're that what?". Yeah, you get my point.
On the last day we relaxed on the beach all day, went for a walk, and went and saw Spiderman 3. The movie gets an 8 out of 10, but the fact that I accidently left my (prada) sunglasses at the cinema brings the whole experience down to about a 3 out of 10: good, but note quite worth the 203.50 euro I spent to see it.
previous travel blog entry
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