The travels continue

Where was I...?

So after a great weekend in Lyon (I definitely want to go back, especially after seeing the photos of the festival of lights which takes place in December every year) it was time to spend some more quality time with the SNCF. Although it turned out to be slightly less good quality time as the previous journey because when I arrived at Lyon Part Dieu the departures board was showing my train running 20 minutes late. Not a big deal normally but I only had 16 minutes to make my connection at Marseilles so potentially a problem. In fact the train arrived in Marseilles over half an hour late so I had well and truly missed the onward train to Nice. While I was wandering around trying to find the information desk in the station, a French girl asked me where to find the "Accueil" so she could get new tickets for her connection. So I tagged along with her to the "accueil" and all I had to do was say "My train was late and I missed my connection to Nice" (in French of course) and they just handed over a new ticket from a pile which had already been printed out. The French girl made a comment along the lines of "unfortunately this is what the French rail system is like". I just smiled and nodded even though I reckon it was all pretty efficient. The new train I was on was not a TGV but in fact only took 3 minutes longer than the original should have. The only really disappointing part of the whole journey was that I had a reservation on the train I missed for a seat on the upper deck of the train, the only one for my whole trip. What's the point of being on a doubledecker train if you have to sit downstairs?

Unfortunately, my friend Marielou who is from Nice (another Haut-Lac-er) was spending the holidays in Paris so I stayed in the youth hostel in the centre of the city. It was DEFINITELY not built as a youth hostel. It is just off the main shopping avenue in the city and our room had huge windows looking out onto palm trees in the garden. I chatted to quite a few other travellers in the communal kitchen whilst I was making dinner and even shared some cheese with a group of Chinese guys. Good banter! Ruth (my former flatmate from Aberdeen) arrived a few hours after me so I met her at the station then we headed back the the hostel to sleep, after a minor altercation with the sheet sleeping bag.

In case you don't know, Nice is very close to Monaco, Italy and is right on the Mediterranean sea. Despite it being the 27th of October, the temperature on Tuesday was forecast for 26 degrees. We got up early and headed to the Tourist Office to find a map. The woman behind the desk was clearly very tired of having to point out to people where to go in the City. In fact, she reminded me of me in my days as Tourist Office Assistant in Oban.


The first place we went to explore was the market, passing by this fountain on the way. The market was tiny in comparison to the mammoth operation which takes place in Rennes every Saturday but what it lacked in size it made up for by having a stall selling the cutest marzipan alligators in the world ever.

We continued through all the windy narrow streets up the hill to the ruins of the old castle on the top. From the top there is an incredible view out over the sea, the city and the mountains in the background. Here are a few photos to give a general idea...


We asked an old French woman at the viewpoint to take a photo of us together at the top, just to prove that we had actually both been there together. We took a different route down the hill and passed this waterfall which was particularly stunning in the sunlight. Cue more photographs...


I am really loving my new camera, so for every photo I put up here there are at least 5 more taken using different settings and angles. After having stood at the top of the hill looking straight down into the sea, the beach was irresistible. Due to Ruth's lack of internet access or landline phone we had a lot of stuff to catch up on about our various experiences in France so far and the gossip from Scotland from the summer holidays. We watched the Corsica ferry arriving. We also watched the wake from the Corsica ferry heading towards the beach but didn't move in time so Ruth spent the rest of the afternoon trying to dry her skirt!

As with my life in France, food must make a regular appearance in this blog. And what better to eat in Nice than a Nicoise salad?

And some wine of course.
There was an old German woman sitting at the table next to us and she was telling us all about the places she has lived and her experiences as a foreigner living in France. We also saw a fireman almost faceplant after tripping over a loose paving stone. Hilarious.

At the recommendation of Marielou we went to see the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It reminded me quite a lot of the Guggenheim in Bilbao: worth going for the building, art inside fairly underwhelming. The best part about it is the roof terrace which gave a great view over the city just as the sun was setting. If only I had a sunset setting on my camera... oh wait, I do. I now have about 100 photos of the skyline of Nice at various stages of the setting sun.

The rest of the day/evening we spent generally wandering around city, looking at the massive private yachts in the harbour and trying to choose which flavour of ice cream to choose from Fenocchio's. They have almost 100 different flavours of ice cream including tomato and basil, lavendar and avocado. My sweet tooth won through through and I went for a scoop of lemon meringue pie and a scoop of chocolate/ginger. Perfect end to a brilliant day.

http://www.fenocchio.fr/parfums.html

On Wednesday morning, we checked out the hostel and took a combination of public transport including the tram and the bus up to the Matisse museum. Matisse lived in Nice for many years between 1918 and 1954 and when he died he left a lot of his work to the city. His heirs have also contributed work and other artists' work is included such as portraits of the artist and photographs of him at work. There is also the scale models and practice drawings for the Chapel of Vence which he considered to be his masterpiece. This was a much more interesting musuem from the point of view of art, maybe because I studied some of Matisse's work when I did my HNC so I actually had some sort of clue what was going on!

We both agreed that Nice was brilliant but we had a boat to catch in Toulon, so once again I found myself at the station. we broke up our journey to Toulon with a few hours in Cannes. Totally unimpressed. I'm sure it's a great place to be when the film festival is on but apparently in late October all that happens is a conference for IT executives. The beach was also nowhere near as nice as Nice (haha) although luckily I can always count on Ruth to provide some comedy, on this occasion watching her try to put her shoes back on without getting sand on her feet. FAIL.

When we got to the port in Toulon and saw the boat, we both got ridiculously excited. In fact, the boat deserves it's own entry...