Nice is nice

We were welcomed into Nice with a mass of people all excited from their day at Carnival. Confetti scattered the streets and there were bright posters, face paint, balloons etc. As we walked closer to our hostel, two huge creepy looking Characters were set up at the end of a square where a lot of the activities/performances took place. We soon found out that after that, the Carnival activities would break for 2 days and start again the day we leave Nice. Bummer.

Creepy Carnivale folk

Creepy Carnivale folk

We did however catch an amazing sun set across the beaches from several viewing places along the Nice board walk.

beautiful sunset

some Asian took our picture

The first night we were so hungry, our stomachs were eating themselves because we couldn’t make up our minds where to eat! We eventually gave into our hunger and ended up at an Irish pub, drinking Belgium beer and eating really tasty burgers. How French!

We had a beautiful first day where we walked east towards the next town, Villefranche. We passed lots of fancy houses and little coves where people were swimming in the clear blue water. Can’t tell you much about Villefranche other than its expensive and we saw a lot of it while searching for about an hour for a public toilet (its ok we found one eventually, apparently fancy rich people don’t need public toilets).

Villefranche 

Leah tried to offset some of the bread, cheese and chocolate we have been eating with a jog along the boardwalk that afternoon. Jogging is very popular in Nice, and all the men’s running tights left little to the imagination…

Walking along the rock beach

The next day we went on a walking tour with the hostel. An animated Englishman took a big group of us through old town and to some great lookout points. Nice flowers markets, the biggest in France were so colourful and smelt amazing. We picked up a baguette, some pate and delicious strawberries to have a picnic for lunch at the top of the hill. Arvi confused the poor shop owners by saying ‘grazie’ instead of ‘merci’. Unfortunately, he still has not adapted to language change.

Succulents for only 1euro!

Juicy strawberries 

Beautiful flower arrangements 

Baguette? 

Thinking of where to go to next, we bought a train ticket to Cannes only to change our minds and go the other way back to Monaco and see why this place is the most expensive place in the world. The houses are big and tightly packed around a bay full of the most luxurious yachts (more like houses on water). Monte Carlo Casino was amazing, so big and a bit over the top. The minimum on the roulette table was out of our budget but we had fun watching people loose their money.We put 10 euro into the pokies instead and took out 72 euro not even 5 minutes later!!! We strutted back to the train station like high rollers, pretty damn chuffed with ourselves. Dinner and drinks that night courtesy of Monte Carlo Casino, Merci Beaucoup!

Ice rink during the winter and swimming pool during the summer

Acting all fancy in Monaco 

Acting important in Monaco

Begging for money for another baguette at the train station

We are off to Paris next ooh la la!