Nice.. so much more than just nice

Soooooo let's talk about NICE! (As I'm preparing to write this, it feels as if I was there SO, so long ago. Just looked at my calendar, and it was actually one month ago today. Weird how quickly time has flown by since then. I digress.) Nice was the last city on our ~Sud de France~ tour, and it was absolutely amazing. The first day, the weather was kind of dreary, but after that it was FINALLY sunny and beautiful outside (the weather that we had been expecting for the whole trip). So at the end of the trip, I finally did get to spend a little bit of time at the beach - hooray! But, I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first!

When we got to Nice, Molly and I met up with another American student from California. We checked into the hostel (which was so cute and homey and comfortable) and went out to see the beach/walk around and get dinner. We asked the hostel receptionist for recommendations, and she told us about this pizza place called Attimi. They have a copyright apparently on their pizza crust, which has some sort of cheese filling (if you're thinking Domino's cheese-stuffed crust, like I was at first, you've got it all wrong). It's some sort of creamy cheese deliciousness, and I got an attimi (the name of this type of pizza) with smoked salmon on it. Salmon has been one of my favorite foods since I was little, and that's been ever true here in France. It was so delicious. mmm. Then, after dinner, it had been a long day of traveling (and Molly was getting sick. oh no!) so we went back to the hostel. I ended up hanging out in the common room with some fellow travelers, making new friends, etc. which was really fun! And then it was off to bed to explore the city the next day.

   

On our first day of sightseeing, I couldn't get over the beauty of this city. Nice is a lot smaller than Marseille, to be sure, but is a lot bigger than Aix-en-Provence (by a long shot) and Avignon, so it's a medium-sized city. Not sure if that matters. What does matter is that it is a gorgeous, perfectly picturesque seaside town in the south of France. I didn't really know what I thought that meant before getting there, but once I was there, I knew. The architecture in this place was stunning. Every single building was brightly colored and had perfect french balconies and was just too cute. So I spent a lot of time just walking around staring up at the buildings around me, admiring them. (Turns out the ones that I have pictures of are mostly in the same color scheme, but lots of others were more bright and different colors.)

beautiful building AND a cat.. can't get much better.

So my head was tilted upwards (as was my camera) as my friends and I were walking around. We found our first destination at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. More. Amazing. Architecture. Words can't really describe this thing, except for "magnificent." Pictures don't even do it justice, but I can show you what I caught of it on film. Or, digitally, rather.

 

  

Oh, and when we went inside, we had to cover our heads with scarves. Understandable. The more fun part was that I was wearing shorts (with tights underneath, in true frenchie fashion), so they gave me a verrry stylish scarf to wrap around my legs like a long flowing plaid skirt. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought to do so myself earlier. Unfortunately, though, no pictures were allowed inside the Cathedral, so I couldn't capture the beauty on camera. But, the inside was decked out in gold. I snuck a picture of a Russian Cathedral in Geneva a while back, so that's kind of what it looked like EVERYWHERE and like ten times more elaborate.

We continued walking around - my favorite way to explore a city is by wandering its streets - and, of course, there were churches everywhere. We went to two that were closed, surprisingly, and a couple more that were open. So here come some more French church photos! We then walked through Vieux Nice (the old part of town - like Vieux Lyon, where I live. except... way less exciting than Vieux Lyon. Oh, look, hometown pride for my city! Am I lyonnaise yet?) and happened upon a flower market. Again with the colors and beauty and everything being great. Hooray!

Sainte Jeanne d'Arc

their Notre Dame

look it's me!

both of those were closed, so this
is inside another one

Streets of Vieux Nice

the Opera - stunning!

flower market!
(just had to struggle to spell that in english. marché, anyone?)

nearby - a government building that used to be someone's HOUSE

Le Palais de Justice - never fails to impress

Next up, we found the bus we were looking for, which took us to Monaco. Which is another kiiiiind of city (it's a principality) about an hour away from Nice by bus. The bonus was it was a public bus, as in, public transportation, so it only cost ONE EURO! How great is that?! So we took the bus to Monaco, which is its own little world, so I'm going to put all the photos from that into another post, to keep this one from being seventeen pages long. (It'll be another "oh, look, we walked around and saw stuff, so here are some photos!" post.) so.... pause in the day. Monaco. then back to Nice that night.

When we got back, I scurried around to find a bathroom, as only Emma needs to constantly do after any extended period of being away from an available toilet. Then we went to the grocery store and got some pasta that we made in the hostel. We nommed on that, and then I hung out in the common room again with my fellow travelers! One last exciting thing about that night was the view we saw while walking back to the hostel. I love this too much not to add it here:

THERE are some more colorful buildings!

Whew. The next morning I was pretty tired, and had to wait around in our room for what seemed like forever to be able to take a shower. Never underestimate the ability of two girls to take an hour and all the hot water in a shared bathroom that four more people need to use after them. Have you ever heard of common courtesy, folks?? Ugh. Oh, well. Don't sweat the little things, right? Luckily I had no elaborate plans for the day. In fact, I only had one plan, and that was to relax on the beach. Which I did. All day long.

Molly and I packed our bags and checked out of the hostel, because we were taking the train back to Marseille for the night, to fly from there to Krakow in the morning. We left our bags in the hostel's luggage room, since our train wasn't until about 5pm, and we got on our way to do our day's things. The other two girls I was traveling with wanted to see some more sights, so they spent the day climbing a mountain to see a giant waterfall at the top, and at an art museum. Those both sounded like fantastic, fun, and gorgeous plans, but I was SO exhausted from doing tourist things for so long that I just didn't have the energy to make it happen. I also knew that I was going to go through some more physically and emotionally exhausting things in Poland, so I took the day for myself to relax. My friends brought back some lovely photos from the mountain top, but I was very content with the way I spent my day. I went to the beach with the travelers that I had met at the hostel, and ended up laying in the sun all day and getting to know them more. At one point we went to a store down the street for some food, so we ended up having a nice little picnic (beer included) and great conversation. Time for beach photos!!!

friends! when we met up @ da beach. :)

In the early to mid afternoon, we had to go back to the hostel and pick our stuff up to head to the train station. I felt like I was on top of the world, because I had had such a great time in Nice. It was sad to leave, and also a little painful because of the bright red sunburn I had gotten that day on my back. [Note to beach-goers: when using sunscreen, don't just put it on the front of your body. If you accidentally do so, be careful to NOT turn around with your back facing the sun afterwards!!! wish someone had told me that. oops. Oh, and in the case that you do get a sunburn on your back, do it during a time when you don't have to carry a heavy backpack around afterwards.] In seriousness, though, the sunburn was a small price to pay for a wonderful few days in Nice and Monaco. I was so grateful for the sunshine and warm weather that I had been missing for so long. The sites were wonderful to see, and the beach was relaxing and refreshing. Nice was definitely one of my favorite places I had seen so far! Little did I know, I had so many more wonderful things and places to see in the near future! This city was a great start to the end of my travels, I suppose. More on Monaco to come very soon! and more on the other places, as well.

sending love and sunshine! (even though there is none of the latter to be found in Lyon lately.) A très bientôt !

PS. Sorry for the lack of diversity in adjectives. I don't have enough words in my vocabulary to accurately describe how great things are repeatedly.

PPS. I forgot two parts of the Russian Cathedral. a) pictures of me there, and b) the terrifying security guard (who we got to smile at us at the end. win!), per the request of Molly.

what he doesn't know here is that he will soon
meet his best friends EVER (us)

Okay, that's really the end now. Thanks for sticking around. Ciao!