After getting all engaged the next night we caught our last overnight train (ever) across the Italian Border and into Frenchyland (aka France). The train runs right along the coastline and some of the scenes from our window were beautiful. The sky was so blue. The water was so blue. Simply amazing.
Our hostess at our hostel informed us how lucky we were to arrive as there were currently major train strikes. She told us that the French workers were decent about strikes and would give a few days notice before it happened (they'd even drive around in their trucks with the alarms on), whereas "those" Italian ones were bad as you might be on a platform waiting for the next train and then they'd call a strike willynilly. This one was apparently the French workers striking. The only way we were affected was that we had to get up early in the morning to change trains when we hit the border.
After making our way through town from the station (and finding most of the Avenue Jean Médecin cut up for some kind of roadworks) we dumped our backpacks, went back downstairs and strolled down to the beach.
Pebbly beaches in Nice.
View from some tower at sunset that we hiked up to.
This is a monument looking out onto the beach, the famous Promenade des Anglais, and a motorway.
This is inside the baroque Palais Lascaris in the Old Town of Nice. You'd walk past it if you weren't looking for it. Its not very flashy on the outside, but there's some lovely decorations and ornamentations inside, and also plenty of statues and paintings. This is the roof of one of the rooms.
An example of the booty inside.
The 4-star Hôtel Negresco, a luxurious romantic (and very exxy) private palace facing the beach.
We decided to end a night with a quiet drink inside La Rotonde, a restaurant in the hotel.
It has the best fairy tale merry-go-round décor interior. Hands down, the winner of the best interior decoration in the world.
There's even cherubs dropping roses from the ceiling.
Hold on tight!
They seated us upstairs as we weren't eating anything, but we think they forgot about us, as we waited and waited for them to give us a menu or take our orders.
So we busied ourselves with taking photos.
What?! I don't even get a ring?!
But, in the end it was ok. We got our bubbly drinks ;)
Yummy!
View from ground level. That lady in the middle is actually a mannequin. Every half hour or something the mannequin plays the piano or whatever instrument it is and some of the wall decorations play bells and do things. The merry-go-round horses even bob up and down. Classy.
The next day we walked along the beach, as was our custom in those days. We saw flocks of seagulls flying and swooping into the shallow water.
We discovered that the waves were bringing in schools of tiny little fish and some were even washing up onto the shore (pebbles).
Yummy!
