Destination #27 & #28 - Nice & Monaco

It was the 16th day into my trip and the mediocre weather has followed me around everywhere. It has always seemed that the majority of days I'm in a city will have a forecast of rain or clouds and then the day I leave will be perfect weather. I shouldn't complain though, many of the days have turned out to be better than expected. However, the only absolutely clear days I have had so far was in Faro. I had hoped that my sailing trip in Turkey coming up would be perfect weather but it's looking like it is going to be stormy the majority of time. *Insert nervous laugh*.

I took a train from Marseille and ended up in Nice mid afternoon. This had to be the worst hostel so far on this trip. It wasn't horrible, but the room was musty and small. There was also barely any power outlets and the wifi was non existent. At least it was only 2 nights.

I first ventured over to the waterfront where you can walk along the Promenade des Anglais. It was a gorgeous view of the ocean from here and made for a NICE walk.

I then decided to do a little hike up the hill to where a castle once stood. From here, I got a great view of the city and the waterfront.

I climbed back down and ended up in the old town of Nice. Seems that the majority of the cities I've been to have an old town! Either way, it was charming and was cool to walk through. Lots of shops and restaurants in this area.

Afterwards I walked back down the other way on the Promenade des Anglais before sitting by the water and taking it all in. The beach is all pebbles and was frequently split up into little areas as I guess a lot of them were reserved for specific hotel guests only or I'm pretty sure you could pay to enter these areas if you didn't want to lay down on the pebbles. I went to go take a look at the St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral afterwards but actually realized when I got there that it was private property and I couldn't even really take a picture. Afterwards, I headed back to the hostel for a quiet night in where I met a friendly Aussie in my room. They're everywhere!

The next day, the Aussie (Louis) and I took a quick 20 minute train ride over to Monaco. Interesting fact about Monaco: despite being an independent country, the language is French and their currency is the Euro...and they`re not even part of the European union!

Walking around Monaco, I couldn't help but notice that it just felt so out of place compared to the rest of Europe, even though it's not a part of Europe. There was no sign of poverty anywhere, everything was clean and taken care of, and you could tell the locals had status. That all being said, it was beautiful and breathtaking. Such an interesting city to be in. Louis and I couldn't help but say "What is this place?"

After walking around a bit, we went and saw the famous Monte Carlo casino. I really wanted to take a look inside but it seemed quite intimidating to try and go in, so we didn't try! By the way, so many nice cars everywhere in this city, particularly at the casino.

Next, we headed down the hill and up another hill to the Musee Oceanographique. The museum is in 2 parts: the Museum and the Aquarium. We spent most of our time at the Aquarium.

Before heading back to Nice, we went over to the Palais du Prince where it looked like the royal family was in residence and we also got a stunning view of the city.

Once back in Nice, we went and got some Pho (mmmmmm...) and then ventured over to the old town where they have a gelato place with a tonne of flavours. They had some odd ones as well, like avocado. Gross. I settled on Bailey's! We then just sat on the oceanfront for a time, as I enjoyed my last night in Nice.

Nice was (can't help it) nice. There wasn't a whole lot to do though I found. It was cool to take a day trip over to Monaco but I think Nice, like San Sebastián, I found to be more of a couples destination visit.

Next:
Turkey
Rhodes