Vive la France!
Our arrival in Nice was fairly easy. The plane landed, we hopped on a bus, and we called our hostel to come pick us up at the bus stop. Just a quick list of why our hostel (Villa St. Exupery - tell your friends) is the most amazing hostel in the world:
1. There is a shuttle bus from the hostel to the closest tram stop every 15 minutes because the hostel is up a massive hill and they don't expect you to walk it.
2. Our friend Kylee's flight got in around 11 pm and someone from the hostel drove a half hour to the airport to pick her up.
3. A travel advisor comes around to your table during breakfast every morning to help you plan your trip.
4. Everyone who works there is either a. Australian, b. incrediby attractive and nice, or c. both
5. One of the guys who works there stayed up until 4 in the morning so that he could drive us to the airport for our 6:15 am flight to Paris.
6. 4 euros for a bottle of wine. Enough said.
Now that that's over with, a brief summary of our visit. After we arrived at the hostel, we decided to hang around and wait for Kylee instead of hitting the town--it was already 6 or 7 and we were tired. We did head out for a walk, and as we were leaving the hostel, we quite unexpectedly ran into Lee--a girl who lives in our building in Prague and just happened to be sleeping in the same 10 girl room as us in Nice. After our walk we hung out in the "Chapel" (the hostel is a converted monastery) and used the Internet (for free!) and had a few drinks while we waited for Kylee.
The next day, the four of us (new travel buddy Lee included) headed down to the Flower Market in Vieux Nice, where we procured some delicious strawberries and olives before heading for the beach. I've decided I pretty much love the Mediterranean. It's gorgeous, it's blue, it's amazing. Even the rocky Nice beach was wonderful and not as uncomfortable as you'd think. After hanging out on the beach for a while, we climbed up to a observation area to get a view of the entire city. The rest of the day, we walked along the promenade, hit up a museum, and got lost on a university campus, among other things.
When we finally got back to the hostel, we met up with Lee, who'd left us after lunch to go to the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, and headed out for some Nice nightlife. We found ourselves at the standard tourist bar called Chez Wayne's where loud music and table dancing did occur on a mass scale. Miranda, ever the New Yorker, was not impressed, seeing as how there were no R&B places to be found. We called it a relatively early night and were still able to take the tram back up to the hostel. We'd already decided that we'd basically seen what Nice had to offer, so the plan for the next day was to hit up some other towns in the Cote d'Azur area. More on that later.
Walking down the very steep hill to the tram stop in the morning
Orange tree!
Very large square
Kylee was pretty excited
Flower market
Paper flowers
Lots of assorted spices
More of the market
Kylee, Miranda, and Lee modeling with some strawberries
Big tomatoes
First real glimpse of the ocean!
Heading to the beach
Getting closer...
The first of many, many pictures of the water
In the words of Rachel Zoe, "I die."
Kylee and Miranda hanging out. On the beach. In NICE!
Hunting for seashells
Like I said--many, many pictures of the water. Prepare yourselves if you haven't already.
They're not dead, I promise
Palm tree. They don't have these in Prague...
The steps we were about to climb
Telling us just how miserable we were about to be (except that it's actually not that far...)
Coastline
Nice is nice.
Last one, I promise
Post-exercise snack
Yummy olives
One last picture before heading back down to the real world
Promenade d'Anglais
Stasi? Really? Lee and I decided that even in France there's gotta be some sort of stigma when you name your company after the East German secret police.
One last look at the water before lunch and assorted other activities
Contemporary Art Museum
Kylee's from Oregon, therefore she made herself a daisy chain while we hung out on a college campus. Hippies...
Miranda purchased a book of French jokes from some guy on the street and we tried to figure them out. We were mildly successful, but we're pretty sure none of the jokes were actually funny.
Hanging out in the hostel before heading to the illustrious Chez Wayne's
Table dancing. Apparently there was a memo that we didn't see, because as soon as the band started playing everyone hopped up on the tables and we felt obliged to join.
Nice at night
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