And of course, May is the perfect time to hop a train to the French Riviera:
To begin, here's a little information about the South of France:
- It's full of Italian influences.
- It's colorful! If you've been to Paris (or even seen pictures of it) you know what I'm talking about. Angers is the same way. The buildings are all white/gray stone. Pretty, but lacking in color.
-The people speak French with a very different accent. I was proud of myself for being able to recognize how different they sounded. The Angers area of France, where I live, is the "accent-less" region of France. If you've heard French spoken before, you might have noticed that it sounds like they are making a bit of a choking noise in their throats when they pronounce R's. In Nice, they roll their R's.
-It's hilly! I really do love the Loire Valley and the area that I live in, but it's very flat, which does not make for amazing views. It also doesn't have the crystal blue Mediterranean sparkling in the sunlight like the Riviera does. In other words, I was in one of the most picturesque places ever.
We stayed right in Nice's old town, which is filled with colorful buildings and charming narrow streets right on the coast.
I especially loved the marketplace, which had my favorite outdoor market I've been to yet in France. That's saying a lot, considering that every town has at least one market.
We saw the mountains and the beach, and climbed a little mountain next to the sea:
This was the view from the top:
And of course, we ate great food.
The first night we went to an all you can eat mussels and fries restaurant right in the main market square. I'd never had mussels before, but what better place to try them then in Nice, right? They were delicious!
We took a day trip to Cannes, where the film festival was going on! There weren't any stars around in the middle of the morning, but we did see the red carpet.
From Cannes, we hopped on a ferry boat with amazing views of the coastline.
We arrived at the Island of Saint Honorat, a little island with an old abbey, vineyards, and amazing views of the Mediterranean.
On our last full day, we took a brief trip to a little town on the coast between Nice and Monaco called Beaulieu-Sur-Mer. That name, translated, means "pretty place on the sea." And pretty it was!
The last night of our trip, we went to a restaurant that specializes in olive oil. We had stopped by there earlier in the day because according to my guidebook the owner gave free olive oil tastings. After he let us try a few kinds and taught us all about it, we just had to make a reservation. Since Nice is so close to Italy, the restaurant had Italian-type food, with plenty of olive oil on every dish. I had ravioli niçois. (Handmade Nice-style ravioli)
I loved Nice. I also realized on the overnight train trip there and the all-day journey back home that France is pretty big. Even though it is barely the size of Texas, it takes a full day of train travel to get from Nice to Angers (which isn't even nearly all the way in the North!) France seemed pretty big and diverse to me after this lovely trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment