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Our hostel in Nice is brilliant, easy to see why it's named by Lonely Planet as one of the 10 best hostels in Europe, and it has a car park! The staff are cheerful and friendly, the common areas are big and vibrant and you can buy dinner from the chef or cook your own meals. It's situated back from the ocean but they run a shuttle every 15-20 minutes (till 2am) to the tram which takes you down the hill to where the action is at a cost of only $1 euro. With all the information you need to make the most of your time in Nice it truly is like a hotel without the price tag, at under $30 each a night for a private room we couldn't be happier.
During our included breakfast one of the staff came around to see if anyone needed help to plan out their day and after her advice we headed for Bus 100 bound for Monaco.
One of the advantages of going to Nice is that it's a central location to so many other great places on the Riviera, from Cannes to the west and Monaco to the east, all easily accessible on the public buses. At only $4 euro for a daily ticket, which is good for buses and trams, the whole region opens up to you for day trips. Make sure to get off at the towns along the way, they are just as beautiful as the more well known cities with less people crowding the views...
So with this in mind we made a few stops on our way to Monaco. First up was a small village called Villefranche 15mins from Nice where we wandered around the old part of town and up to the old fort (now a hotel/museum). We would have loved to have stayed longer and explored some more but we much to get done today.
The next stop we made was at a small fishing village called Cap D'Ail, regarded by locals as having one of the best swimming spots on the Riviera. Off we walked down a steep hill to the secluded cove for some more time in the water,
We started with lunch at one of the beach side restaurants (on the rocks/sand) which was thankfully still open. They were closing next week for the end of the season so we have been lucky with our timing as a couple of days from now everything on the beach will be closed for the winter months. We ate pizza with a fantastic view of the water, cliffs and expensive boats ( one day.....)!
After lunch we set ourselves up on the beach and headed in for a swim in the crystal clear blue water (it look as though someone has dropped a whole lot of blue food dye into the water, it was so blue yet up close, you could see very clearly right through it).
We swam ourselves about 100 meters offshore in the calm waters and floated around for a while so we could take it all in, seriously one of the best swims ever! Regrettably though Monaco still beckoned and so we headed back up to the bus stop towards the money...!
First stop was the famous Monte Carlo Casino with it's ridiculously expensive cars parked out front, the amount of money sitting in front of the casino is an attraction in itself, Ferraris, Bentleys, Aston Martins and Lamborghini's in whatever make or model you want. After dreaming of "what if.." we pushed on down to the Marina where we found even more extravagant toys and found ourselves again dreaming of " what if..", could be a recurring theme while we're here!
Having decided on our desired type of boat we headed towards the Prince's Palace on top of the hill overlooking Monte Carlo, from here you get spectacular views on each side of the bluff allowing you to see all this area has to offer.
The only question left for us was "how the hell do you make that much money!?!?".... We pondered this on the train ride back to Nice and found ourselves no closer to the answer by the time arrived.
Tim's Grandma Ronnie (Granny R) grew up in Nice till she was 5 before going to school in Paris, so as we took a walk along the esplanade we wondered what it would have been like as she walked these same steps 80yrs earlier. Both our family histories have travelled a long way for us to find each other in little old Melbourne, with this in mind we watched the sunset over this beautiful part of the French Riviera.
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