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Bonjour! |
May 1st 2003
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Well it's another update from us!
It's been a while and we have lots to tell you all.
Ok, so after Cervo, we visited Diano Marina from Alassio, which wasn't so special... another Cervo Im afraid to say. We were pleased to move onto San Remo the next day, and our arrival was greeted by an absolutely awesome station (which was totally the opposite side to the station that was mentioned in our book!) It was underground, and very airport-like with long conveyor belts and funky lighting too! It was really cool.
After finding our hotel, we were pleasantly suprised that it was a gorgeous little 2nd floor place with great views down a busy main street. After settling in our stuff, we set out to explore.
The town was a maze of streets that we got pleasantly lost in for hours. But unfortunately, after searching for a cable car that would have scaled Mount Bigione 1000m above sea level, for 1 hour, we were told by the tourist office that there used to be one 'a long time ago'... humph. A fruitless search. Ah well, the old town was amazing, and really great to explore.
After a peaceful sleep, and a lovely breakfast in the quaint breakfast room, we headed to the nearby bus station to try and catch a bus through Taggia and beyond to the 'Valle Argentina' or the Silver Valley as it was known locally. Unfortunately, a combination of a lacklustre Sunday service and then our one bus we could have caught blasting past us without stopping, our money and morning were wasted, and we didn't get there. However, we had another good explore round San Remo, and eventually found some really picturesque gardens around Villa Ormond, which allowed us to relax in the late afternoon sunshine, and talk away about just about everything until it was time for us to head 'home'.
Next was our journey to France. We first took a train to Ventimiglia near the Franco-Italian border, and then boarded our first SNCF bound for Nice. This train was incredible. Air conditioned, quiet and SO swish, we wondered if we had accidentally got aboard a TGV or snuck into 1st class without knowing! We found a seat on the second floor (yep, the trains out here have 2 floors!) and then watched as a haze of cobalt ocean raced before our eyes as the train swerved and glided through tunnels and gorgeous coastal scenery.
Our arrival in Nice was sadly not so good. Our hotel, Hotel Piemont, was located in a very dodgy area near the train station, and upon actually opening the door to our room, we were hit with firstly an absolutely vial vomit-like smell and a few complimentary flies that you would expect from such a place! The dingy room was dirty and there was noway we could have slept in that room - the smell alone was so bad that it still makes us cringe a few days on!
So after what was only a few minutes, we went down to reception, told them the room was horrible and left bound for the Tourist Office in search of alternative accommodation. The helpful tourist office managed to match us up with some accommodation straight away and sent us off for the old town, about 1-2km away. We rolled there in the blistering heat for nearly 45mins to find that this place was in fact a dodgy flat with a really seedy owner who lead us through another dark corridor to a room that was just like piemont, but without the awful smell. At a high price, we were convinced we could find better, so we left our cases and headed to another Tourist office nearby.
Luckily the tourist office set us up with a ** hotel near Rue Jean-Medicin right in the heart of the shopping area of Nice. We're paying more, but the room is at least now clean and we are safe.
After catching our breath, we left our backpacks in the new hotel and left to pick up our cases from the other room about 1km away in the old town.
On arrival we grabbed the cases, and rang on the owner's door. He was fuming that we wanted to leave, and threatened us loads in French. After a lot of determination, I got my Passport back off him, and we left promptly. By the time we had returned back to our hotel, our day was spent, and all we had done was find a place instead of exploring Nice itself. Overall, worst day yet.
After a long sleep, we had recovered and headed back towards the Italian border to Menton, which turned out to be a lovely town and as stated the hottest place on the Cote de Azur. Our tans both improved that day!! We decided to take a walk up the surrounding mountainside to what we thought would be a public garden that offered us a chance to relax in the sun. After the lengthy 1-2 hour walk in the sun, we finally arrived there to find that it was only open for 1 month between June and July. Ah well. The views alone were worth it, as we hope to prove when we upload more pictures soon (unfortunately, this Internet point won't let us!)
Day two in Nice started with a story to tell! We woke up to flapping as an enormous pigeon flew into our room! He didn't seem to bothered, and decided to settle in... he was there for about 30 minutes, and almost fell asleep by all accounts. George, as he was known to us (in dedication to a pi-a-gene lover we know!), started to get in a flap as we got closer to him, and eventually (after two attempts) flew onto the window ledge, but didn't fly off! He must have liked our hospitality ;) He will be appearing on the site when we can update with images.
After that, we headed off into the rather overcast Nice and caught a bus to Grasse. This hillside town is famed mostly for perfume making, and we soon had discovered all of its charms by taking a series of predefined walks around the tiny historic centre. It wasn't too long before we headed back to Nice by bus, giving us some absolutely fantastic views right accross as far as Cannes despite the bad weather.
Arriving back in Nice the weather wasn't great, so we headed to a laundrette to do a little washing of our exhausted clothes... ;) After our two hour wait, we dropped off our clean clothes and head out to hunt down some tea! All that washing gave us an appitite...
Today the weather picked up again, and we decided to explore Nice after our 'lost day' on Monday. Because of May Day Bank Holiday not much was open, but we wanted to see Nice's sights, it didn't interfere too much with what we wanted to do. We headed first to the old town which housed the lovely ruined hilltop Chateau and gardens which had fantastic panoramic views all over Nice right as far as the airport, and a great waterfall too.
Our tired feet fancied a break after two weeks non-stop walking so our blisters gave in to an open-top bus tour of Nice and it's main attractions. It was just over two hours long and took us to parts of Nice that we wouldn't have been able to explore. Plus it had great student rates too ;)
We decided we'd do this update after that, so that takes us right up to date. I'm excited because tomorrow we're heading to Monaco !!!!!!! More on that another time, but for now, we both hope everyone is well, and we promise to upload more pics soon.
Rich & Kate
p.s. We've just checked our stats for this site, and we've had 44,331 hits! Thanks everyone! Keep more coming ;)
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Listed by : Rich
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