I’ll go ahead and reiterate what I preached in a previous post: it’s often better to travel somewhere with either low or non-existent expectations, you will almost always be positively blown away. I had heard mixed reviews on Nice; some said it was fun, while the majority told me it was tacky, touristy, and dirty and that we’d be better off taking day trips to Cannes, Ez, or Monaco. I am sure those coastal town jewels encrusting the crown of the French Riviera would be gorgeous and sophisticated, albeit pretentious and unaffordable. Jackie and I LOVED Nice, and it has landed in my top five favorite list of the whole journey. Nice is an interesting blend of French and Italian. After the Romans, Nice was a part of the Savoy House of Northern Italy, and between the 13th and 17th centuries Nice was jockeyed back and forth as an Italian region and then as a French region. Finally in 1860 when Italy was unifying into one Kingdom of Italy, it is said that Nice was given the opportunity to vote to become a part of the Kingdom of Italy or to be French. Though the legitimacy of this vote is debated, the results were clear: Nice remained French. Nice has a riveting history, an eternally summer spirit, an enchanting old town, and a young and wild nightlife. Everything is walking distance, unless you want to venture to a different beach or town of course, but Jackie and I saw no need to leave, Nice had everything two beach loving best friends could ever want in a vacation.
*Recommendation: If you’re looking for a budget friendly hotel with good service and a great location, we stayed in Hotel Star. Though our room’s air conditioner was broken during our stay, it does have AC! Our receptionist, who was fluent in about three or four languages, comped us our breakfasts for the dysfunctional AC unit.
Highlights and moments:
– A long leisurely European lunch at a café within the flower market. With a few hours to kill until our room would be ready, we took our time walking to get lunch. Just adjacent to our hotel side street, full of upscale bistros, was the main street, Avenue Jean Medecin, which takes you to Place Massena, Nice’s main square. Pedestrian friendly Avenue Jean Medecin is full of commercial retailers, but Place Messena is beautiful. Lining the square are seven statues on tall posts that almost look like Buddha’s sitting cross-legged. The seven statues actually represent the seven continents, and at night, when all the statues are illuminated and change colors, the color transformation represents the various languages in our world and the communication between our diverse communities within various societies. At first I thought the statues seemed out of place, but after learning their significance, I thought they were pretty awesome. A checkerboard of black and white squares of sidewalk revolves around the square’s focal point, a fountain topped by a larger than life, and buck naked, Apollo. Behind the fountain are marble stairs that lead to the Promenade des Anglais, a four-mile-long seaside path paved entirely in marble. We walked to the left of the Apollo fountain and entered Cours Saleya. At the beginning of Cours Saleya we found the flower market, which actually used to be France’s largest flower supplier. We chose the first café we saw within this flower market and grabbed an outdoor table. Though touristy and overpriced because it was touristy, we gabbed, ate, drank a couple of glasses of vin blanc, and people watched for a few hours. When we finally made it back to our hotel to get into our room, we bounded up the stairs, turned on all the fans in the room, and without speaking, fully clothed, both plopped on top of the beds and passed out for three or more hours.
Jack P, in her element
-Pub crawling through Nice. Prior to our unintentional siesta, we had e-mailed a few tour companies, hoping to plan our activities last minute for our next couple of days. One of those companies was an organized pub crawl. It was a Saturday night and we knew we wanted to experience Nice’s nightlife, so we figured a pub crawl would be a great way to meet other travelers from various walks of life and to also have someone knowledgeable pick the best bars for us (Jackie and I are both detestable decision makers). Our pub crawl took us to two amazing, hole-in-the-wall bars that we loved, and then two that were a bit too clubby for our taste. Regardless, we had a blast and met such interesting characters! Most notably, we met a very sweet New Zealander who looked identical to my boyfriend, a fun-loving group of girls from the states, an energetic couple from Germany, a gaggle of beer guzzling German girls, a super friendly couple of Swiss girls, and a fun trio of Italian guys who tried fecklessly to speak English with us. At about the halfway point through the crawl, one of the guides who picked on us a bit because we were a bit coy at the start, selected me to “help him” with a game. Little did I know, he had chosen me to start the simple little ice breaker of crowd surfing! Before I could protest and back out I was belly up, arms up, being passed from one fellow pub crawler to the next, as they all sat cross-legged in a conga line in the middle of Place Massena. I surely needed a drink after that one! We didn’t end the night until 5 a.m., which impressed us since at home we usually prefer nights spent watching Bravo TV and drinking wine with a 1 a.m. lights out. We spent the last hour or two of our night on the beach with what looked like the rest of Nice’s 20-something population, talking and laughing with new friends and relishing the freedom to admire the Mediterranean during hours in which we’d never be allowed to loiter on the beach in the states.
Yup, this happened.
-Our bike tour with Nice Cycle Tours. After relaxing on chaise lounges (you pay for them through the restaurants that reside on the beach- around 15-16 euro for the whole day) on the beach for a few hours, we met up with our bike tour group for a 2-3 hour bike tour through all of Nice’s main sights. Our tour guide, Thelma, was a tiny, beautiful Irish mom of two. Thelma taught us volumes about the city of Nice, the place she feels so fortunate to have called home for the past 12 years. Our group of eight consisted of two Irish friends on a week-long holiday, an Australian couple, and two young Canadian girls doing a trip quite similar to my seven-week-long journey. Everyone was extremely friendly and handled the bikes pretty well. We cautiously navigated our way through the Old City, full of Italian-French charm and packed densely with a layered history. We then biked all along the Promenade des Anglais, stopping at various points to learn about the different hotels along the seafront and the Promenade’s evolution throughout time. After the Promenade we made our way to the Castle Hill, the most strenuous portion of the tour, where we had to bike up a rather steep and winding hill for what felt like a full 15 minutes. At the summit, we were handsomely rewarded with the best view of the entire city. Looking out with my best friend at the sparkling expanse of sea that met the flavorful city of old and new sealed the deal, I was in love with Nice. I highly recommend taking a bike tour of Nice, it’s a great way to get some exercise, learn about Nice’s unique history, meet new people, and explore the city in a special way.
Us with Thelma, our amazing little bike tour guide
-Singing (or screaming I should say) along to the amazing cover band with hundreds of sweaty backpackers at Wayne’s Bar. Thelma had pointed out Wayne’s Bar to us and said, “If you’re looking for a really good, authentic French place…don’t go here.” Surely enough, Wayne’s Bar was a make-no-apologies-about-it, backpacker bar. I’ve never smelled worse body odor in my life, but the 90’s cover band was worth the nausea! We learned that most of the crowd was from Australia on some extended bus-tour journey through all of Europe. After Wayne’s Bar we went to a cool bar with live music and Elvis impersonators.
Couldn’t stop laughing at this unexpected chalise of beer she unknowingly ordered
Madness & Magic 