The Toothman Siblings do the French Riviera

So after some confusion and indecision, Jared and I finally settled on the French Riviera for our mini-vacation destination, as Jared had a friend who would also be in the region and potentially a connection for some yacht time. Unfortunately, this procrastination allowed us very little time to plan, which thus resulted in a bit of chaos at the beginning of our trip. After failing to find ANY lodging (within a reasonable price) in Saint Tropez, we expanded our search to Nice and Cannes as well and finally found a good option listed as available(literally one of about 80 hotels). However, when we called to confirm the reservation Friday, the day of our trip (as we had only reserved the room the night before), we were told that there had been a mistake and that they hadn't actually had space for us when we booked online. After calling the booking agency, we were told that the hotel was obligated to find us some sort of lodging, and thus assured, Jared and I decided to buy the tickets to Nice (as we were buying tickets the same day!) and hope for the best.

Fortunately, we were extremely lucky. When we arrived at the hotel that afternoon, we were given a four person apartment overlooking the sea instead of the 2 person studio we had originally reserved - and paid for. Thus we had wonderful lodgings for the weekend, complete with balcony, kitchen, bedroom and sea view. See accompanying pictures of living room and view.

Having arrived around 3 in the afternoon, we decided to just put on our suits and walk across the street to the beach. The weather was gorgeous - bright sun, clear skys, but not too hot and a nice sea breeze. However, the beach was not exactly ideal - ideal being comfortable for laying and walking on - as the entire sea coast of Nice is comprised of fairly large rocks, all the way into the sea. Eventually Jared and I managed to get into the water, although with much limping and stumbling, and were pleased to discover that the Mediterranean is a very swimable temperature. We stayed out for several hours, enjoying the sun and surf and then returned to our luxury accomodations to shower and prepare to explore the city. Little did we know what that would entail...

Although we realized from our walk from the train station to the hotel that we weren't perfectly situated (in relation to the main part of the city), we assumed we would be able to rent bikes or use public transportation to cut down on the walking time. However, we were sorely disappointed. After searching and asking several people during our walk toward the old city, we finally found one of two bike renters in the city but were horrified to learn that bikes were 22 euros a day - almost as much as one year pass to use the new bike system in Paris! Immediately ruling out that option as absurd, especially as we planned to take several day trips, we turned to public transportation. Thinking we would eventually come upon a bus to a large retail complex a bit to the north of "Old Nice" Jared and I ended up walking all the way there instead. After buying some necessities for our nice little kitchen, we again thought that there MUST be a bus back toward our hotel, or at the very least the beach. Once again though, we were disappointed - apparently buses in Nice generally stop running around 10 pm, even during the peak of their tourist season. We left the store at 9:55. So what happened? You guessed it - we had to walk our butts all the way back to our hotel, with our groceries, a journey of at least 5 miles. Needless to say we were a bit hungry when we got back.

After our enjoyable, although bumpy, afternoon on the beach in Nice, we decided to seek out a sandy beach for Saturday. A wonderfully helpful young woman in the tourist information office told us that Antibes was our best bet, and we were very pleased with her suggestion. Only about a 15 minute train ride, Antibes had a great beach and a very pretty little town, the older part of which was surrounded by a tall, thick, stone wall. We lounged and swam for most of the afternoon before hopping on another train and spending the evening in Cannes.

We arrived in Cannes about an hour and half before sunset and Jared, true to form, insisted that we climb to the top of the biggest hill in Cannes to see the city at sunset. I obliged, although not exactly enthousiastically, and we scaled the stairs up to a small castle and church overlooking the harbor. As Jared took pictures, I scanned a list of all the restaurants in Cannes that we had picked up from the Tourist Office. Amazingly, I came upon a Pizza Restaurant that was listed as having received two Michelin stars - an extremely high honor as there are probably less that 100 to 200 restaurants worldwide with such a rating. Although I suspected it was some sort of bizarre typo, the possibility of two star Michelin pizza seemed to good to pass up, so Jared and I once again traversed the city (thankfully only about a mile and half), only to find a little sign on the door saying "Ferme Exceptionnel - A demain!" or "Abnormal Closing - See you tomorrow!" Somewhat disappointed, we attributed it to karma balancing out the windfall of our nice apartment. We thus went to a back up restaurant along the harbor and had a very nice meal. I had an amazing salad of mixed greens, foie gras, duck meat, and tomatoes followed by a strange but good regional and restaurant specialty that was some sort of baked fish and potato puree. After dinner, we walked along the waterfront so that Jared could ridicule the teenage Eurotrash lined up outside a massive club and reassure himself of the New York night life's superiority. The name of the club appeared to be "F*** Me, I'm Famous" as seen in the picture, and there must have been over 300 people waiting outside at two entrance points. Adjusting the age scale, I would have been the late 20 something woman bitterly critiquing the younger girls, while Jared would have been the creepy old guy hanging out in the shadows, sipping a whiskey. Okay, maybe not exactly, but we definitely were on the upper end of the age spectrum, as many of these kids couldn't have been more than 17, despite excessive make-up and hair gel.

Sunday, we made another day trip - this time to Monaco, the tiny independent nation/tax haven for the extremely wealthy/James Bond movie locale. It was a very interesting city to see, as there were buildings crammed into every nook and crany the rocky hillsides allowed, as well as a practical luxury car show - except that people actually owned them! However, most of the buildings were really quite ugly, as if the engineering feat of building them on such inhospitable terrain had precluded the need for any aesthetic considerations. The views were spectacular though and one could feel the wealth emanating from the various hotels and casinos. The cars were really absurd and amazing as well. Ferraris were old hat by the end, and we were only truly impressed when we came upon a car (next to an Aston Martin and something else) that not even Jared, my resident male and moderate car enthousiast, could identify. It's the car to the far right in the picture...

On Monday we checked out and headed for the train station, both somewhat tired and ready to go home. However, it worked out that we couldn't get a decent train back until 5:30 that evening, so we stored our bags at a nearby hotel. At this point, we were also a bit tired of each other and the annoyance of not getting a train only exacerbated the tension, so we mutually decided to explore the city on our own and meet up at 5:00. This turned out to be a very wise choice as we both got to do what we wanted - me doing a bit of shopping and pastry sampling - and reconvened in better moods. I bought a lovely (and somewhat professional, Mom) sweater dress from a local boutique, adhering to my goal of only purchasing things I can't buy in the States, as well as two bars of soap (a Riviera specialty) and a really handy little plate specially designed for grating garlic (a staple in my diet).

The train ride went well for the first 3 hours or so, but we soon ran into some sort of electrical problem which eventually caused us to be delayed by about an hour and forty-five minutes getting into Paris - the first major delay I've ever experience on the generally excellent French rail network. This meant that instead of arriving at 11:45, when the metro still runs, we arrived at about 1:15, after the metro has closed. We did receive vouchers for future train trips, but getting home was big pain as almost everyone on the train was attempting to get a taxi. We finally made it home around 2 and I quickly got into bed, as I had work the next day.

Soooo, that should give you a pretty good idea of what we were up to this weekend. Overall it was a very nice mini-vacation, as I got to swim and sunbathe 3/4 days, and was none to disappointed when we didn't end up going on Jared's acquaintance's yacht as I have a tendency to get rather seasick. We definitely got sick of each other at various points (Partially, perhaps, because Jared had to rely on me for certain things because he can't speak any French and thus he wasn't in total control? At least that's one of my theories...) but in general, we did quite well for ourselves. I'll be working every day (barring any unforseen events) from now until the end of my stay, but I plan to try to get in some day trips on the weekends, and possibly an excursion to Florence, as a family for whom I babysat throughout high school has just relcoated there.

Apologies for the rambling wordiness of this post and any typos, but I'm too tired to read through it for now!