French Riviera Weekend

It was the last full weekend in Montpellier, with one place left to visit: Nice and the French Riviera. Somewhat of a last minute decision, I decided that I had to see what all the hype is about the French Riviera. This ended up paying off huge, and it was probably my favorite part of my whole trip in France. We arrived in town in mid-afternoon. This gave us a little time to walk down the Promenade des Anglais, which is the popular strip with hotels, restaurants, and bars that runs down the beach.

After seeing the beach and stopping for a drink, we had dinner at the hotel, which was complimentary thanks to my friend’s resourcefulness. After dinner is when the city really came to life. We started the night by grabbing a few beers and sitting out on the beach, which was packed with groups of people doing the same.

We were walking around the city center around 10:30ish, and noticed that everyone was eating dinner. I guess we were a couple hours early when we ate. We wondered around through the plethora of alleys that connected all the little squares and courtyards, which were scattered with restaurants and bars. Eventually, we made it to an area just parallel to the Promenade, which was a couple hundred yards long and filled in with tables and chairs from at least a dozen different restaurants. There was also a flea market running through the middle, with vendors selling all kinds of things from purses to jewelry to dishes. The atmosphere of young, lively people was amazing. We settled in at a bar called Waynes. This place wasn’t that big, it was very hot inside, and it was somewhat crowded(but not too crowded). However, it was a good time and was filled with a mix of young people from all over the world. The signature of this place is the long tables in the music room, on which everyone dances on top of.

On Saturday, we kicked off the morning by walking up the hill to do a little sightseeing. We walked through a cemetery that was unbelievable. Then, we continued up the hill to see the little waterfall. Above the waterfall, there was a patio that displayed a panoramic view of Nice. This was one of the most breathtaking sights that I saw all trip.

Up next, we hit the beach. On a friend’s connection, we scored two free beachfront chairs and a couple of cocktails. We finished the afternoon on the rooftop bar at the hotel, and here is the view.

 

After the beach and a little rest, we took off to Monte Carlo, Monaco. For just 1 Euro, we took the 30 minute scenic bus ride that drove along the edge of the coast. All though it seemed like we were going to fall off the edge of the cliff at times, that bus ride was amazing. When we arrived in Monaco, we set out to have a cocktail at Buddha Bar. Luckily it was happy hour, so drinks were only 12 Euro instead of 20. We moved on to the casino, which was beautiful on the outside. The cars parked outside included Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls Royse, Maybach, just about anything you could think of.

The actual gambling itself was not impressive, with very few tables in the room and even less that were actually open. There was only one low minimum table as well, which was constantly packed. So, I still threw a few dollars in the slot machine and on roulette, but I guess luck wasn’t on my side that night. We enjoyed “victory” cigars in the park in front of the casino, even though none of us walked away a winner, and then decided to go back to Nice. Sounds simple enough, but we could find the bus for a while, then couldn’t get a consistent answer on where the bus picked up. We finally found the bus by 3am and got back to Nice safely.

On Sunday, we left fairly early to spend the afternoon in Cannes. This is where the famous film festival takes place. We walked around for a while, took a tour around the city, then had a great lunch. We saw the convention center where the film festival is held, the famous Carlton Hotel, and the Promenade de la Croisette, the strip down the beach where all the fancy shops are. We ate lunch after our tour at a place called La Sousta, which was awesome. By the time we were finished with lunch, it was time to leave, and we left very satisfied.