This post is a follow up to my France 2024 Edition post, covering my time in Nice and Antibes.
After a lovely several days in Paris, it was time for the next leg of our trip in the south of France. We took the TGV (high speed train) from Paris to Nice and splurged on a first class ticket. To be honest, it was nice and very comfortable but I’m not sure it was worth the extra money. I did follow others’ recommendations and book the upper deck which gave us some beautiful views along the way and especially once we got near the coast.
Unlike Germany, which has specific train cars marked as quiet zones, I don’t think French trains specify (if so, I must have missed it). However, I did quietly appreciate the French gentleman across the aisle from us who politely but firmly asked the man behind him, who was having a rather loud conversation on his phone, to be quiet. This involved several increasingly emphatic and enunciated “Monsieur, s’il vous plaît”‘s that strategically interrupted the conversation, along with targeted eye contact. It worked and the man got off the phone. Very entertaining to observe!
I later felt bad for that man when a couple who looked to be in their mid to late 20s boarded the train about halfway through our journey and ended up sitting across the table from them. Even to me, they were obnoxiously loud – I’m sure the whole carriage could hear them. I’m surprised he didn’t try to shush them but maybe he didn’t since they weren’t speaking French, unlike the other man on the phone. This is why I bring ear plugs and noise-canceling earbuds with me – I can’t control my environment, but I can at least mitigate it and that generally works well. It’s just a shame that people often are inconsiderate or thoughtless but that’s a whole other topic.
Nice
We got to Nice and checked into our hotel, which was directly across the street from the famed Promenade des Anglais. It was quickly apparent that as expected, the weather here was quite a bit different from Paris. We went from low temps, mostly overcast skies, and a bit of rain to hot and sunny. It made for a nice change.
Since we booked the room using points, we didn’t get a room with the sea view but who can complain when 1) the room is free and 2) we’re in a prime location? Certainly not me! This room was much bigger than our Paris room (no surprise there) and it was nice to be able to move around without bumping into each other. 🙂 The hotel staff left us a lovely personalized card and free bottle of wine, which was a nice touch.
On our first day, we explored the area a bit and checked out the beach. Now, coming from Florida, we’re a bit spoiled for great beaches but I was quite surprised to see that the beach here was mostly pebbles and small rocks. It looked very uncomfortable to put a towel or blanket down and lay on it, but nonetheless plenty were doing just that.
We spent another day exploring the Colline du Château (Castle Hill). We tried to get an early start due to the heat but kinda failed so we figured we would just take the elevator to the top, no biggie. However when we got there, the elevator was out of service so stairs it was! And it really wasn’t too bad at all.
We stopped at several points along the way just to enjoy the magnificent views.
We also stopped by the Nice Europe Day fair in one of the city parks just to check it out. We ended up playing our first game of pétanque with a really nice young couple.
We capped off our last night in Nice with a nice dinner, a random street performance piece, and then (after following the noise), we watched part of the last night of Eurovision in the park with a thousand or so other people. This was the first time we’ve watched Eurovision live and it was fun texting back and forth with our daughter who was watching it live with friends in Germany.
Antibes
We took a day trip out of Nice to Antibes, which was really easy and inexpensive to do via the train. The Nice station was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel and it cost us maybe €6 per person round trip – a bargain!
Similar to Nice, the station was a short easy walk to the city center. As we walked, we noticed a lot of shops catering specifically to yacht life – yacht sales, yacht storage, yacht crew hiring/recruiting/outfitting – shop after shop was all about yachts. Not boats. Yachts. It was kind of funny but clearly this is an area for people with a certain amount of money. 🙂
We also came across an antique car expo with Jaguars, Porches, Audis, and several other well-known marks. I sent a few photos to my brother, since he likes this kind of stuff, including a pic of an Opel sportscar since he used to drive one decades ago.
My husband was particularly amazed by the fact that you could see beach, sea, and snow-capped mountains all from just about any vantage point on the coast. That’s very unusual to us. 🙂
I would have loved to have had more time in this area to explore other nearby cities, but alas! I guess we’ll need to make a plan to go back some day….
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