Nice Day 2 & 3

Well here I am sitting in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

I already love this place so much eye candy around here I am getting whiplash !!!!

But, instead, I’ll tell you about our tour of Monaco and Eze Village.

We got up about 9 am in the morning and we slowly got ready, beds were comfy and curtains were good the double glazing glass helped we were snug as bugs. But we went for a walk and got brekkie since we missed the hotel. In the end that was a blessing in disguise since it tasted like ass today …

We got picked up at 1.45pm by our driver we were getting a semi private tour of all this, we had only one other couple with us from Chile, who mind you had a rather dubious relationship with time since we had to drive around the block twice till they were ready at their hotel. Ironically enough next to the restaurant that we had lunch at the first day in Nice. We both had a giggle about that.

We eventually were on our way our driver spoke 4 Languages which just blew me away … Spanish, English, Turkish, & French … and the ease at which he switched between the 2 just amazed both me and Alan.

We saw on the way to Monaco, Millionaires Bay, full of massive super yachts and houses that started at 5 million Euros … Holy shit. We saw Elton Johns’ summer house on the hills also drove past Sean Connerys’ house … Yeah Bond !!!! Also saw Bonos’ “pink house” (that has its own tunnel to gain access).

Yeah all these people with money … I hate … wish I was one of them LOL

Anyway was told a few interesting fact on the way … since Alan is the details man I will hand it over to him for a while so he can fill you in on the “wow” factor stuff.

A: It was another fantastic tour and our guide was great – we both flipped him 10EUR each at the end of the trip for it was well deserved. He spoke Dutch, not Turkish.

Nice is not only stunning but has a fascinating history.

Only a few months ago did she celebrate her Sesquicentennial (150th year) as being part of France. Prior to that she’d been under Italian rule and further back, a Greecian harbour (a few hundred years BCE).

But when the multiple sovereign states and kingdoms of Italy wished for unification, they approached France for assistance who agreed on the condition they pass Nice and surrounding areas over to Croissant-Control once this was accomplished.  Thus we know the result…

Outside of being in multiple hands, it was also the favoured destination of the elite (a fashion that obviously continues to this day though with celebrities rather than royalty) where the likes of Queen Victoria and the Czar’s of Russia and family commuted here every winter – the latter even had a private train line built that ran directly from the palace in St Petersburg to this coastal gem.

 

And we understand why.

From the moment we arrived, we were mightily impressed.

The sun beamed, the sky sported collection of luxurious blues, and the Med Sea thrummed gently before us as we sat upon our balcony embracing this vista.

Not wanting such bliss to be solely visual, we opted for a walk along the wide, pedestrian-friendly, boulevard that mimicked the shoreline.  Donning shorts to wear outside for the first time in a month (and that was simply due to the fact I was in Rome then) we set out for a surprisingly lengthy journey.

This baby ain’t no concur-in-a-brisk-30-mins Bondi bay – our particular curve of the Cote d’Azure is a might deceptive.

We found likewise when our tour kicked off.  There was so much beauty to enjoy, what seemed far wasn’t and what looked so close was surprisingly not. As Nesh mentioned, we passed multiple wealthy joints, none other than a site, the former Belgium Royal family’s summer palace being sort after by a Russian business man. The rumoured price tag for said property?

500. Million. Euros.

Yep.

More surprising is the fact, shared by our guide, that there are a number of real estate agencies that handle large ‘very’ affluent properties and actually list solely in Russian.  Not French. Not English.  Just Russian.

Who’d a thunk it?

Well back to the Nesh now Alan gave up on writing his bit for a while … so I couldn’t be bothered waiting for it again …

In any case to finally sum up Nice in a few paragraphs, it does not do it justice but I need to continue on to Venice or it will disappear from my mind rather quickly.

Side note we had a quick dinner the first night at a place called “Blast” the American bar. Was quite nice and relativity cheap as well. Then did a 4 k walk back to the hotel with Alan needing to pee all the way back... he did well.

We ventured to Monaco and wow what a beautiful city and Alan and I could only amuse ourselves at how safe we felt cameras on every street corner and police everywhere I managed to let down my guard for the first time in a while. We drove along the racetrack a little and went to see the royal palace of the Monaco royal family. The pictures we took just amazed me constantly as I took them and a cool one taken by Alan to boot.

We then made our way to the Perfume factory near the village of Eze one a few that still produce in France, and that was also a eye opener, I can now understand why perfume costs so much, It makes a little more sense.

We saw the village of Eze and well not much to say there besides it has a population of 130 the rest is tourism  … it was nice.

We then did the drive back to Nice from there. We then got back to our hotel tipped our driver because he was awesome and then forgot to ask him his name so I called him … “Bob … 2” He was also out driver back to the airport the next morning.

We settled in with a few drinks on the hotel balcony but me being me I wanted to go and do something. So we ended up going to the hotel restaurant and had a few bottles of wine and a nice meal… given 180 Euro dinner was probably not the most cost effective thing to do but it was tasteee.

We settled in and had more to drink the end of night 2 in Nice.

In the morning we woke up and had a really really really bad breakfast in the hotel … I’m glad we only partaked in that offer once.

Checked out and Bob 2 took us into the airport with no problems surprisingly enough and headed to Venice via Amsterdam  … all I can say is I wish that I had added Amsterdam to this itinerary because we were in the airport for a total of 5 hours and I fell in love with the people of the country … they were all so nice and pretty !!!

But that’ll have to be a next time trip. Yay already planning another one …

Aim for the fly :)