Day 14 - (Travelling to) [m]onaco (Nice Day trip)
Touring the Cote d’Azur
I slept badly during the night and was quite un-rested when I was forced to rise by my alarm clock. However, I got to work finalising my packing, eating some breakfast (purchased the night before) and heading off in very good time to walk to the train station. It was a very nice walk, really, through the dark quiet streets of Marseilles. It was downhill to begin with, then a long uphill run until the final massive stair climb. I was cooked by the time I got to the station. I’d had to shed my jacket earlier, which was working much too well at insulating me.
I found the train easily. I checked with the man at the turnstile leading onto the platform what I was to do about finding a seat, as my ticket was just my Eurail pass and the ticket didn’t allow to buy a seat preference. He said, you just sit anywhere. So, I did that. A second class seat on an upper deck. (It was only much later that the ticket collector told me that I could sit in First Class. I hadn’t realised that there were different classes if you couldn’t buy a seat. Lesson learned!) I hoped to get some photos out of the train of the trip up the coast, in spite of the filthy windows I ended up seated beside.
The train ran exactly to time. I did get some photos while rolling along. I’ve shown a selection here. We passed through Antibes and Cannes before getting to Nice.
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I got off the train at Nice Saint-Augustin, the train station adjacent to the the Nice Airport. The plan was to drop my bag at the airport and head into Nice for a day of sight-seeing. Nice Saint-Augustin is a bleak station, frankly. Suspended way above the surrounding landscape and with no real station building. I’d read some disparaging comments on Google about it and I could see what they were saying. Nevertheless, the station ticket office was very helpful, telling me that I didn’t need to walk to the airport, the tram running under the station would take me there, for free.
On arrival at the airport, I found the Blade Reception Desk (my helicopter service provider) opposite the bag storage service. Everything was falling magically into place. The Bag Storage person told me that I should catch the same tram back to station Jean Medecin, which would be right in the middle of the city. I bought a ticket from the ticket dispenser on the tram platform (after the obligatory first aborted attempt) and got on the tram to head into Nice.
Most of the tram stops into town were on the surface, but the last two up to my stop were below ground. By the time I got out, we were well below ground, I discovered as I headed up the stairs, spurning the escalator that was jammed with people. More fool me, of course. I popped up on Boulevard du Victor Hugo. Immediately, there was pretty, old city around me, though evidence of modernity was everywhere too.
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| Street scenes in old Nice | ||
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I abandoned my search for that specific restaurant when I came into sight of the long promenade. I wandered out to the edge of the promenade looking over the beach and was struck by the classic views of Nice. The day was completely gorgeous (sunny, 24+C) and Nice was shining. After wandering along a little bit, I saw a Hop-On Hop-Off bus loading passengers. I had the sudden thought that a good way of seeing the highlights of Nice deliberately was to do that tour without hopping off. Then when I got back I could decide about what more to see. The driver told me that the round-trip would be a bit over an hour. That suited me. I could have lunch somewhere nice after the round-trip and then spend the latter part of the afternoon seeing some specific sights.
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The tour was a little banal in one sense, because the bus couldn’t get into any of the old town (very narrow lanes and no through traffic) so had to go around the outside. Some of the sights that the commentary called out weren’t obvious to me as they were discussed and the timing of some of the commentary wasn’t ideal, in my view. I also discovered from the commentary that Nice seems to have been constantly evolving. Many famous buildings mentioned in the bus tour were destroyed in the war, or demolished for new things over time. Nice is more of a hodge-podge of architectural styles, as a consequence.
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dedicated to Garabaldi, I think |
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As the tour was two arms of out-and-back, I did manage to see most of what was discussed going in one direction or the other. The bonus turned out to be that the second out-and-back went around the headland to Villefranche-sur-Mer. This quaint village was very pretty and way too far to have walked to.
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The view across the port into Villefranche |
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The tour drove right around the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer (trans: Free Port by the Sea), which is a picturesque town surrounding a port. This port had some super-yachts berthed, but lots of smaller vessels too. I didn’t see any working (fishing) vessels, but I didn’t look too hard.
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On return to the stop at which I boarded, I headed directly back to the row of restaurants that we’d just driven past. I picked the first one where I could sit outside and have the promenade and the Mediterranean as my lunch-time view. I ordered a simple lunch (Thai Chicken Salad, and the obligatory glass of wine) and enjoyed my meal very much. After lunch, I decided to walk back through the old town by a different route and head back to the airport. I was feeling quite drained and decided that the few things that I might like to spend time on (a couple of museums sounded really interesting, and there’s a wild sculpture that I thought might be interesting to see IRL) would take more time than I felt I had left in me, and potentially push up against my deadline for getting back to the airport (anxious traveller). Instead, I headed for the airport, thinking I could relax in the helicopter service’s lounge and maybe even get an earlier flight to Monaco.
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The Promenade was constructed over the encased river that once ran through Nice, and caused floods periodically. The water garden is built on the site of a former casino, and is placed to remind folks of the river that was once there, and the casino. (Or so I remember it from the bus commentary.) |
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That plan worked out. I had some time in the lounge at Blade and they got me on the 16:45 flight, rather than the 18:45 flight. I shared the flight with four American tourists who were exactly the kind of ‘happy, shiny people’ that I imagined would be visiting Monaco. Lovely folks just having a holiday, totally unaware of how stereo-typical they appeared to me to be. I am sure that I appeared to them as a slovenly Aussie, but that’s just an accurate description.
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The headphones were amazingly effective |
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Note the haze |
The helicopter ride was fantastic. As expected (hoped for), once we were airborne the excitement was over. (It reminded me of my first experience paragliding behind a speedboat.) I only thought to take video after a little while in the flight – as much because the photos I was taking weren’t changing. As we came in to land in Monaco I couldn’t help but be reminded of the tragic helicopter accident on the Gold Coast ‘recently’. One of the helicopters on the landing pads was running its blades and looked ready to depart. Of course, everything went flawlessly. Our pilot (who genuinely looked like he might just have finished high school) was assured and professional and the whole flight was flawless.
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The drive up to the Fairmont from the heliport was amazing. I recognised several parts of the F1 track as we drove on them. The buildings in every direction are magnificent. And the streets are filled with clearly well-off tourists; fashionably dressed, glowing with health, and carrying around or wearing subtle but obvious bling. Exactly what I had hoped to see.
As my readers are sure to know, Monaco is a tiny principality (approx. 2 square km). I was chatting with the transfer chauffeur as he drove me up to the Fairmont after dropping my helicopter friends at the Casino (of course). (Aside: They didn’t have bags and were very nicely dressed for a night out. I presume they are returning to Nice or going on somewhere else tonight.) He said that you could walk across the town in about an hour. I asked him how far up the hill Monaco actually went. At the time, he indicated a range of buildings about halfway up the hill and said, they’re in France. Not even the whole city is in Monaco.
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I checked into the Fairmont and had my ‘Welcome’ drink sitting on the verandah watching the sun set over the Mediterranean. Dinner in the lobby restaurant was lovely. It was amusing to watch the wait staff in a seemingly endless crisis dealing with the busy crowd.
| Daily facts: Location: Nice, then [M]onaco Temp: 26 Weather: Sunny and warm |
Enjoy Tim - you are in Monaco, although a little bit too fake fairy tale for me :)
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a 'special' place. I think of it as cake decoration architecture. More on that in my next post.
DeletePerfect City to start singing REM’s “Shiny, Happy People”
ReplyDelete