Barb and Baden’s Excellent French Adventure – Part 3
One of the issues that we were obviously going to be facing was the language issue. For the past 25 years, whenever I told anyone that I was originally from Montreal, I was always asked “well, you must speak French”. My answer was always that I didn’t. Well we have now survived almost a week in France and have been in stores where absolutely no English was spoken. I am now having to revise my position that I do, in fact, speak French. It’s actually quite amazing that 8 years of French classes that I slept through have actually managed to give me a passing knowledge of the French language. My grade 6 French teacher, Mme. Gingras would be proud of me.
Every day, we have gotten into a routine with our meals where we have our breakfast at a street cafe on Rue de Jean Medecin. We have our obligatory cafe au lait and croissants or brioches avec chocolate. Because we don’t end of having dinner until about 8:30, we usually have another pastry and coffee around 4:00. This habit of having a small snack and a late dinner began in Germany last year where it seemed to be the correct European thing to do. I can honestly say that we have not had one bad croissant or other type of bakery item. Even at the train station (usually a bastion of bad food in most places), we have only had the freshest croissants. I believe that it must be a punishable crime in France to make a bad croissant.
Ordinarily, we would be concerned about packing on weight with all of this pastry eating but with the 6-7 hours a day that we are walking, weight gain seems not to be one of our problems on this trip.
Oct. 14, 2002:
Today was a highlight of our stay in the Riviera as we went to visit fabulous Monte Carlo.
Ah, Monte Carlo… The place so rich that even the street beggars are driving Mercedes Benz’s. Of all of the places that we have visited on our vacations, Monte Carlo lived up to *all* of it’s reputation.
We arrived that the Monte Carlo train station from Nice and I was immediately impressed at how *rich* the train station looked. Throughout the day, we were to be treated with Ferrari’s, Rolls Royce’s and Lamborghini’s been driven on the street like they were Toyotas. The most impressive thing about Monte Carlo is the view looking *towards* town. Because it is built on the side of the hill, you can see everything from the fabulous yacht club to the casino to the apartments all up the hill.
Monte Carlo is famous for it’s hosting two of the most prestigious automotive racing events: the Monte Carlo Rally and the Monaco Grand Prix. I have told Barb that we would return some day to Monte Carlo and see the Monaco Grand Prix and rent one of the hotels that looks out onto the road course. However, I have read that one must book one of these hotels up to 10 years in advance so we may have to revisit this decision.
In memory of our trip to Monte Carlo, I purchased a Ferrari shirt – a fitting souvenir for such a place with a strong racing culture.
Oct. 15, 2002:
Today we visited two more local towns: St-Paul de Vence and Antibes. These visits will probably be the last that we will be doing in the Provence area as tomorrow we will be preparing for our departure to Paris on Thursday.
One of the things that we were concerned about with travelling in October was that the days would be considerably shorter than during the summer time. While the number of daytime hours is definitely shorter, we have not found
this to be much of an issue as we usually do most of our sightseeing before 5PM and then come back to the hotel where we rest for a few hours before going for dinner a few hours later. It being night time when we go out later only seems to enhance the experience of enjoyment as nothing could be better than strolling along the Mediterranean by the streetlights on the boardwalk.
Oct. 16, 2002:
Tomorrow we are leaving Nice and head north to Paris. We are panning to get some laundry done and generally take it easy in town.
We had originally planned on taking the train from Nice to Paris but found that we could fly there for 1/4 the price and less than half the time. We booked our flight to Paris with a company called EasyJet and got tickets for about $35 each (no misprint). Rumour has it that on EasyJet flights, they have removed all of the seats and only have those handles that you hold onto like on the subway. Even if it’s so, $35 is still a great deal. Hopefully our bags get on the same flights we do but worst case scenario, we’ll just have to tough it out and buy all new clothes in Paris. C’est la vie. 😉
See you in the city of lights …
Barb and Baden
Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure – Part 4
