Oh So Nice…

November 24

Jenn:

Today was an adventure, but not the kind we were hoping for…

We were leaving Cascina to head to Nice on the train. We were prepared for a 7-hour travel time, leaving just after 9am, and expecting to arrive in Nice a little after 4pm. We would get to our hostel and then have lots of time to explore the city and have a decent supper.

Instead, we experienced a day of train strikes in Italy. I’ll spare you the boring details about cancellations and long delays and standing in the rain and just say we checked into our room just before midnight. The kids were troopers and very good sports about the day.

November 25

Sam:

Today we went on a free walking tour of Nice. As we walked to the square where we were meeting our guide, we picked up some French pastries from a bakery (we were so happy to eat French croissants again – they are so much better than any other).

We met our guide, Graham, and the rest of our group. Our tour group walked towards the coast first, where we learned about the garden that we were inside. We also learned about a house decorating technique called “trompe l’oeil.” It is when people painted fake things like windows onto the facades of building to make them look more beautiful. It was also because the French government used to charge taxes by how many windows your house had.

We then walked along a street until we got to an antique market that is in front of a palace from when Nice was part of Italy.

Next, we took a long walk to the top of Castle Hill, where there are amazing views of everything in Nice and a park where we could play. The reason it’s called Castle Hill is because there used to be a big castle on top that when inside you could see very far away. But the castle was destroyed by Louis XIV because he didn’t want Nice to be able to defend itself anymore.

Charlotte:

Then we went to the beach to find some cool rocks because it was a rocky beach. We did find so many great ones: shiny, colours, and different shapes.

After awhile, because we were all hungry, we looked up a place to eat. We found a place called Granny’s that had great reviews. We were worried that it might be closed, but we went to find out and it wasn’t! So we sat down and ordered. Mom and Sam got croques madame and Dad got a salade nicoise. I got a croque monsieur. It was so good! We also got crepes for dessert.

On the way back to our hostel, we found a park called Ecojardin. It had lots of great equipment made of wood, even a giant whale to climb on. The park is built on top of a river.

By then, it was dark, so we walked a long way to see St. Nicholas cathedral all lit up. It’s a very different design than most cathedrals we’ve seen because it is built by and for the Russian people that came to Nice.

November 26

We stayed in Nice for an extra night because we wanted to go to Monaco. Monaco is a tiny country that’s only 2 square kilometres. It is extremely wealthy, with over 35% of its citizens being millionaires. We saw ads for a studio apartment there that cost over €1.5 million for only 180 square feet!

As soon as we got there by train, we could see it had a very expensive-looking train station.

The first thing we did when we left the train station was to walk towards the casino. The casino was getting set up for Christmas and the garden was still full of some flowers and cacti. We then walked to the back of the casino to look over the ocean and the port with about 50 yachts inside and more sailing around.

Charlotte:

There were lots of fancy cars that cost a lot of money. There was also a carousel and very expensive little shops overlooking the water. We even saw Santa.

We learned that every year there is a big race there on the windy city streets.

We wanted to go to the palace. It was so beautiful. We had to climb a hill to get to it. The royal family still lives there.

Then we went to have a picnic in a park. The park was so fun. Sam and I were having so much fun together. We were running around and running up slides together!

After more wandering around, we took the train and went back to the hostel.