Home of the German Soul

Nice, France/Aix-en-Provence

Nice was more than nice. 

We arrived around 5 or 6 in the evening on the 26th. It was so beautiful and one of my favorite places that we’ve traveled. Since there were six of us, we got a little suite with a bedroom, a huge living room with pull-out beds, a little kitchenette, and a balcony with a view of the French Riviera. It was absolutely gorgeous. We were all so excited when we first got there and immediately wanted to stay for an extra night. The first night we were there we ate pizza out on the balcony and drank wine. The rest of the night we played card games and hung out in the hotel room since we didn’t want to spend money in bars.

We woke up around noon the next day and decided to walk around town. Everyone was all bundled up but the weather was so nice so we al dressed like it was summer. It was heaven. We walked along the beach towards town, stopped for Asian food for lunch and found a really cool flea market. There were dishes, jewelry, paintings, etc. being sold. We then walked up to a pretty cool waterfall. It was a really pretty view of NIce from the top. On the way down, we tried to find something called “the Acropolis” that was listed on the map. We thought it was a miniature of the one in Greece, but it definitely was not that. It was pretty much just a large square building with the words “Acropolis” on the outside. I think it was a convention center. Afterwards, we walked back to the main street, shopped a little, and went back to the hotel. For dinner, we all dressed up, got a recommendation from the receptionist and went to a French/Italian place in town. It was soo good and we got to sit outside and eat! Which we hadn’t done in a pretty long time. After dinner is where the craziness began.

We went back to the hotel and after a while, we all decided to go out on the balcony. We grabbed a bunch of blankets, some drinks, and cigars for the boys and closed the balcony door. Immediately after the door was closed, there was a very distinct click. All of us turned at once towards the door and realized that we were locked out on the balcony. With no phone. At 2 AM. And the only means of communication to the outside world was an iPhone with 4% battery. We were pretty much screwed. 

Kristen tried texting a friend from the US to call or e-mail the receptionist while Kent began throwing things down towards the front door, so that the receptionist would see and come outside. Nothing worked. After about forty-five minutes, we finally got the attention of a guy walking along the beach. He began to come towards us to help when the woman above us called to us and said she would call the reception desk to free us. Apparently her kids had woken up and thought that someone was fighting below, which was really just us screaming at the guy across the road. Finally we were let back into our room! As Kent went downstairs to get the things that he had thrown, the receptionist informed him that this happens about once a week and the reason that he didn’t see the things being thrown or answer the e-mail was because he was too “le tired” and was sleeping in the back room. Oh, the French. 

The next day, the weather was pretty nice so we went to the beach and hung out. I wore a dress and sandals for the first time in months. It was probably 2 pm by the time we got out there though so it was a little colder than we had hoped for. The beach was made up of tiny pebbles and the water was so incredibly blue. I walked into the water, which was really cold, and started sinking into the pebbles! It a took a little effort to flee before the water got to me but I made it. We got lunch at Subway, and there we discovered something amazing-they had roast beef AND caesar dressing! It was awesome. We then watched the sunset from the beach and explored around town a bit. We found an ice cream stand with many flavors and all got ice cream, went into a church playing music, and walked through the park. In the park there were a lot of human shaped paper machet things all around. It was strange. We ended up going to a wine store, getting wine and then food from the grocery store for dinner. We had bread, cheese, and wine for dinner feeling very French while we ate. 

The next morning, we packed up all our stuff and headed for lunch before making our way to the train station. There, we waited in line for a while only to find that there was a train strike and the two  trains to Aix-en-Provence were full so we had to take a bus there instead. 30 Euros and 3 hours later we were dropped off in Aix. By then it was dark and we really had no idea where to go. We asked a few people and they all said to take a taxi, but we ended up walking about half hour and found our hostel on the outskirts of town. That night we just decided to make some pasta for dinner, hang out and watch TV. I had a fever that night so I was definitely glad we didn’t go out.

The next day, March 1st, we all took our backpacks into town because we wanted to get a night train to Barcelona from Aix and the boys needed to find another hostel for the night. We got lunch in town and then the girls and I headed to the train station where we found out that a night train to Spain simply didn’t exist, forcing us to spend another night in Aix. So, with our packs, we walked around town and found it very charming. We met up with the boys again and hung out for a bit, which is when I realized that I had lost something very important to me. My camera. 

I’m still upset about it to this day, mostly because of all of the pictures that I lost and also because I know right where I left it. If we hadn’t stayed in Nice for the extra day, then we would have gotten to Aix-en-Provence by train instead of bus and then I would still have my camera today. But instead, in my sleepy state on the bus, my camera fell out of my open purse under the seat beneath me and I was so eager to get off the bus when we got to Aix that I failed to check and see if anything of mine was left. But, shit happens and I still had my DSLR, which is more important anyway. 

Anyway, after that devastating discovery, we booked another night at the hostel we stayed at the night before. We had bread and cheese for dinner again and played a few rounds of drinking games before going into town. We found a nice bar in town and hung out there for a while before coming back to the hotel and getting ready for an earlyyy morning the next day. 

Monte Carlo, Monaco

The most important thing I learned from visiting Monte Carlo, NOBODY backpacks there. But we did. We arrived around 3:30 on February 26th to the nicest train station I have ever seen. We were quickly told that we couldn’t leave our backpacks at the train station because there weren’t any lockers. So, we had to meet up with our friends Jon, Kent, and Cody  wearing our backpacks. Because we had them, we couldn’t go into the casino…which ultimately was fine with me because it was 10 Euro to get in and I don’t know how to gamble well anyway. While the boys went and gambled, we went to the back of the casino and took in the view of the coast. We got lots of glares from the rich people that passed us so we were pretty eager to leave and go to our next stop, Nice. The boys finally left the casino and we were on our way!

Cinque Terre/Portofino

Cinque Terre in italian means “Five Cities” that consist of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. Each little town is built into the hillside and overlooks the Italian Riviera. We arrived in Riomaggiore on Friday, February 24th just before sunset. I seriously felt like I had arrived in paradise. The water was clear blue and the town was so picturesque. Barely anyone spoke english so we asked some locals where we had to go using just the street name. We walked up a few cases of stone stairs and found our hotel. We didn’t do mch the first night, just got crackers and cheese from the market and slept. The next day, we decided to hike around the cities. We walked along the coast to Manarola and stopped there to explore. Getting to Corniglia was a little more complicated though. We tried to find the trail, but the one along the coast was closed. We asked a few locals and finally someone was clear enough and we started on the hike. We hiked up a steep hill until we finally reached the village of Volastra. Volastra is situated on top of the hill and has a gorgeous view of Corniglia from very high up. We followed the randomly placed indicators and walked among vineyards, houses, and a small forest, all with amazing views. We made it to Corniglia in about 2 hours. When we got there, the town was taking their Italian “siesta” so everything was closed. We walked around for a bit and then took the train to Vernazza, since the trail was closed. Vernazza had experienced a pretty devastating flash flood in November and was still really damaged. There was a lot of debris around the area and lots of empty buildings. We also saw a post office on wheels there, since no stationary one was available. We only stayed for a little bit and then took the train back to Riomaggiore. 

Kristin and I then went down to the dock area and watched the sunset. So beautiful. We walked around afterwards trying to find food but since it wasn’t tourist season, not too much was open. We finally found a pizza place and had delicious pizza. Since nothing was open, we also couldn’t find Internet, which we really needed to check for train times the next day. We ended up waking up really early and caught the train towards Geneva. On the train, the ticket checker fined us for not filling in the date on our Eurail pass before getting on the train. It should have been 50 Euro for each of us but he charged us collectively so we didn’t have to pay that much, but it was still a bummer. 

We got off the train in Santa Margherita. Kristen really wanted to see Portofino, a place her grandma painted, so we stopped there. Santa Margherita and Portofino were both gorgeous towns. We didn’t have much time at all there though. We had to take a twenty minute bus ride to Portofino and only about six minutes in the town before we had to leave, otherwise we would miss our train to Monaco. Kristen ran off the bus right as we got there towards the water, took pictures, and came back to the bus. It was quite the fast trip but I’m so glad we got to see it!