Sue and Gerry's Europe Trip 2012: The Fabulous Cote D'Azur

We departed the cruise boat in Avignon on Sunday morning and headed for the train station to catch the high speed TGV train to Nice. The first of our numerous bad experiences saw the train delayed and we wasted a good part of the day just waiting.

Nice was buzzing and our hotel is right on the foreshore in the centre of things. We got our bearings, did a bit of walking and had a leisurely dinner.

On Monday we decided to have a day in Cannes, just 40 minutes west by train. The second bad experience was trying to buy tickets from machines that would only accept coins or credit cards (not Euro notes) and nobody was prepared to cash our 20 euro note for coins. When our credit card didn’t work in the machine, we were faced with a half hour queue to the ticket counter. Eventually, we got our debit card to work. That whole business meant that we missed our train and faced an hour’s wait for the next one, but in between, we had to leave the station when it was evacuated due to some security issue. So there we were, outside the Nice railway station, eating a sandwich (surrounded by the ubiquitous smokers) and waiting for a later train that was itself being delayed by the station closure.

Finally made it to Cannes and spent the day waiting outside of ladies clothes and shoe shops – the only relief came when the shops happened to be opposite the beach and I could do a check of how many girls seemed to have forgotten their bikini tops at home. Sue said I could look, but didn’t like it when I pointed to them to show them who I was looking at. She also told me that I should try to keep my mouth closed and not to let my tongue hang out (I was just trying to dry my mouth out).

Back in Nice again, we had a lovely dinner in a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet (lucky to get in). Sue had tripe and Gerry had Lentils and suasages!

Tuesday : Did a half day visit to Monaco / Monte Carlo – just over-awed by the wealth – wall-to-wall Ferraris, Lambo’s, Porsches, Aston Martins and Bentleys. Land costs A$67,000 per square metre here, Didn’t want to stand still for too long as we couldn’t afford the rent on the piece of pavement we were standing on. In the afternoon, back in Nice, Sue had her nails done and Gerry went on a Segway ride (each to our own). In the evening we had dinner with Charles and Mary, 2 Americans from Chicago who we had met on the cruise. We ate at a restaurant called Le Bistro Gourmand in the old town and this was a memorable experience for our last meal in France.