we based ourselves in nice for our south of france adventures. i had been to nice in spring 2013, and remembered being underwhelmed by it the first time-- it had been cute enough, pleasant enough, but remarkably... unremarkable. the main draw in returning to it was its proximity to other destinations, all the better for us to take day-trip excursions to other towns and cities along the côte d'azur.
nevertheless, we were determined to explore nice the same way we had explored other, possibly more vibrant cities: by walking. and walking. and walking.
our first day, we spent the morning wandering the mondays-only antiques market along cours saleya in the vieille ville. the city of nice, to its credit, is adorable-looking when drenched in may sunshine, but it still was a lackluster mix of the rundown and the fancy. for a city so teeming in palm trees and brightly-hued buildings, it also contained a disarming amount of jeering old men, which was not so fun.
later in the morning, we headed further north in the city to visit the world-famous matisse museum. when my parents were in nice in the '80s, they tried to visit the museum, only to find that it was closed for a multi-year renovation. my mom is still bummed. so we made a special effort to check online ahead of time to make sure the museum would be open! not taking any chances.
strangely, the matisse museum was situated next to some really cool roman ruins. if we had had more time, we all would've loved to have explored them more.
the museum itself was fascinating. i wasn't previously a huge matisse fan (at least, not of his later work) but seeing his art (and sketches and drafts as well!) in the context of the sun-dappled mediterranean setting in which he worked, i gained a lot of appreciation for him!
in the afternoon, we got on a bus to monaco. it was my second time visiting there as well, and monaco is not a place that is really ever necessary to visit more than once. but at least monaco is, in its own way, a cultural experience.
i remembered from last time that the unbridled opulence would get overwhelming after a while. but marit and i felt it was our responsibility to ensure that tamar, who had already visited all the other countries in our eurotrip, got to visit one new country, even if that country is only a square mile in size (in any case, tamar had been to andorra before, so that was out). anyway, last year i had only seen the upper part of monte carlo: the castle, etc, but not the lower part, where the casino sits.
first things first, it was lunchtime. we were famished; it had been several long hours since the mediocre cereal breakfast our hostel provided. in typical monaco fashion, the only food option we could find was an overpriced build-your-own-salad place. let's just say that if prince albert ever comes to dc, he'll feel right at home at sweetgreen... except that sweetgreen is positively a bargain compared to this place.
it's fine, i'll just be over here in the corner crying about how i spent my life savings on lettuce and pellegrino.
after eating, we wandered around for a while, checking out the grand casino, the grand prix stadium, and the waterfront.
monaco, a towering pastel gâteau crowded onto a single cliff face, often appears to have risen out of the hazy clouds that hover above the coastline-- emerging temporarily, offering a buttercream glimpse to us mere mortals, likely to disappear into some gilded pâte à choux cloud at any given moment.
and lurking equally glamorously underneath it is the thought of the drama that must inevitably be roiling behind the baby-pink façades: what titled aristocrat is having an affair behind closed doors? which tanned person on a sailboat is secretly an international jewel thief? what socialite has unwittingly gambled away the family fortune? in a place so full of privilege, there must be some talented mr. ripley shit going on, right?
the reality, of course, is that the excess and the daydreams and the splendor of it all is actually quite sickening. monaco begs the question of who are these people who really, legitimately want this life? all that money, and this is what they choose to do with it?
it's fun for a little while to ponder the thought of what it would be like to be able to relax in a dinghy in the azure mediterranean (see above photo), then head back to your yacht for some champagne and a change of clothes before heading to some gala. it's fun to think about that for approximately... 2 hours. and in those couple of hours, we entertained ourselves immensely by people-watching, taking glam photos, and daydreaming.
as the sun dipped a bit lower in the sky, however, we suddenly got weary. weary of what? honestly, of everything in monaco. the pastels seemed glaring. the clouds menacing. the doormen imposing. the fancy cars odious. there was just too much. the heat and the wealth and the absurdity of the place was getting to us. the opulence ceased to be fascinating and intriguing, and suddenly monaco just seemed comically unpleasant, a dystopian cautionary tale, instead of the candyland it had seemed at first glance. still, though, we stuck it out a little while longer in order to fully see everything, including the cathedral with grace kelly's tomb, the castle, and the pretty gardens atop the city.
by late afternoon, we were beyond ready to return back to the normality of france. nice felt comfortingly real in its mundanity. after a night's sleep, we were ready to tackle nice anew tuesday morning.
we walked up to the parc du château, where we stumbled upon a jewish cemetery with a memorial to holocaust victims and resistance fighters.
and after walking through the park, we finally reached our destination: the cascade de gairaut, an artificial waterfall built in the 19th century. the waterfall itself was unremarkable but the view of the city and the baie des anges was phenomenal.
afterwards, we headed back down into town to catch a bus to the nearby town of antibes for the afternoon. our original plan had been to take a day trip to the up and coming seaside city of marseille, which i've always wanted to visit, but in a weird lack of foresight none of us thought to google how long the trip was until the night before. when marseille turned out to be a 2-hour train ride away from nice, we regrouped and decided to go to antibes, a much more manageable 45 minutes away, instead. i still would like to visit marseille someday, but it'll happen sometime and it'll involve really good couscous when it does.
it all worked out though, because antibes was charming.
we walked around the old city, lay on the beach, basked in the sunshine, ate quiche, took a lot of photos, ate more quiche, and generally just enjoyed a lazy afternoon in a beautiful place. our pace for so much of the eurotrip was fast- not fast enough to forsake appreciating the places we visited, but fast enough to render us exhausted from constantly wanting to see everything, do everything, not miss anything everywhere we went- and it was lovely to unexpectedly get to relax on a beach for a few hours.
antibes, at least for an afternoon, was the perfect type of côte d'azur town; cobblestoned, sweet, understated. the much less melodramatic cousin of monaco, cannes, or st tropez. and the much less grating and more appealing sibling of nice.
when we got back to nice in the evening, we bought mediocre sandwiches at subway because we couldn't find anything else cheap other than in the supermarket, where we got so creeped out by an old guy staring at us that we felt compelled to leave. and then we got nutella crêpes because it was our last night in france, but we got them at a rundown, shabby restaurant where once again, we were the only girls in the establishment and therefore were subject to an inordinate amount of uncomfortable attention whilst we waited for our food.
but then we took our food to go and we walked down the promenade des anglais along the waterfront and sat for a while on a low wall at the rocky beach. the sky was indigo and the lights of the curving coast surrounded us at left and right, cradling us. the moon was luminous. small waves crashed on the rocks. it was our last few real hours in france, a country that over the years has come to feel almost like a second home to me.
so maybe the côte d'azur turned out to not be my kind of place. but with the stars and the city lights and the reflection of both of those, glimmering, atop the sea, in front of us, all i could think about was how france as a whole most definitely was.
