Nice

From Barcelona, Steph and I went to Nice, France. Getting there was a challenge… We went to one of the Barcelona train stations, got lost trying to find it, and ended up missing the train we wanted. So we went to the train ticket office and asked for the next available train to take us to southern France. The woman told us to take the next train to Cerbere.

So we went to Cerbere. Once we got there, we still had no idea how to get to Nice, so we took the next train from Cerbere to Narbonne. When we got to Narbonne, we asked the ticket office there to help us, and he gave us reservations to Marseille, then Nice from there.

So after a total of four trains, we finally arrived in Nice. Our hostel was rated one of the top ten in the world, so we were very excited to stay there. We had a 15 person room. It’s funny how quickly I had gotten used to sleeping with a dozen other strangers, sharing one bathroom, living out of a suitcase…

The hostel was great. It was really big and there were a lot of people staying there. Most of the people were from the UK, Australia, or the U.S. I never even heard any French being spoken.

The next morning Steph and I set out. Nice is beautiful. I know I keep saying that each city I travel to is my new favorite, but Nice really is gorgeous. The whole place looks like a painting or a computer screen saver. It’s right on the ocean, so there are ports with lots of fishing boats. Cafes, restaurants, and stores line the side of the beach. The houses are all white cottages, and the city is built on different levels because the land is so hilly. On the other side of the city are mountains.

We went to the old part of the town first. There is a flower and fruit market every day there. There were lots of bright flowers, cheese, wine, bread, and every fruit imaginable. Steph and I spent a lot of time walking through this part of the city. There was street after street filled with shops. We also went into the cathedral in the center.

Later we took a bus out to a small fishing village 5 minutes away from the city. The bus went on a road above the city, so the view was awesome. The fishing village was very cute. There was a stone fortress there, a big harbor, and even more restaurants and cafes. We went to the beach and laid there for a few hours. The beach is actually all rocks. It was full of tiny rocks, so it felt like lying on a bean bag. It was actually very comfortable.

That night we ate dinner at the hostel. There is a big restaurant/bar connected to the hostel, so it is a great place to hang out and meet everyone else there from other countries. We met a girl from Colorado and a girl from Australia.

The next morning Steph went scuba diving with the two girls we had met the night before. Scuba diving scares me because of my asthma, so I slept in instead. When they got back, the four of us went and bought food at a supermarket, then went to the beach in Nice for the afternoon.

The beach in Nice was different than the beach we went to the day before. The rocks varied from the size of my hand to the size of my head. It was difficult to walk on them. We laid on our towels on the rocks. We had to kind of even out the piles of rocks and throw out the sharp ones before we could lie down. It took a while to get comfortable, but once we did it was really nice.

That night we hung out again in the hostel and played cards. We met lots of other young people from Canada and Australia. It was a lot of fun. The next morning Steph and I set out to the train station for yet another traveling adventure.