Nice + Monaco

Flying to the French Riviera was wonderful.
Oh the sun. Oh the warmth. Oh the beauty.

We’ve seen a lot of France but never the south. We bailed on it last time and went to Disney instead! It was just too far to drive in our little Peugeot 208 with a 6 and 8 year old in the back seat. So we made it a priority this time and here we are. 

After a quick Uber ride from the airport we checked into our Airbnb, it’s a tiny apartment but suits us well for the few days we’re here. We arrived on Easter Saturday so as soon as we could we made haste for the supermarket and topped up on food. We just couldn’t get a straight answer out of Google if the shops were going to shut on us for Easter Sunday, or Monday!
RK and I wondered along the promenade, so pretty! So many roller skaters, runners, people walking their dogs.

The following day we went into Nice central for a walking tour. Our guide was knowledgeable and we learnt a few things, like if you look at the side of buildings closely they aren’t what they seem! I’ll post a photo to Facebook in my Nice set, see if you can work it out! We also learnt Nice is the second most visited city in France, and the second most expensive!
The kids weren’t overly happy, one didn’t feel so well, one was grumpy, so we chopped our visit of the old town a bit short and went back to our Airbnb to rest.

Waking up the next day everyone was in a good mood, we packed the day pack and ventured to a new country, Monaco.
Wow! I already loved mini country’s and have  now added this one to the list. It’s so beautiful.
But wow the wealth! Expensive luxury cars just parked anywhere and everywhere – so surprising!
It was a wonderful day walking the Grand Prix track, the harbour, the old town, the new town and everything in between. I took a couple of videos for you all which I’ll also post up to Facebook.

The most random thing about our whole Nice experience was noticing a particular, familiar, type of tree on our walk to and from our tram stop. There standing on a random bit of land, on a random street in suburban Nice is, a pohutukawa tree – with a little plaque stating ‘originated in Oceania’.  A little taste of home, made us all smile.

Our last full day I took the kids to Phoenix park, bit mini zoo bit pretty planted out gardens. BK found a co-working space and knocked out a days worth of work. He’s been getting up each morning for a 6am meeting (4pm NZT) to sync with his team. So proud of his commitment, but looking forward to him switching off when we Camino next month.

So that was Nice, yes a few of you text me ‘Is Nice nice?’ Ha ha! Yes Nice is nice.
We loved the tram line, so simple, so cheap, so frequent. We loved the colour of the sea. We loved those patisseries. We love the ease of French life – so easy to slot into.

We’re now west bound to our next and final French city. I’ll give you a hint, our cat is named after this city. We’re slowing it down and will be in one place for an entire week. Expectations for touristing are low; Expectations for work and school work are high!
We’ll see how that goes.

Hope you’re enjoying the blogs and corresponding photos! I’m SO glad I’m not a content creator! It’s a lot of work! Hours and hours ….and that’s not including actually being out and about doing stuff! I’m thankful for Facebooks scheduling app. Makes life so much simpler to get all my posts queued to roll out at 6.30am NZT each day.

Till next time,

Claire