Right then! Early morning walk to the Gare in Lyon, called Lyon Part-Dieu, not to be confused with Paris Gare de Lyon. Okay then. Uneventful train trip to Nice, however I could notice it getting sunnier! Quick switch to a regional train at Nice Ville, not to be confused with Mean Town. Got into Villefranche-Sur-Mer, my home for the next three days (and the length of this post) shortly thereafter.
This is the point when I pretty much almost lost it. I was told to take the sidewalk next to the beach, and then follow some steps, and then blammo, I’d get to my hotel. However I get to the sidewalk, and it turns out the entire passageway is closed.
I evaluate my options. I’ve never been here, so it’s not like I can go on memory. I haven’t written down the phone number of the hotel, so it’s not like I can call them. I then look up. Way, way, up.
You'll have to click on this pic and the next one to get the bigger version, but do you see that small building that has the red arrow pointing? That’s the train station. The blue arrow indicates the mess of construction that wasn’t even being worked on… Let’s now pull back and see the grander shot.
The red arrow indicates the train station, again. However the blue arrow now indicates where I had to hike to so that I could access the main road and have any chance at finding the hotel. Normally this wouldn’t be bad… if you didn’t have 20 kilos on your back and pulling 20 kilos behind you.
I really have to rethink the value of packing.
I make it to the road in about 20 minutes of huffing and puffing. I don’t think I’m out of shape, rather, I challenge any of you to do that hike that I did. At the top I take a few minutes to once again reevaluate the situation and think, sod it, I’ll keep walking… at least it’s downhill from here (it really was). Five minutes later, I find a sign pointing to the hotel. Hallelujah.
I sound the bell at the front door and one of the owners, who is probably in the same age group as me, answers. She can see that I am exasperated, and invites me in. I then hear the golden phrase “Our house is your house”. I had been recommended this establishment from a student at my school, and I am certainly not disappointed. I take some time to relax and then head out to explore, as is my usual want to do.
My intention for this day was to make my way to Menton, a nearby town that I previously stayed in and fully enjoyed. But the fact that was it was nearing 5 pm, the sun was falling and frankly I didn’t want to wait for an ever delayed train. So I popped in to the nearby Super U (read: supermarket) and picked up food for dinner.
Food for dinner, in my world: tandoori chicken, rice, and even better that, for chilling out – a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau, a baguette, and some camembert. This, folks, is living.
I know it may surprise you to know that I’ve actually probably seen more television in person than I’ve watched on the actual screen. I have allowed myself a bit of tv time… and my new fave French way of life is 7-8 pm in front of the tube, to watch La Roue de La Fortune (take a guess) and Le Zapping.
La Roue is some game which apparently is quite immensely popular in the US and consists of a wheel and a hangman puzzle. The French version is a bit more active than ours – their host consistently berates the players when they don’t aim for the big money, they have something called “Caverne” which is basically old-school shopping mixed with a Supermarket Sweep-esque twist. I’ve seen 5 or 6 episodes of it and it is growing on me.
Just before La Roue starts their bonus round, I usually switch over to Canal+ to watch Le Zapping. This basically consists of 7-8 minutes of clips from TV from the day before. It is literally anything and everything – not everything shown is family friendly, and it’s a mix of the sane to the insane. It’s like The Soup, except missing the snarkiness of Joel McHale. In fact, as a fundraiser for AIDS research, they run an event called:
La Nuit de Zapping. I attended this event back in 2002 in Strasbourg and it was phenomenal, and it lasted SIX HOURS!! I got home at 3 am, but I’d go back and watch it again in a heartbeat.
Day 91 promised to be filled of pizza, pasta, gelato, or some combination of the three – I was heading to Italy! Beaulieu is about 1 hour by train from the Italian border, so you can pretty much head over for the day to walk around. Before I got there, I did take a nice walk along the beach, where, when trying to take a self, picture, I got hit by the biggest wave of the day! I wish I had gotten my reaction on film.
I had full intentions to get to San Remo, the second or third town past the border, however, there was a loss of trains due to a regional train strike! A strike in Europe, you say? NOT POSSIBLE. Sarcasm mine. I decided that Ventimiglia would have to do for my Italian experience.
I did leave a lasting impression on Italy. I went into the post office, and it turns out they have some kind of system straight out Star Trek whereby you have to enter the first set of doors, let them close automatically, then you can enter through the second set of doors by pressing a button. However I didn’t see anything posted, and frankly if it was, it was probably written in Italian.
It bears noting that all of these doors were made of clear, very clear plastic.
It should come as no surprise, then, that I PLOWED into a clear plastic wall.
Go ahead, laugh. I can laugh now that it’s a few days on!
I’m sure everyone heard me hitting the wall and it left a huge welt for the remainder of the day on my noggin, just above my right eye. Nobody looked my way… bless the majority of Europe who don’t even give you the time of day, which, at this time of day, was juuuuuuuuuust perfect.
After that adventure, I picked up some pizza and went and ate it on the beach, just watching the waves roll in. Peaceful. For dessert I went scavenging and found some gorgeous gelato:
All the fun of fruits and chocolate rolled into one! At this point I’ve decided to head back, as Ventimiglia is slowly starting to weird me out. On the train ride back, I meet two young women from California who are here as part of their job, running a hospitality suite for some clients in Monaco. I am happy to help them get on the train as they are unsure which one it is, and we have a nice chat before I am again back in Menton.
I decided that I wanted to hike up the hill to the Youth Hostel where I had stayed the last time I was here. 373 steps later I am rewarded with this gorgeous view of the town:
I also found the same sign as previous; it still makes me laugh (graffiti tagging aside)
The Cote D’Azur, while expensive for the most part, doesn’t always have to be – there are plenty of free things to do, you just have to know where to find them! Back to Beaulieu then, to watch La Roue, eat baguette, and drink more wine. NB: I’m not advocating drinking, but it is the social thing to do here! I also had to get some things ready for the next day’s activity.
I wake up on Day 92 really quite too early but I shower, have a quick pain au chocolat and am out the door around 7.45 am. I get to the train station in Beaulieu and that’s where the wheels fall off.
Well, at least one did.
Literally.
I find, by looking down at my suitcase, that one of the wheels of my dive bag has fallen off.
Great, just great.
But I will not be deterred. I pick up the wheel and make a mental note to fix it later. As a result, I go Beaulieu to Nice by train, then the train station to the harbour by city bus.
I arrive at a place that calls itself Nice Diving (no, seriously, it does, I have pamphlets to prove it) just before 9 am. I meet Stéphane, my Divemaster for the day and Arnauld, among others. We get everything ready and I notice that there’s only been one tank set aside for me. I thought we were doing two, I ask politely. Turns out that’s not the case, everyone gets too cold after the first one.
I forget that if you live in a warmer climate, December is still cold for you… but I mean really, it’s 62F at depth!!! We haven’t had that water temp since early September. Ah well, as long as it’s a good dive!
On the way Arnaud and I get chatting and he is nice enough to point out to me all of the different landmarks that we pass. It turns out Mr. Elton John has a house on the Riviera!
That he has used, I’m informed, once. At least it’s there when he wants it.
We go to pull into the intended site but it’s not really looking that well with it having rained earlier in the week. So we go to the alternate.
During our brief briefing - that’s the best way I can state it – if you’re in my dive club, I can tell you privately later – I find out that we’re going pretty deep. I state that I’m cool with going deep to a certain limit, then we’ll go from there. I say to Arnaud (who is with me on the dive as well) that I’m usually not an air pig, but we should just take it easy. It turns out he has a bigger tank than me! We’ll take it step by step then. Stéphane is also on the dive with us.
I should explain that previously, I did what’s called a “bapteme de plongee” or “diving baptism” (read: discover scuba) when I last visited Nice. It was, to put it nicely, not a nice experience. I was left at 20 feet with another NEW diver while the instructor was completely out of his mind. For those of you who are reading and are curious: I am a DM and would happily arrange for a FUN, SAFE discover scuba session. Just let me know!
In any case, 333 dives later, I feel a little better about this time. We start descending and I can see fish all around me, it is quite an assault on the senses. We get to about 90 feet, and I’m doing great, so we go a bit deeper. A minute later or so, I find that we’re totally at the bottom and it’s 129 feet! I should note that this is in recreational limits for scuba divers – the max is 130 feet. At this point I do two things. First, I do a dexterity check, as when you’re at that depth, sometimes it can get a bit loopy. Secondly, we don’t stay long. You only get a few minutes at that depth, so I took advantage of it to take a look around, and then we made our way up progressively to 100 feet, then 90 feet, then 60 feet – where there was some awesome marine life:
You can see a light in some of the pictures, that’s because Arnaud had his light with him that although was heavier than the weight I had in my BC, it was quite functional. He was nice enough to point out what was great to see on the dive, including this wonderfully camouflaged fish:
When we were at about 30 feet I immensely enjoyed the wall of fish that was surrounding us. Beautiful. I have a better video clip I'll try to post someday.
All in all it was a great 46 minute dive.
On the way back Arnaud and I chatted further and I’m sorry I didn’t get to dive with him more, he seemed like a great guy. That’s the only thing that is the problem with this trip: I meet so many wonderful people but sadly I only get to talk to quite a few of them fleetingly! As it is, that’s part of the fun of travelling.I paid up for the dive and then headed back to the train station to catch a train back to Beaulieu. I would have liked to stay in Nice and do some looking around, but with a dive bag missing one wheel and that was pretty much soaking wet, I figured it would be best to get back to the hotel. I did a double take when I got off the train in Beaulieu - someone was running to get on the train, clad in full wetsuit and with a speargun in his backpack!
Further proof that I was recommended a great place to stay at: I get back to the hotel, and the female owner is more than happy to have me rinse out my gear and then hang it in the front garden! I tell you, luck was on my side.
I figured at this point, because it’s nearing 2.30 pm, it’s time for some lunch. There was a small takeaway at the bottom of the hill, so I arrived, clad in shorts – yes, shorts, because it was 15 degrees Celsius outside, and it’s December, so it’s a novelty – and bought a sandwich. The lady was appalled that I was wearing shorts, as she was wearing two sweaters!!!
I had a wonderful walk around Beaulieu, and was gobsmacked (there it is again) when I saw the following combination:
Truly, I’ll probably never seen that again. And proof that it really can be that warm in December...
A short hop back to the hotel to check email and a nap, then I foraged for pizza for dinner, packed up the suitcase, and got ready for the next day… and another long day of train travel!
And I can't forget about Mira, the hotel's dog who just didn't want to face the camera when I tried to get a picture. I guess that means one of us is camera shy...Cheers,
Vick.
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