It's NICE here!

So our last stop in France was to Nice on the southern coast. We drove down through the windy mountain roads on Monday and got to Nice in the afternoon. Two of our friends were in Nice and we were so excited to meet up with them. Jeremy (fellow GT MBAer) and Trippe have been traveling around Europe as well and booked their flight home from Nice so we could have a night together!

After traversing some more small town squares, we made it to Old Town in Nice and found Jeremy and Trippe. We dropped our stuff off with them and went to drop off the rental car (yay!). We made our way back to our Airbnb which was conveniently super close to theirs and got our night started. 

We started with drinks overlooking the water and then did some food hopping. We had some socca (a specialty in Nice) and some yummy meat and pastas. It was fun being with a bigger group and we all really enjoyed being able to experience this together. Sadly Trippe and Jer (and Jess) left the next morning :(

View of water from our first stop

Such a pretty strip near Old Town 

My hot date for the night - Trippe!

The dapper Jeremy and Julie 

Trippe, Julie and I showing off our mini wine glasses 

Jessica and Jeremy

Jessica headed back to Milan on Tuesday morning for one of her last final exams and Julie and I stayed an extra night in Nice. We started our day off with the best (officially) pastry I have ever had! It was a light donut stuffed with an apple mixture (I ate it too fast and did not take a picture - but don't worry it will live in my dreams for my years to come). It was amazing. We tried to go back the next day to get it again and they were closed. Talk about a bad start to the day. 

After bfast, we decided to check out Monte Carlo in Monaco for the day after great reviews from Jer and Trippe. We hopped a quick train to Monte Carlo, stopped by the casino for a photo op and then headed to the beach for a day of relaxation in the sun! The beaches in Monaco have lentil sized rocks instead of the larger ones like Nice which makes it more comfortable, but boy did they get hot! After we got our fill of sun, we walked around the shore and saw the huge yachts and fantasized about life being rich. 

Monte Carlo Casino 

Selfie at the casino

The shoreline

The beach

Yachts and the palace on the top of the hill

Even the train station is pretty in Monaco

We headed back to Nice for a dinner reservation at Oliviera. Jessica had recommended this place and it definitely lived up to the hype!! A cute man in suspenders who loves everything olive oil is the owner and he was awesome! We ordered a feta and herb mix baked in phylo dough, a stuffed zucchini flower with a salad and canollini stuffed with beef stew and covered with mushrooms in a red wine sauce. After the amazing-ness that was dinner, we decided we must try the tiramisu. Wow! Everything was delicious and fresh and topped with a different type of olive oil. I definitely recommend going here if you are ever in Nice. You have to make a reservation which can be done at www.oliviera.com (you can order his olive oils here as well). A great last dinner in France to say the least. 

Feta and phylo dough

Zucchini flower 

Canollini

Tiramisu

On Wednesday morning we went to the beach in Nice for a few hours before checking out of our place. Nice has been my favorite stop in France. It was just so relaxing and beautiful. We had a 1:25 train to Ventimiglia in Italy and a connection to Milan. Unfortunately, France train workers decided to strike today. So we are sitting in a cafe waiting for the next available train (about a 2 hour delay). It should be ok once we get to Italy as they are not striking, but we will have to figure out how to exchange tickets without speaking any Italian because we will have missed our connection....fun adventure for sure!

Last meal in Nice was delicious!

My favorite little square 

Train strike beers

We are back in Milan til Friday morning and then I head home. Jessica and Julie head to Spain for the last week of their trips! It has been an amazing adventure that I will not forget. 

Stephen and I will have about 2 1/2 weeks in Atlanta before we move out to Oakland, California to start our next adventure. I'm excited to start work again and look forward to the experience with AT&T and where it will take us in the next few years!

Gorges du Verdon

Castellane has been a great stop on our French town hopping trip. It is a little town in the foothills of the French Alps and very close to Gorges du Verdon. It's neat to see a completely different looking part of France from what we have seen or what I imagined. It's beautiful here. 

Town square in Castellane 

Panoramic of town square

We stayed in a B&B in the town of Castellane. A Belgium couple owns it and caters to Harley owners. Pretty funny decor in the dining area - all things Harley!

We got to Castellane on Saturday afternoon. We drove from Arles, got to the mountains, then had about a 45 min winding drive through the small roads surrounding the gorge. Happy to be driving bc I am sure I would have gotten even worse motion sickness if not, not to mention having to look at the gorge so far below. 

View from the top of the gorge 

We walked around town and got some food to cook for dinner and make for lunch on Sunday. It is nice to have the chance to actually cook at home instead of eating out, as we are all getting very sick of restaurants. We had a nice relaxing evening with the grill, some wine and the last couple episodes of The Bachlorette! Girls trip!!

On Sunday we set out for a hike around the gorge called Sentier du Pecheur. We drove about 20 mins to a spot where we could leave our car and then waited for a bus to pick us up. 8:45 sharp is what we were told. Well the bus came, it filled up, it left, and we did not make it because there were so many people. So we teamed up with 2 couples and got a cab. Ironically it was the same price and got us there faster than the bus. So big win for us!

Some new friends we met on the road on the way to our hike 

Pre-hike group pic

So here we were, at the beginning of the hike, way up on a cliff overlooking the gorge and the river below. The hike said 7 hours, but we had read 5 hours was more realistic. It took pretty much exactly 5 hours and was a really tough hike. Up and down over loose gravel rocks. The scenery must have changed 10 times from desert, to forest, to cliff's edge, to river bank, to a 600m long completely dark cave. It was a beautiful hike but excruciatingly hot. By the end we were all dying. So thirsty and hot and tired. Definitely felt good to be back at our room to relax. 

Gorge du Verdon - we started at the top of the cliff on the right 

The scariest and steepest descent ever 

At the bottom of the steep descent - happy to not have to do that again!

Beautiful River Verdon

We thought we were finished with our hike - then we realized we had a 30 min uphill climb to get back to our car...this was when we were all still happy :)

On Monday before we left for Nice, we booked a tour to do something called rando aqua. I think we booked it because it sounded fun, as none of us knew exactly what we were getting in to. All we were told was that we would wear wet suits and be in the river. 

This is a picture of a group we saw getting ready to start their rando aqua tour on Sunday

We couldn't bring a camera, so I don't have any pics but it was a very interesting adventure. It started with a short hike down to the river. We got about a minute of instructions and then we jumped into the (freezing cold) river. The first part was relaxing and fun. We floated slowly through the different pools of water. We got to a rock about 10 feet high and had to jump off it. Then the rapids started. Anyone who has rafted with me (basically just my family) would know I am not a huge fan of rapids. In a boat. Well this time I didn't even get the boat. It was body rafting. We had a life vest as a flotation device and a helmet. Needless to say my tailbone is bruised and I inhaled about a gallon of water through my nose. I even punched myself in the face on one rapid because I tried to plug my nose and my elbow hit a rock. 

It was actually a fun time, but stressful (and a little painful) as well. We got out of the river and had to basically scale a gravel path straight uphill to the actual mountain path. Then had to walk through the caves we did the day before on our hike. This time without a flashlight. Our guide had one really terrible headlamp for our entire group. So we just blindly walked through the tunnels in the dark. 

This brings our adventures in Gorges du Verdon to an end. On Monday we drove down to Nice, France for our last stop in France. Then we head back to Milan for a couple nights. I leave on Friday and my Eurotrip will come to a close. 

Exploring Provence

We are off once more, this time down to the south of France. We decided to do some exploring of the Provence region. We are staying in a cute little town called Arles with the cutest B&B owner, Phillipe. 

We drove down on Wednesday morning from Beaune which took about 5 hours. We stopped for lunch in Valence, which is a small town just south of Lyon. We found a great little lunch spot and had huge salads - something we had all been craving! Then we were able to explore the town by driving through seemingly closed little streets in their square (because somehow we got into an area we shouldn't have been able to enter). It was quite nerve racking for me driving, but Jess and Julie seemed highly entertained. But we got back on the road and headed south to Arles. It was a long, rainy day driving. It's been awesome weather except a couple travel days so far, so we have been super lucky. We got to Arles and walked around the town for awhile before dinner. All the streets were so cute and there was a big town square with all the tourist restaurants which made for fun people watching. Our dinner ended up being rather sub-par (not one of the ones in the square for the record), but we did get to try bull and escargot. The highlight for the 3 of us was the delicious chocolate mousse dessert with strawberries and rhubarb crumble. 

Quiet square in Arles

Hotel de Ville in Arles aka skate boarder central 

Pretty sunset at 10pm - love European summers!

Dessert!

On Thursday we hit up 3 little towns around the area: Les Baux de Provence, Saint-Remy and Avignon. We all absolutely loved Les Baux. It is a cute little fortified village with an old fort/castle at the very top of the town. We got there at the perfect time before it got super hot and crowded. We had an audio guided tour of the fort and it was neat to hear about the different areas of ruins and what they used to be. Plus the views were amazing. We had a blast walking around and exploring each area and the tourist shops below!

Super cute candy store - we all have crazy sweet teeth 

Pet snack candy necklace - perfect to share or wear :)

View of the fort from the bottom of the city 

We were punished

Pano view from top of fort/castle 

Amazing views in every direction 

Selfie of the town from the top most point of the castle

Saint-Remy was our lunch stop and we found a great restaurant named Chez Fanny (our awesome tour of everything fanny paid off). Again we found delicious salads and an assorted platter with just about everything we could have wanted! We did a little walking and shopping, but overall we just used this stop as a lunch break. Saint-Remy was cute and basically what I thought a southern French town would look like. It was surrounded by a large traffic circle, as most small cities are, and inside there were fun small roads to explore with shops to browse. 

Assorted "brunch" platter at Chez Fanny

My first meringue. Not my fave sweet. 

 Cute square in Saint-Remy

One last stop of the day was in Avignon. This is another fortified city in the area with a large church and half bridge (I think those are the highlights of the town) over the Rhône River. We were all pretty tired by this time, so we did some speed site seeing and then headed back home to Arles. Avignon is probably the biggest city in the area and it definitely felt that way with the traffic and crowds. 

Selfie in front of church

Palace de Papes

Pont de Avignon (half bridge over the river)

Julie, Jess and I overlooking the Rhône 

Pont de Avignon (costs 5€ to go on it...ridiculous)

Thursday night we had an amazing dinner. I would highly recommend this restaurant if you're ever in Arles. It was called Cador. The restaurant was super cute and quaint. They played old classic English songs in French. The food was amazing. The service was great and the price was right. We found an app called The Fork that gave us 30% off too which made it a very nice night. It ended with an amazing tiramisu. Mmmmmmm. Dreaming of it still! Dinner was also across town which led us by some of the old sites of the city. We saw the theatre and the coliseum which was very enjoyable. 

Arles Coliseum

On Friday we went to explore some cities that were a different direction from the ones we had down the previous day: L'isle-Sur-la-Sorgue, Menerbes and Rousillion. We had planned on a couple others, but they all started to look similar so we picked the most different ones. 

L'isle-Sur-la-Sorgue was rather uneventful, except for one awesome activity - fish pedicures! Julie and I decided to try out this Turkish method of toothless fish sucking the dead skin off your feet. It tickled at first but felt refreshing after we got used to it!

Julie and I getting fish pedicures 

Cute little fishy

Super clear rivers running throughout the city

Next stop was wine tasting at Domaine de la Citadelle and a picnic lunch outside of Menerbes, then on to check out the super cute town of Menerbes. Julie and I are reading A Year in Provence (required pre-trip reading obviously) and this is the town where the book takes place, so it was fun to walk around and try to picture the different events!

Caves at Domaine de la Citadelle

Cute house in Menerbes 

Restaurant in Menerbes built into a rock wall

And finally we went for a "hike" in Le Sentier des Ocres near the town of Rousillion. The hike said it would take 50 mins and I am pretty sure we were in and out in less than 30, but either way it was beautiful. The town has the most interesting sandy clay in different hues of oranges and yellows and makes for very fun picture time! We joked that we were back in the US and visiting Utah or Arizona. 

Town of Rousillion

Le Sentier des Ocres

Jess and I jumping - or just me jumping I should say :) 

See, Jess did jump too!

Pike. Impressed with myself in this pic 

Julie jumping 

After our long day, we decided to get some take out food and have dinner at our B&B while drinking wine and watching The Bachlorette. Perfect girls night, French style!

Tomorrow we are off to our second to last France stop...Gorges de Verdon in Castellane, France. It's about 2 1/2 hours from Arles and the pics look amazing - a beautiful river running through a gorge. We are hoping to hike and do something on the river for the 2 days we are there! Then Monday we leave for our final stop in France - Nice!