The French Riviera

From one beautiful place to the next, we moved on from the Swiss Alps to the Mediterranean Sea.  The French Riviera was our next destination and it too did not disappoint.  The journey itself is worthy of mentioning as we travelled through the second longest tunnel in Europe which stretches 17kms.  I have heard of the term traffic before and I claim to have been stuck in traffic before, but waiting for two hours to enter this tunnel, as they only let a certain amount of cars through at a time was an experience.  I have never been stuck in traffic to the extent that you look out the windows at the people around you to discover they are standing outside their cars having cigarettes and a little stroll to kill some time in the middle of a 4 lane freeway.  After the 11 hour bus ride we eventually made it to the French Riviera where we went to an organised dinner at a restaurant.  Unfortunately this is not the best dinner to talk about as it was by the far the worst we have had and we did not get our meals until at least 9pm followed by dessert at 11pm.  I was hoping the food would make up for the wait, but the salmon was cold and over cooked and the chips that we saw the waiter eating off our plates was easily the best part of this meal.

This little experience was not going to put a dampener on our next day and we were all eagerly waiting to head into Nice first thing in the morning.  Once arriving in Nice, we walked straight to the beach to check out the sights on the stone pebble beach.  The water was so incredibly clear that you can easily understand how the locals ignore the fact that the pebbles are not the softest thing to lie on but certainly worth the view.  An even better way to see the view was from on top of the fortress which overlooks the beach and has a great view of the waterside airport.  We have mastered climbing stairs in the last week that is for sure, so again one foot in front of the other we climbed some more stairs to check out the view.  It was amazing to see the amount of private jets that were flying in and out to one of the busiest airports in France.

After soaking in some of the atmosphere we headed back into town where we discovered a local fresh produce and flower market in Old Nice.  Now I know I have gone on about markets in the past, but this truly was breathtaking.  The sidewalks were lined with stalls full of spices and herbs, fresh meats and fish, cheeses, breads, fresh fruits and vegetables to name a few.  As I was walking through I was incredibly jealous of the other tourists that had the opportunity to pick up some produce as words cannot express how much I would have loved to purchase anything in an attempt to whip up a French inspired recipe.  I did sample a few things along the way and I was surprised at how different things tasted.  Many of the stalls had sundried tomatoes out to taste and I took the opportunity at multiple stalls to compare the flavours. I was surprised that they had a slightly saltier taste and had more of an olive type taste then what I am used to back home.  I also purchased a punnet of strawberries for only €4 and they were the juiciest strawberries I have ever tasted, full of magnificent flavour would have been divine with some melted chocolate!

I must also make a quick mention, specifically for my Mum and Nana, of the amazing flowers. Nice is a well known flower growing area with many perfumeries taking the opportunity to grow flowers in this area.   Lavender is a common flower grown here and the market had multiple little stalls with lavender creations for sale.

Ok, back to the food! After our longer than anticipated stop at the market, we headed to find some lunch.  Nice is apparently well known for its pizzeria type foods as it is so close to the Italian border that many Italians migrated to the French Riviera and combined the two cuisines together.  It is often said that the pizza in the French Riviera is better than the pizza you can find in Italy.  With this in mind, we were hunting for Pizza! We decided to settle for brushetta type pizza where the topping was served on a bread rather than on a more traditional pizza base.  We also decided to get a cheese platter and share all three dishes.  This was possibly one of the best decisions of the trip!  The food was magnificent.  We had a chorizo bruschetta with rocket and a ham bruschetta with mushrooms both with four types of cheese with a tomato base sauce.  The chorizo was amazing, better than any I have had at home before and has made me rather excited for the opportunity to eat this again over the remainder of the trip.  The cheese platter was also delicious. I have tried goat’s cheese in the past and HATED it! Either my taste buds have changed since high school or the goat’s cheese here is so much better as I loved the creamy texture and flavour that this cheese had.  There were also few other cheeses on the plate such as blue cheese (which was a little too strong for me), Brie and Swiss cheese.

After filling our stomaches at lunch, we headed towards Monaco to mingle with the rich and famous.  In my opinion we had unfortunate timing to be in Monaco as the grand prix was on.  This meant the streets were closed off making it impossible for our bus driver to get us there, so we trained into town where the trains were so overloaded they could not run due to weight restrictions. The police were called to get people off the trains which was a bit of an experience in itself.  We unfortunately did not run in to any stars but we managed to get into the famous Monte Carlo casino, which was stunning, as well as check out some pretty amazing cars including a sleek black Lamborghini.

We are now on our way back to Italy (we actually just crossed the border) and my stomach is telling me its lunch time so that’s my cue to sign off xx