A few months after we got married we decided to spend our first anniversary backpacking around Europe. We started planning and looking for flights right then and there. So, it was pretty crazy to actually get on the plane after almost a year of planning.
We took 16 days to see all we could see in southern France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and northern France.
We took SOOOOO many pictures, it's hard to narrow them down. Bear with me as I break the trip down by region and completely overload this blog with notes and photos. Happy scrolling!
Part one: Nice, Cannes, and Monaco.
After months of research, we found the GREATEST backpacks for our trip. I was still pretty groggy from the flight when we hit baggage claim and had to concentrate pretty hard to figure out which strap went where. Scott had a good laugh about it.
Fortunately excitement took over for exhaustion when we hit the streets of Nice.
Thank goodness for internet cafes! We decided to book a tour of Hitler's Eagle's Nest (more about this later) in Austria right before we left home and didn't have access to our reservation information until we got to Nice. The computers in this place were about as ancient as the Roman ruins up the street. -rimshot!- We were lucky we were able to get anything to print at all.
The beaches in Nice are made up of round, smooth stones about the size of your fist. Not so fun to walk on with bare feet, but AWESOME for skipping stones.
When we asked the concierge at our hotel where we should grab lunch he told us to check out the market on the Cours Saleya. OH MY GOODNESS! This market instantly made us want to move here. It's a gourmand's dream!
We gave into gluttony and ate a whole bag full of olives.
The market had lots and lots of really fresh fish.
Seriously, look how fresh this fish is!!! Clear eyes = super fresh. Living in landlocked Utah, we really don't get to see fish this fresh.
Gorgeous!
Row after row of row of beautiful, fresh produce.
Marzipan! This stand had dozens of different candy critters. These must take FOREVER to create. Impressive, but I'm not sure I'm all that into eating something that's been in someone's hands long enough to sculpt intricate details. At least they're adorable!
We also found and a whole bunch of Glacé fruit. It all looked so beautiful and we ended up buying a whole bunch. Turns out they're not as delicious as they look. Oh well.
I probably love garlic enough to actually eat this whole thing.
We wanted to buy a box of these tomatoes and eat them like apples.
I wish we could have sampled each of these fresh spices. It smelled amazing.
I loved the little chalkboard handwritten signs.
Could this place be any more appetizing or charming!?! I would fly back to Nice just for this market.
We snapped this photo right before we got shooed away from our table by an old woman with a walker and the owner of this little tiny shop. Pourquoi, you ask? I'm a little embarrassed to even write this down, but I want to keep an accurate record of our trip. So here's how it went down: The one downside to the fabulous Cours Saleya Market is the complete lack of places to sit and eat the food you buy. We looked and looked and couldn't find anywhere to spread out our loot and eat. Finally, on a little side street, we found a cafe the size of a closet that only sold beverages. We thought, hmm, maybe if we buy a couple of drinks they'll let us use one of their tiny little tables. After some awkward French and lots of hand gestures, we thought we made a deal to eat our food there. Apparently not. Right after we started eating the old woman started speaking in really fast French. Then the bird that owned the shop came out and said, 'shoo! you can't eat that here!' I was embarrassed because Scott and I know full well that it's super bad etiquette to eat food at one restaurant from another restaurant. But, I thought we had a deal with the bird who owned this place that sold ONLY BEVERAGES. Next time we go to France I'll make sure I speak better French. For the record, these two ladies were the only 'rude' French people we encountered on our entire trip. I'm not sure where the 'rude French' stereotype came from, we thought pretty much everyone we encountered in France was really polite, helpful, and kind.
Anyhow, we were still really hungry and without a place to eat. After walking for a while we found a nice, abandoned looking window ledge where we could finally sit down. We thought we were in the clear, but after about 10 minutes a voice behind some weather beaten green shutters said, "Calme s'il vous plaît. Nous dormons!" (Quite please, we're sleeping). Oh dear. Despite our best efforts, we just couldn't seem to avoid being clumsy American tourists. Ironically, once we stopped trying to avoid clumsiness (and got some decent shut eye), the rest of our trip was smooth as buttah!
We were pretty sleepy after lunch, but we carried on.
You can hear the rush of the water as you climb the beautiful hill to the Parc. The mist from the falls was really refreshing after all that walking. I kept thinking to myself, "Really, can this place be any more amazing?!?"
At the top of the hill you can check out the ruins from the Virgin Mary Cathedral. Built in the 11th-12th centuries, rebuilt in the 15th century, and now just a pile of rocks. In America, we think anything built 100 years ago is super old. This trip gave me a whole new perspective on the meaning of 'ancient'.
There are several great overlook points all around the ruins.
My handsome traveling companion.
This picture hardly captures this stunning view of the Promenade des Anglais and turquoise water of the Mediterranean.
The other side of the hill had this amazing view of the harbor. As we stood there in the warm ocean breeze I said, "Scotty, can we just stay here? I don't know if I really need to see anything else. For that matter, let's just forget everything and move to Nice." I'm glad Scott didn't listen to me. Nice was wonderful, but I had no idea how much I'd fall in love with the rest of the places we visited.
As we made our way down the hill we saw lots of people out on the beach and decided to join them.
We totally smuggled these towels from the hotel to the beach. Dear housekeeper: Sorry for leaving sandy, salty, soggy towels behind.
Look at this place! It's ridiculous how beautiful everything is in Nice. It rained for a few minutes and made everything smell SO good.
After a dip in the Mediterranean, a shower, and MUCH needed nap we made our way towards the train station.
On our way to the train, we enjoyed walking around the beautiful Plaza Massena Square a few blocks from our hotel. We were fascinated by these white resin statues sitting 20 feet in the air on steel posts. (I later found out it's an installation piece by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Kinda crazy, but they grew on me after looking at them for a while. More about these later.
I also loved the sculptures in the fountain in the middle of the Plaza.
It was fitting for a perfect day to have a perfect sunset.
We took a train to Cannes for dinner and just happened to pass by the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès! I have always wanted to go to the Cannes film festival. This may be the closest we ever get, so I'm glad we at least got a photo.
Like a moth to a flame. :) This may be the closest I ever get to owning a Gucci handbag. A girl can dream...
There were lots of little restaurants along the shore and they all looked great, so we just picked one at random. We were pretty happy with our choice. Of course we had to order salad Nicoise. Delicious!
The restaurant had lots of TV's along the wall by our table showing a game featuring the French national football team. It was so much fun to cheer and yell with everyone at the tables around us.
We were so happy, sleepy, and full after dinner. I think team France won the game, but I'm pretty sure I fell asleep eating dessert and missed the final whistle. Oh well.
I would have to be desperate to use this stand-alone pay WC in the middle of the sidewalk. Also, €1.50!?! Are they crazy!?!
We took turns sleeping on the train back to Nice so we wouldn't miss our stop. This wasn't the last time either of us fell asleep sitting up on this trip.
A bunch of the streets leading back to the Plaza Massena had these gorgeous blue lights crisscrossing from building to building.
As we approached the Plaza we noticed that all of the 'man on a pole' statues were lit up. Cool! And, we noticed the lights slowly changed color. Very cool!
We woke up the next morning feeling like a million Euros. We felt even better after we had a delicious breakfast of smoked salmon crepes, croissants with Nutella and honey, and hot chocolate!
This was the first of many cups of hot chocolate we consumed in Europe. MANY.
Why not build a giant inverted mirror in the middle of a fountain in the middle of a lush garden?
This place smelled like Money.
A cool tile mosaic someone made for Princess Grace.
The harbor in Monaco was even more beautiful than the one in Nice. Who are these people!?!
We didn't realize how hungry we were until we got to these really great little streets with lots of yummy smelling food. Look how happy Scott is after getting food in his belly!
We could have spent all day exploring these streets.
Katie Kaboom!
Why? Because I can!
The Palace. Obviously.
Can you even imagine living here!?!
Like everywhere else in Europe, Monaco has lots of great sculptures. For some reason I really loved the face of this one.
Yum!
Sadly, we ran out of time in gorgeous Monaco and had to wolf down our lunch on the way back to the train station. Au revoir French Riviera! We'll be back again someday.
Next stop: Italy!
Sadly, we ran out of time in gorgeous Monaco and had to wolf down our lunch on the way back to the train station. Au revoir French Riviera! We'll be back again someday.
Next stop: Italy!
3 comments:
love the updates, gorgeous views!
YOu two seriously are living mine & my hubby's dream! Could we seriously just trade lives for even just a summer??
I'm so jealous! Me and my sister spent a few days in Nice before, and it was gorgeous! I should of had you get me some bagets.
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