The Cannes Can-can

April 10th--(Good Friday)--Our trip today to Cannes (pronounced "can") was via train. We really had no idea how the local train system worked and it took us a little while to get it right. We started out trying to use the automated machines. The first one was only in French, so we moved to another one that had an English option. After about 10 minutes of maneuvering through the system, we thought we had our tickets, only to figure out that the machine only accepts credit cards with the smart chip (popular in Europe, but not on any of ours). So we then went and stood in the ticket counter line to purchase a ticket. This seemed easy, but the ticket just said 'Nice to Cannes', with no time or seat assignment on it. We can handle not having a seat assigned because that is the way the trains were in Switzerland, but no time made it a little difficult to figure out what train to get on. After consulting the departure schedule and asking several people, we finally got on our train and found 4 seats together. There are apparently different trains that travel back and forth to Cannes. Some trains make more stops than others. We were on the slow train that made lots of stops so it took about 45 minutes to arrive in Cannes. Upon arrival, we stopped by the Tourist Information center and picked up a map of the area. We walked down Rue des Serbes that took us right to the promenade (boulevard de la Croisette). It was here that we followed Rick Steves' short guide down the 2-mile-long promenade. For all of the natural beauty we saw yesterday along the French Riveria, today was more about un-natural beauty. We actually saw one old lady sitting on the promenade in a full-length fur coat! We walked down to the Hotel Carlton, the most famous address on the boulevard, (allow 750-5300 Euros for a night). We then turned around and found a nice place to eat right on the beach. It was such a beautiful, sunny day so we really enjoyed sitting outside. There were times where we actually got "hot". That's the first time I believe we've used that word since traveling. Anyway, after finishing up lunch, we walked to the Cannes Film Festival Hall. The hall is where the festival takes place, but is definitely nondescript when the festival isn't going on. We imagined what it would be like during the festival with the red carpet rolled out and all the celebrities. We walked around the Hollywood-style handprints. Abby took her picture with Julie Andrews' hands and Austin found Mickey Mouse. We continued around the Festival Hall to the port (Gare Maritime). It was here that we saw all the big yachts lined up closest to the Film Festival Hall. It was fun to walk by them and see where they were all from. A lot from London and several from Cayman Islands. That was a long trip, huh? We enjoyed some ice cream and people watching before heading up the hill about 15 minutes from the port to the castle. It was here that we got a wonderful view of Cannes and also walked into a ancient church, Notre Dame de l'Esperance (Our Lady of Hope), having it's Good Friday service. We journeyed back down the hill and watched Boules being played. We had seen this the other day in Nice, but weren't sure what it was until doing some reading. It is the "horseshoes" of Provence and the Riviera except instead of horsehoes, heavy metal balls are used. After enjoying the game for a little bit, we walked back to the train station where we got our tickets and had to run for the next train leaving for Nice. It was leaving in 2 minutes. We made it and were on the fast train back to Nice. The train only made one stop so we were back in Nice in 25 minutes. When we got to the Nice train station, we were able to purchase our train tickets to Italy for when we leave here on April 18th. All in all, a great day!

The Beauty of the French Riviera

April 8th--So apparently the wind yesterday didn't do any good for our head congestion. Mike and I were both "down for the count" today. I did make it across the street to the pharmacy during the afternoon and the pharmacist gave us some antihistamine/decongestant medicine. We started taking it and almost immediately started feeling better. He also mentioned that the pollen is real bad right now. I guess spring allergies hit everywhere. We also found out the apartments can become really small when you are inside all day long. We basically watched every movie, played every game and colored everything we had to keep the kids entertained. Oh well, at least the scenery from the apartment was still beautiful!

April 9th--We awoke feeling much better today and decided to head out to see some more of the area. We were in awe today at all the breathtaking views and the beautiful scenery in the French Riviera. We took a bus to Cap Ferrat via the Low Corniche. The Low Corniche is the lowest route from Nice and goes all the way to Monaco (corniche means 'road on a ledge'). We got off at Pont St. Jean and walked about 30 minutes along the west coastline of Cap Ferrat seeing Nice to our right. Our walk was on a narrow sidewalk on a tight, windy road, but we enjoyed the scenery none the less. We arrived at our destination which was Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. This is the ultimate in Riviera extravagant. A 1905 pink mansion that rises above Cap Ferrat. This mansion is a much known for it's beautiful gardens, which is where we started. We walked through the 7 lush gardens that were recreated from locations all over the world. The 7 gardens were: Spanish, Florentine, Stone, Japanese, Exotic, Rose, and Provencal. Along the way we stopped for several breathtaking views of the sea. The best was saved for last though, the "Temple of Love" gazebo. From this gazebo, we looked toward the back of the house. Our view of the house was distracted by the lush green, flowers and a water show. It was truly beautiful! From here, we entered the tea room for lunch. We set outside on the patio to enjoy the weather and views. It was a wonderful French meal of quiche. Just my cup of tea! After lunch, we entered the mansion that was built and furnished by Beatrice, Baroness de Rothschild. The rooms were filled with royal furnishings and some personal possessions. Tons of French antiques...very neat stuff! We decided to continue on our day with a walk along the East coastline back towards the main road. It was here that we caught a 5 minute bus to Villefranche. The kids immediately spotted a park with a playground along the road so they got to play a little bit before we walked around. From the playground, we went to the Citadel, once a castle and is now a hotel, art museums and a great place to get some more breathtaking views. It was here that we were able to look back over the water and see the pink mansion on top of Cap Ferrat. We had to force ourselves to stop taking pictures. We then strolled along the Villefranche's waterfront trying to pick out certain celebrities homes on the other side of the water. This area has homes for Sean Connery, Mick Jagger and Paul Allen, to name a few. We finished up our time in Villefranche back at the playground for a little while. It was interesting to watch the kids and parent's interact. We were surrounded by all kinds of languages. I heard French (of course), Italian, and Spanish along with our English. It was fun trying to figure out what language everyone was speaking. We just don't experience that back at home.

Life's a Beach!

April 6th--We had a lazy day by the beach today. Mike was still not feeling very good today so I took the kids down to the beach. The weather was wonderful! It was nice to be able to sit by the water without all the wind. (We experienced a lot of wind at the beach in Spain) The kids and I enjoyed our time at the beach. The beach here is covered with all rocks, no sand. Abby and Austin spent a lot of time throwing rocks into the Mediterranean Sea. Austin was in heaven...he has become totally obsessed with rocks and will put them in his pockets. Also, we aren't far from the Nice Airport so we set at the beach watching airplanes taking off over the water.

April 7th--Since we have been taking it easy for the past few days, we really haven't mapped out our agenda for our stay in Nice. So, today we decided to do the Riviera Walk from the Promenade des Anglais to Castle Hill, a 4 mile long walk. We took the bus along the promenade and got off by the Hotel Negresco. Hotel Negresco is Nice's finest hotel and has the most expensive rooms at 460 Euros. The hotel's entrance is very obvious with it's pink dome looking over the promenade. We tried to go inside to take a look, but we were denied access. I guess we don't look like 460 euros a night people at this point. So, instead we began our seaside stroll doing a lot of people watching along the way. It's hard not to check out the Europeans sunbathing. (Sometimes it is like a train wreck... you can't stop watching) After almost getting beat to death by the wind (yes, the wonderful wind was back today), we darted into a restaurant for lunch. We went with something less local today and were maybe looking for a feel of back of home as we chose Buffalo Grill. It was a lot like a Friday's, but it got us out of the wind. In fact, we were at lunch long enough we forgot about the wind and headed back out to continue our walk towards Castle Hill. Anyway, back to some information about the promenade...along the walkway, you will encounter many people bike riding, rollerblading or running. We had to avoid the bike lanes along the promenade. We continued our walk onto quai des Etats-Unis ("quay of the United States"). This name was given as a tip-of-the-cap to the Americans for finally entering World War I in 1917. There's also a monumental war memorial sculpted out of the rock in honor of the thousands of local boys who died serving their country in World Wars I and II. After enjoying some brilliant views from this spot, we headed back toward the elevator entrance to Castle Hill. We took the elevator up to Castle Hill. We just didn't think that the kids would make the climb up after all the walking along the promenade. Once up on Castle Hill, we enjoyed the playground and the unbelievable views over Nice, the port, the foothills of the Alps and the Mediterranean. We also got an excellent view of the airport runways and watched a plane land and take-off. (Just some background on Castle Hill...Nice was founded on this hill. The residents were crammed onto the hilltop until the 12th century, as it was too risky to live in the flatlands below.) Instead of taking the elevator down, we did go down the stairs and repeated our walk along the promenade back the opposite direction. We love people watching and we got a lot of that today.

FReeANCE

April 4th--We are all still a little under the weather, but decided that it would do us some good just to get out in the fresh air and sun. So, we took a bus into town to find the tourist information office to pick up a map and other information of the area. While we were at the tourist office, Abby picked up a magazine and was looking trough it. Next thing we knew she was on a page going "this looks like Daddy". It's unreal how much this picture looks like the new "European" Mike. Check out the picture of Mike (aka Hugh Coltman). The similarities are unreal. We then used Rick Steve's book to guide us to lunch. It had been several days since we'd actually had a good meal with traveling and not feeling well. We had just been eating a little bit at a time. Anyway, we enjoyed a nice lunch at Restaurant d'Angleterre. We absolutely loved the fact that the waiter brought us a pitcher of water. That definitely saved us some money. In Spain, we were spending so much money on drinks because at every restaurant we had to order a drink and even if it was water, it was bottled. We later read in Rick Steve's guide that by France law, the waiter has to bring you a pitcher of water. Anyway, when our check came so did 2 small glasses of what looked like liqueurs. I wasn't sure what they were, but I went ahead and tasted the red colored one. Right as I took a sip, Mike goes..."how do you know that's not to wash your hands with?" We got a good laugh at that because we are realizing that things aren't always as they seem in Europe. Anyway, from here, we found a store, The Cat Whiskers. It is an English bookstore that was recommended in Rick Steve's guide. Before we left the States, our original itinerary didn't include Nice so we were lacking a local guide, but we found one at the bookstore. After this, we strolled down Avenue Jean Medecin, hopping into stores along the way and people watching. This street is lined with many shops and has the tramway through the streets. We were really exposed to the French way of saying hello with witnessing even teenagers kissing cheeks as a hello.
April 5th--Today, we were all about doing things "FOR FREE". There are 2 museums here in France that are recommended in Rick Steve's guide book, Chagall Museum and Matisse Museum. The Chagall Museum (Musee national Marc Chagall) is free on the first Sunday of the month. That would be today! This museum houses the world's largest collection of Marc Chagall's work. Chagall designed and donated all his painting, inspired by the Old Testament, to this building which he considered a "House of Brotherhood". His Modern paintings were filled with bright colors and looked like they were drawn with crayons (with a lot of coloring outside the lines). It was nice to see something a little less perfect. Abby has really enjoyed coloring as a travel activity so it was neat for her to see this modern art. After leaving the Chagall Museum, we rode the bus to the Matisse Museum, but first walked through the beautiful park leading to the museum. It was a pretty day so we stopped to smell the flowers and climb some trees. The kids enjoyed just running around. Since they were having such a good time outside, Mike and I decided to take turns going into the Matisse Museum. He went first and then me. It was an easy process since it was free access as well. All in all, it took about 10 minutes to go through. It was more about doing it to say we did it than the fact that we actually knew who he was or anything about his paintings. The Matisse Museum (Musee Matisse) does hold the world's largest collection of Henri Matisse's paintings though. The pretty weather was starting to show signs of rain so we headed back to the apartment. On our bus ride back, we calculated how much money we spent today and came up with 12 Euros. That was for bus fare and a snack. Since we are trying to stay on a budget, we were thrilled about our expenses today!