La Vie Parisienne: Spring Break Part 3: The Côte d'Azur

I passed the weekend in between my two trips mostly catching up on laundry, work, and sleep, but I was also able to meet up with some Tufts friends who were studying abroad elsewhere in Europe and were visiting Paris for the weekend. I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower with them, which I had never done before! It was fun to do once, though I don’t know that I would wait in line again to get to the top. We ended up taking the elevator because you can’t get all the way to the top if you don’t, and we figured if we were going to go, we had to go all the way up! Definitely a one-time thing I think, but the views were fantastic!

Fields of miscellaneous yellow flowers out the train window

On Monday I took a train to Nice, which took about 6 hours, but we passed some gorgeous scenery and the time passed relatively quickly reading, napping, and chatting with my neighbor.

When I arrived in Nice I met my friend who flew in from Rome, and we went to our hostel. We were staying at Chez Patrick Backpacker’s Hostel, and I believe Patrick’s wife checked us in! We met Patrick the next morning and he was very friendly! We stayed in a 6-bed dorm, and there were 2 other guys from the US there the whole time we were. They had been studying in London, and were traveling around after their program ended. The other two beds rotated out between a guy from New York, Korea, France and eventually another one of our friends who met up with us!

Our favorite plastic cathedral in Nice

That night we went to go check out the old town and find some dinner. Our first introduction to Nice was walking past a big cathedral, right on the side of the main road into the old town. Now, I have seen enough Gothic cathedrals in my time in Europe for this not to be strange, but we couldn’t seem to get over the feeling that this cathedral was made out of plastic. It looked so new, and slightly fake – especially at night! Quite the odd sight, and we never did get the full story on it.

Square in Nice

The main street that we walked down eventually opens up into a huge square with beautiful gardens and fountains on the side (further evidence of the slightly Disneyland-like nature of Nice). The streets of the old town are filled with little restaurants and shops – though most are quite expensive. We had heard that we had to try something called socca while we were there, and found some at a little outdoor restaurant where we stopped for an aperitif of socca and white wine. Socca is somewhat like a crepe, but it is made with chickpea flour and is eaten while hot and crispy with salt and pepper – delicious! We ended up finding a little Italian place for dinner (Nice used to be part of Italy so they have a ton of delicious Italian food!) where we polished off rather large and rather delicious pizzas.

Spices in Antibes Market

Me in Antibes

Tuesday we had decided to go to Antibes for the day, which was supposed to have nice sandy beaches. All throughout the Côte d’Azur, there are buses that will take you to pretty much any of the nearby cities for one euro. We found the bus for Antibes, and began what was to be a rather long day! We weren’t really sure where to get off the bus, and ended up getting off much too early when we saw the first sign for Antibes. However, we like to think that we took the scenic route in – walking along the beach and approaching the city on foot. We passed through the port in Antibes, which had some pretty beautiful boats in it. Most of them were from London, which was interesting – lots of

vacationing Anglophones I guess! Once we

finally made it into the center of town, we went to a little market to find some picnic supplies. The market had great spice stands as well as fruit, flowers, honey, cheese and fun souvenirs! We found some more socca as well as sausage, reblochon cheese, and even some mini canolis to make up a great lunch. After lunch, we wandered through town a bit (the town of Antibes is absolutely adorable!), and then headed down to the beach where we took a little nap in the sun. Especially with the wind, it was slightly chilly on the beach, but there were still plenty of people out soaking up the first rays of summer. Around 5:00 we decided to go find the correct bus stop to head home. We managed to find it, but ended up waiting at least two hours to get a bus home. The buses only came about every 45 minutes, and the one that came before we got on one was so full no one could get on. Needless to say, it was a rather crowded ride home, and we were exhausted when we got there. After some quick showers, we found a little pasta place for dinner where you could order your type of pasta and sauce individually. I got gnocchi arribiata, which was excellent.

Old perfume bottles

Modern perfume bottles

Wednesday took us to Grasse, the capital of perfume in the Provence region of France. After a much less eventful bus ride there, we headed to check out the town. Our first stop was the national perfume museum, where we learned all about the different layers of perfume and scents included. They also had a huge exhibit showing the progression of perfume bottles throughout the ages, and the history of perfume. One of my favorite stories that they (and by they I mean my handy-dandy audio guide) told was that the ancient Egyptians used to give a cone of perfumed wax to all of their guests at dinner parties. They would each then place the cone on top of their head, and the heat from their head

would melt the wax throughout dinner, coating their hair with the wax and diffusing the perfume into the air. This would help cover up the scent of their homes/ guests/ anything else that just wasn’t smelling too pleasant. All I can say is I was very thankful for the invention of deodorant and modern sanitation after that anecdote. Overall though, the museum was interesting – though by the end of it we needed some fresh air!

Little did we know that the whole town of Grasse seems to spew perfume. We did manage to find some sandwiches, and a great view over the city (in my opinion, the only things necessary for a fantastic lunch), so we got a bit of a breather from the nostril invasion that characterizes the buildings of Grasse. After lunch we toured the Fragonard perfumery, and got to see how they invent, make, and bottle perfume. The city of Grasse used to be surrounded by rose and jasmine fields, which is why it was such a perfect location for all of the perfumeries. The fields are no longer there (quelle dommage!), but the city remains the true center of perfume production in France. The companies that make perfume for Chanel, Dior and lots of other big names are all in Grasse!

View from Grasse over the valley

After our tour of Fragonard, we wandered around town, and visited a museum showing traditional clothing and art of the old Provence region. My friend happened to stand a little too close to a machine in the corner that was spraying out perfume-scented air, so we left the museum even more saturated in perfume than we had come in – but it was really fun to see all the traditional costumes! We really enjoyed walking around the little town, and the beautiful views over the valley, but we headed home around 4:00, partly because we were hoping to avoid the problem we had the day before, and party because we were meeting another one of our friends that night who was flying in to Nice from Rome to join us for the rest of the week. We had dinner with her at the same place we had gotten our socca on the first day. I had a Niçoise salad, which is another specialty of the region. We also decided to check out an ice cream place that has over 90 different flavors! It was really overwhelming to choose, but I finally landed on pecan and caramel au beurre sale! They had several different kinds of chocolate as well as nutella, and some more exotic flavors like poppy, lavender, avocado, and even beer!

Coast of Nice

Our secret sunbathed rocks!

On Thursday we wanted to do a little more exploration of Nice itself so we climbed up to the castle ruins that are on top of a hill there and got a wonderful view of the coast and the city. From there, we wandered around the huge park at the top of the hill, and down to the Nice port. We found a little staircase down to some lovely sun-bathed rocks by the water where we rested for a little while and marveled at the color and clarity of the water. I certainly understand where the name Côte d’Azur came from now! There was even a ladder down into the water, but we decided to skip that and headed to the (rocky) beach where we just dipped our feet in the water. It was fairly cold, but felt good! We continued

walking down the Promenade des Anglais, which is a huge path all along the coast where apparently the English used to walk on the way back and forth from their hotels to the town. There is even a little section that is now named the Promenade des Etats-Unis!

After a quick lunch, we got on another of our favorite 1 euro buses – this time toward Monaco. We got off the bus right near the casino, and a beautiful park in front of it. Everything there is so manicured – you get the feeling you shouldn’t touch anything! It was really fun to see, though not quite our style. We peeked inside the huge casino, and enjoyed marveling at the cars parked outside. Apparently, parking is free there, but if your car is not nice enough they might just move it! Afterwards we walked down towards the port, where there were even more yachts than in Nice or Antibes, and they were also setting up huge bleachers for the Grand Prix that was about to start. Seems to be quite the event!

Monaco

We climbed back up the other side of the hill to check out the Royal Palace, and enjoyed a fun tour of the Palace and the cathedral where Grace Kelly is now buried. We explored the gardens around there for a little bit, and then caught a bus home and met up with two of our other Tufts in Paris friends who had just arrived that day from Dublin! We had dinner with them, and it was great to hear their stories about their break. It is funny how quickly I got used to seeing everyone from the program almost every day! It made going away for two weeks fun because we got to come back and exchange stories about all the places that we went over break.

Cathedral in Marseille

Inside of the second cathedral in Marseille

On Friday morning, we got up early and took a train to Marseille. We decided that we wanted to go for a nice lunch somewhere so that we could eat a traditional meal without it being super expensive. We found a restaurant and ordered their 3-course formule, which included a choice of salad (I, of course, picked avocado) and then for the main course we had aioli provençale. It turned out to be white fish, vegetables, a huge pot of aioli sauce, and even a couple of snails! I don’t think they were traditional escargot – they were more like sea snails. I did try a verrry little piece of one, and it was fine, though I am not a fan of the whole pulling-snail-out-of-shell part that goes on before you have to eat it. We all had delicious tarte citron (lemon tart) for dessert, and after all that food we needed to go walk around for a while so we headed out to check out the cathedral. On our map there was a red line that showed a route around a lot of the city's tourist attractions. Turns out the red line was also painted on the ground, so we “followed the little red line” all over the city. The cathedral was really interesting – all layered stone of different colors inside and out. It was also pretty ornately decorated inside. Once we had checked that out, we had fun wandering around some of the streets, and poked in some shops where we found traditional Marseille soap to bring home! We still had a lot of time before our train back to Paris that evening, so we decided to embark on a pilgrimage to the other cathedral in Marseille, situated on top of a big hill. It certainly looks a lot bigger than it is from down below! It was still fun to see though – this one too was very ornately decorated and had the white and black striped stone on the outside. Unfortunately, it started raining a little while after we got up to the top, so after waiting a while to see if the rain would stop, we decided to brave it and walked down to find a café to take refuge in. We passed some time hiding out drinking coffee, and then it was time to head back to the train station. We arrived in Paris that night around 11:30pm, exhausted but very content with a fabulous vacation!

Colorful buildings in Marseille

All in all, I really loved my spring break trip – and we were so lucky to generally have amazing weather! The little towns of Provence have some of the most gorgeous views, and I still can’t get over how beautiful and unique Lisbon is! However, I have to say, the more I travel, the happier I am that I got to spend a semester in Paris. It really is the perfect city to be able to spend a lot of time in, but it is also so easy to travel from that it creates the perfect balance! Ah the nostalgia that the last few weeks here creates...