Hotel Riviera...delightful |
Breakfast area |
Hotel Riviera was a delight...... small, cosy, sparkling clean & very friendly owners. Right in town & not far from the beach. No cooking facilites but a French breakfast (petit dejeuner) was served every morning. 3 stars more than deserved. We had 3 days to relax (not have to be up at the crack of dawn) before continuing on to Paris. Beaulieu sur Mer was 2 train stops from Nice in one direction & 2 from Monaco in the other direction...perfect!
Nice is a large city with lots happening....very buzzy & of course, the beach & the water is one of the main focuses. Not like our beach at all, which is a neverending expanse of golden sand, but large pebbles just everywhere. Sort of explained why there were so many sun lounges for hire...those stones would be a little unforgiving on the body...& not conducive to relaxation!
And those not... |
For those on a budget... |
Lots of shops & restaurants & the usual touristy things you'd expect from a seaside town, but we liked it. We planned to come back again another time & explore other areas, such as Grasse, renowned for it's perfume production.
We had to set aside a full day to explore Monaco...just checking out the boat harbour was pretty time consuming...so many & so upmarket. The boats didn't just have cars on them, some even had helicopters!! Just so much wealth in Europe...it is mind boggling. One yacht, we were told, was part of a divorce settlement for a Lebanese princess...true? We'll never know, but makes a good story. many of the yachts/boats had full time staff...now that wouldn't be a bad job, would it?
Monaco, as you would expect, was very expensive, but well worth a look...after all, you don't get chances like that every day. Very clean & neat, friendly people & money, money, money. We didn't venture into the casino, but am sure there would have been more evidence of it there. The Monaco Grand Prix had finished just the day before & they were busy dismantling all the stands.
Another 'must see' is the Changing of the Guard at the royal palace....not sure if they were in residence but lots of pomp & ceremony & camera clicking...
& of course, the best way to see what Monaco has to offer....the Train Touristique, of course. These are really fun & a lot of smaller towns have them.
Remember I mentioned 2 guys who gave us a lot of information on the area, (home exchangers).....well, they contacted us & invited us to their home for dinner...how nice...they had only 'spoken' to us by email. They had a beautiful apartment high on the hill above Monaco...on the road where Grace Kelly died...the photo from the apartment shows 3 countries, Italy, Monaco & France. The liner 'The World' was in port at the time.
By Day |
And by night |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Would love to hear your thoughts on my blog & any travel or home exchange questions....or feel free to say whether you like or dislike what I'm putting up.