Words From The Wonderstruck : Nice and French Riviera

Transportation: Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Nice, French train system
Lodging: Airbnb in Nice, France
Guidebook: Rick Steves France

In August, we grouped up with some good friends of ours, the Browells, to explore Nice and the French Riviera. Since RyanAir doesn't fly to the Nice area, we had to take a more expensive flight through Lufthansa. Since we have moved here we've only taken budget airline flights so the free wine and snacks on Lufthansa was pretty awesome!

Our short 2 hour flight left early in the morning on Friday getting us to Nice around 9:00 am. This gave us a full day on Friday to see Nice and hit the beach. You should probably know that the beaches in Nice are rocky, not sandy. You will have to created a little nest with the rocks so you aren't terrible uncomfortable.

Beaching in Nice

Monaco is a short and inexpensive train ride from Nice, so we dressed up in the nasty heat to find Monte Carlo. It costs 10 Euro to enter Monte Carlo and no pictures are allowed. Turns out we did not need to get dressed up unless you pay another 10 Euro to go into more rooms of the casino, but it was still nice to be fancy for a while! After checking out the casino we had a nice Italian dinner before taking the train back to Nice.

Monte Carlo- Monaco

Saturday we took the train to Antibes, a quaint village with many surrounding sandy beaches. We decided to find a spot at La Salis beach to cool off from the hot day and catch a few rays. Courtney found an amazing restaurant for dinner in Nice called Les Garçons. It had a reasonable prix fix menu giving 3 courses and of course Courtney and I shared a bottle of some regional Rosé.

La Salis Beach

Dinner at Les Garçons

The French Riviera is lined with beautiful villages, coastline, and cliffs. It was really hard to narrow down what we wanted to see and what we had time to see. Really the possibilities are endless and you could easily spend a week getting to all of the cute places it has to offer. On Sunday we agreed to spend some time in VilleFrance Sur Mer. This was such an adorable town with cute streets and so much character. We even had a nice oceanfront lunch!

Next on the list was Eze le Village. We took the train from Ville Franche sur mer to Eze (not le village) and hopped on the bus outside of the train station that takes you directly to Eze le Village. This town sits beautifully up on a hill and is full of rustic beauty.

While we had been to Monaco to see Monte Carlo and have dinner, we hadn't had the chance to see the city and Monaco-Ville. This was our last site seeing stop and left us starving. That night we had dinner at Gaglio in Nice and enjoyed every last bite! I think we were also impressed with our meals! I have to say I seriously love French food! It never has disappointed us!

Best dessert of my life!

Monday morning Courtney and I were up bright and early to check out the Nice Flea Market. Thankfully it was only a 5 minute walk from our apartment and we found some goodies! Before we left the Browells wanted to shop and have lunch at Hard Rock, so Ryan and I hit up the Castle in Nice for some awesome views, had a nice lunch, and explored around the city.