I ♥ Nice

A week ago we were driving through Nice on our way back to Tuscany, watching it disappear in the distance.

We absolutely loved Nice. Maybe it was the amazing view from our top floor hotel room, or the free minibar and breakfast, maybe it was the fast cars whizzing by us that made Scott giddie each time, or the miles and miles of gorgeous clear blue beaches, or the delicious food....etc etc etc. We could get used to this pretty quickly.

Ya, so the people kind of suck....but after you've lived in Boston, everyone seems nice in comparison (no offense intended, of course). Our theory is that the people in Spain and Italy are beautiful...I mean cover of a magazine gorgeous...and the people in France are pasty white and 50/50 in the looks department. I think there is some jealousy turned snobbery here that the French haven't gotten over. They should have embraced us since at the Italian beaches we clearly stuck out as the whitest people on the beach BY FAR. This has already been said, but I feel needs to be said again....the beaches are amazing, the food is fab and the culture and history are fascinating. The entire region is founded on people's desire and need to vacation.

There was some unnecessary flashiness in the region as a whole (Scott found a yacht that has a weekly rental fee of $300,000), but the feel in Nice was slightly different. When we first got into town, we parked the car on the rue de France and walked the main Promenade. It was bleepin' hot in the sun, so we went a block off the main drag and walked along the nice shady street with tons of shops and restaurants. Stacey was drooling over the gigantic plate of seafood until she saw on the menu it went for 120 euro...not feeling it. But alongside these extravagant restaurants along the rue de France, are cafés with meals under 10 EUR. The common folk mingle with the stupidly rich...how nice. So, we stopped at a cute little place to eat indoors in the AC to escape the heat (in Europe AC must stand for something other than air conditioning, I strongly believe they have NO idea what air cooling really is) where we noshed on a croque monsieur and a ham and brie wheat crêpe. Yum. Scott took advantage of the prix fix lunch menu which in most every restaurant includes a glass of beer or wine...this is when Stacey started her love affair with Pelligrino (aka water with gas).

We took a short tourist trolley ride through the old part of the city and to the top of a big hill to get a nice view of Nice.

After a hard, hot day of being tourists, we headed back to the hotel and went to the beach there to cool down.

For the evening, we headed to Menton, which is the next town on the other side of Monaco along the Italian border. We had some fun driving experiences here which Scott took a little video of. Along the beach, there are a bunch of beach side restaurants set up which we had the pleasure of selection from. There was a mix of French and Italian because of the close proximity to the border, so we went with a mix in our meal choice too! Scott started with the Salade Niçoise, which is regional and actually named after the city of Nice, and Stacey had a whopping bowl of mussels or moules (we had to use google translate on the spot to make sure the right thing was being ordered) and then finished up with a tasty bowl of gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce. Which reminds me of the cheeses. This may be yet another reason why we fell in love with France. Cheese. Its like the streets are paved with it. And it is CHEAP. During one of our road trip stops, we went to Carefour (which we believe is their version of a Super Walmart) and the cheese aisles were HUGE. A wheel of brie...99 cents...a wedge of bleu....2 bucks. It was heaven. Too bad cheese doesn't travel well.

There is an album set up on Kodak of Italy and France pics. The rest are in the works. Hope you enjoy to views.

Grazie, I mean Merci

Last Saturday we hit the road on the way to Cap D'Ail France. Along the way, we drove through Tuscany and the Italian Riviera and hit up some sights in Firenze (Florence) and Pisa. In Firenze we were not so sure what to see, so we had the GPS bring us to the Tourist Information office. We took a quick tour of the "old city" which felt a lot like Rome, so we decided not to stop for long. Instead, we headed out to the Giardino di Boboli where we saw some beautiful Tuscan estates with views of Florence.

After Firenze, we hit up Pisa to see the tower and have a late lunch. We parked the car a block from the tower and ate along the tourist strip. We found a prix fixe that had some Tuscan style Italian cuisine, which differed quite a bit from what we found in Rome. Scott had a yummy wild boar with olives and polenta dish. At this point we were ready to hit the road and get to France. We had another 3.5 hours of driving ahead of us and it was a wild drive. We took some video that is posted on youtube here

Just as we got the hang of the driving in Italy, we hit the border. The French actually drive differently than the Italians. We were just a short distance from the Italian border, but the drivers were much more relaxed. This was a much appreciated change because we were about to scale down a mountain down to the Port of Monaco. We arrived in the dark, so had no real sense of where we were or what we were looking at. We drove through Monaco and took in all the glitz and glam. There was plenty of it to see. There were yachts everywhere, and this one was hanging out in the port that we could see from the balcony of our hotel....and this isn't the biggest we saw. On Sunday we woke up to yet another day of beautiful sunshine and set on to explore the French Riviera.




Distance traveled: 735km
Countries visited: 3
Number of cars seen costing $100k or more: 200

Beach Day

Oh boy, today was our relax day and yet the exhaustion is on par with the past two days. We had an early start so we could head back to the coast to pick up the rental car by the airport. Once we picked up the car, we headed south to Sabaudia for the beach.

Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa




This was one of the coolest beaches..the water was clear, the temperature was refreshing and there were beautiful people everywhere! In addition to the beauty of the sea, we were able to see some countryside and many acres of grapes. Aside from one near run-off-the-road incident, the driving is not nearly as wild as we expected. As with most "warnings" we have received or read in travel books and forums, there are drivers who are a bit wild, weaving in and out of traffic....not unlike it is in the states. However, there is something quite smart about how the rules of the road go, and we are not sure how official or unofficial they are. On a two way street with one lane in each direction, the person behind you may choose to pass you regardless of whether there is oncoming traffic...it's expected that as you see the person passing, that you veer to the right and straddle the break down lane until they are done. A bit odd, but honestly quite handy. Have a slow annoying person in front of you? Pass 'em and they'll have the courtesy to help you get around them.

Now, by popular demand...the food!! Today was a fun food day. We stopped in two grocery stores in our travels to get food that we could bring to the beach and eat on the road. We had some italiano snacks and some yummy meat and cheese in a roll up. We made two of these, had two iced teas, and a nutella snack all for 7EUR...one of our cheapest meals yet.


Since we ate on the cheap for the day and it was our last night in Rome, we decided to hunt down a nice place for dinner. Most restaurants around here are closed for the summer holiday season, but we found a winner! It was family style, and we really had no idea what we were in for. The food came the second we sat down and we knew it was serious as we were greeted by a huge leg of prosciutto which they shaved in our first antipasto. They served us all this food in this order...

Bread, Salami, Prosciutto, Buffalo Mozzarella
Mini Pizza
Zucchini blossom fritters, Bruschetta
Spinach
Fresh Ricotta
Risotto with cream sauce
Fettuccine with red sauce
Roasted pork
Potatoes (which we told her to take away and give to someone else...no sense in wasting)
Dessert.... some sort of fruit tart



We also turned away the wine and aperitif... and the damage was only 35 EUR each....people who drank got the same deal! One of the fun things was having the chef come out and show us the courses as they were finished so we could "approve" the meal. There were 4 tables or so all eating in the same rotation so he went to all the tables with the pan and then brought it to the back for the server to dish it out for each of us. Then the chef would come back and pick one guest to eat straight from the pan where all the yummy crispy food was. A must do if you are ever in Rome. It happened to be in walking distance from the hotel and is off the main drag, but well worth it and exactly what we could have hoped for in an Italian family style meal.


We ended the night with a night drive around the city. Normally, the driving is restricted in the city center to alleviate congestion. During the month of August, they suspend the restriction so we had full access to the city and hit all the major destinations so we could see them all lit up. We happened to find some fireworks going on at the Spanish Steps, but because of a closed road got lost in the maze and never found our way back. Since the city is a ghost town today, we even found a parking spot steps from the hotel! I love driving in the city at night!!

Tomorrow we pack up and head to France with a couple stops along the way. Not sure if we will have such good internet access there as we did here. We'll post as we can. Thanks for watching and we love the comments!

Miles covered: 300 km

Holy Roman!

Today was a Holy Day; a holy awakening at 8am, a trip to the Vatican, and a history lesson in ancient Rome at the Colosseo and Palatine Hill. The lines weren't too bad at the Vatican (did you know it was a country? this will enter our stats for the day). St. Peter's Basilica was impressive, best adjective I've got for now. How's really, really impressive? Lots of ornate what-have you, Italian marble, and some dead popes. From here, we walked around the block (sounds ordinary but that's how it is in Roma) and entered the Vatican Museum which contains the Sistine Chapel, a bunch of old stuff,and good ole Michealangelo's lesser known work. Stacey snapped an awesome AND illegal photo taken from the hip, check it out


From here, we met Ma & Pa Simon for some lunch, (pizza and panini's of course) and jumped on the tour bus to the Spanish Steps. Stacey can't get enough water



We then escorted the Simon's to the Trevi Fountain for another visit. From here, we headed to the Colosseum and had our minds blown by the shear awesomeness. Seriously incredible. So incredible that afterwards, we bought an ice cream, sorry gelato, and recreated the Colosseum. Here's the real deal, and the Gelat-eum.




Walk across the street and you'll find the "birth" place of Rome. Lots of history here, so read the wiki post. Also, FREAKING AWESOME. Scott also lost his mind here while Stacey did this:

Here are some other pics of this truly amazing place:



Food; 2 cafe lattes, cheese sando, croissant, pizza, prosciutto panini, gelato, antipasto, pasta, croissant.
Countries Visited: 2
Miles: many by foot, bus, subway

Roman Holiday: Giorno Uno

Overall, it's been a pretty awesome day. After landing, we traveled from the airport, which is on the coast, into Rome via the train. The ride was about 25 minutes through the countryside into Rome's version of Grand Central Station. After a short subway ride and an even shorter cab ride, we arrived at our home for the next few days.

The hotel is lovely and along one of Rome's larger parks, Villa Borghese. This is the view from the room towards the park. The wall is up around most of this part of the city.


After a quick change in the lobby, we headed out to find a hop on/off tour bus so we could make the loop around the city and get a feel for where things are and make a plan of attack for the next couple days. We saw some ancient stuff (I don't think I fully understood what ancient was until today) and ate some decent italiano food. Here are few things we ate and saw today. More photos posted on facebook album. First the food.....
They sell wedges of watermelon and coconut on the street, so Stacey decided to dig in to some coconut.
This was half of our late lunch. The mozzarella was amazing...so light and fresh.
Scott trying to gulp down a double espresso to make it through the afternoon.
The trevi fountain was one of the few things we decided to see during our time walking around. It was an awesome site and the water was so clear and cool. It provided much needed relief from the heat. Over to the right there is running water that you can splash all over yourself, and we did!

We picked this picture because we were in awe of how many times we saw random ruins like this in the middle of modern developments or just on the side of the road. There are a few places in Rome where entire city blocks are fenced off and ruins take up the whole block. It's so interesting to see the more modern Rome in the midst of its ancient past.


Miles traveled: 4300 approx - via foot, cab, plane, train, and subway
Stupid American acts: 1 - having to ask the bell hop how to turn the lights on in the room

Los detalles finales/ Gli ultimi dettagli/Les derniers détails/The final details

Found a bargain for our last hotel we needed to book in Italy for our stop on our way back to Rome. Pretty psyched I found a "last-minute-deal" for our stay in two weeks. Only problem being that the deal was in Italian, so for all I know the offer requires that you bring your pet monkey with you to get the discount. But heck, I would stand on my head and do spins so I can have a nice Italian breakfast here:

Scott's pre-adventure, adventure

Just one week from today, we'll be at the airport hoping that our flight to NY takes off on time so we can reach our final destination.

Some of you know that Scott is in Israel this week for work/fun. He sent a couple pictures, so I figured I'd add them. He'll be back stateside early morning on Friday and will have more to post soon. You can check his road blog which he started up again http://www.saontheroad.blogspot.com/