Nice beach.

After 4 trains, 3 brief naps, and 17 hours of traveling, we arrived into Nice at about 1 in the morning. Fortunately, our hostel was close to the train station and our room had its own shower and air conditioning unit. In the world of Hostels, this one would be considered five-star. We were able to catch up on some rest and refocused our efforts on seeing all that Nice has to offer.

We had no clue as what was in the city, so we hooked a left out of our hostel and headed to the beach. After about 15 minutes of walking and a stop for food, we came upon the awe-inspiring French Riviera. It is probably the nicest beach I have ever been to in my life. We walked along a path by the water and saw some stone structures located up on a small mountain that overlooked the two main parts of Nice, the beach area and the port. Over the past week, we have become professional walkers, so off we went to go hike to the top of the mountain. After about 45 minutes of quad-destroying steps, we got to the top of the mountain and discovered the ruins of an old church and castle that dated back to the 11th century. The size of the castle was hard to even comprehend; at one time it had been so massive. All that remains of the castle are some of the castle walls and a couple of lookouts. It was hard to believe that a structure of such magnitude could have been built successfully without the aid of modern technology.

After taking some pictures and posing like tourists, we headed down to the port and checked out all the yachts. From there on our conversations revolved around the same three questions: How much do you think that one cost? What does he do for a living? And where I can I apply for that job? The yachts were all amazing and I could just envision the owners of each looking at their neighbors yacht and being frustrated because their boat is only a 120ft, compared to 125ft. Usually the type of person that owns something like that is very competitive, so I could see them wanting the best or longest boat in their respective harbor.

The best part of my day yesterday, was actually getting to due my laundry. It had been a week or so since my clothes had been clean. Let’s just you say would not have wanted to sit next to me on the train ride on Monday. Gross…Absolutely, but there is only so much room in a backpack. Okay, we then went out to eat and then headed down to the beach to see if anything was going on. Nice seems to be more of a relaxed place than say Barcelona or Nice when it comes to the nightlife, so their was not much going on. Once we got to the beach we met some people from Vancouver, probably the 16th and 17th person we have met from Vancouver since we have been here, which is much more than the amount of Americans we have met. A little unexpected, but I guess Canadians like to travel to.

The night ended up being pretty exciting; we walked up to a party on the beach and met some people that were studying abroad from America and some Guys from Dublin, Ireland. All the Irish guys talked about was how much they hated Paris and to never go there, it was the slums of the earth as far as they were concerned. Why was this exactly? Pints of Guiness cost 7 euro there and 5 euro in Dublin. I felt as though their frustration was relatively legitimate, but being that I am not an alcoholic I think I can stomach paying for a Guiness or two and still visit Paris.

Today we took a 35-minute bus ride to Monaco. Great looking buildings, phenomenal looking people, and cars that I never plan on wasting my future income on, is what Monaco is offering these days. It is a great place to visit for about 5 hours, but that is about it. Maybe because I have no money, no, that is exactly why. Either way it was worth the trip.

We are off to Cinque Terre, on the Northwestern coast of Italy tomorrow morning. I am pumped; it is supposed to be one of the most scenic places on the Mediterranean.

-Brendan