We love France, we love the south of France, we love Nice!! It is a quieter country than Italy where everyone shouts at one another. Nice of course being so near to the Italian border, is sort of half Italian and half French. One is just likely to be greated at a cafe by Buon Giorno and Bon Jour. After buying a quick lunch of pizza one day, as we left the young man said " merci" - when Jim said "grazie" to him, he gave a big smile and shook Jim's hand.
The French are very nice and can be very helpful. When Jim went to get car out of garage in Cassis, there seemed to be no way to pay. Our credit cards do not work with automated machines in most of Europe, their have adopted chip and pin cards, and it seemed this machine didn't take any bills either. A helpful woman in her car stopped to help and sent him to the second floor of the garage to the office. Someone along the line another woman stopped to ask if she could help. The man at the office took the parking ticket and said there was a special tourist rate and only charged 15 euro for 2 days!! A couple girls helped us figure out the machine for buying Metro tickets in Paris. Many very nice people.
Most people speak a little English, the few we found who didn't (one being the girl I bought train tickets from to go to Marseille) did fine with my bit of "train French" - simply knowing the words for roundtrip (aller-retour) and today (aujourd'hui).
When you get into the city, it is just like NYC. Get out of my way or I'll knock you over. Occasionally one says "pardon" or "excusez-moi" but mostly they are similar to New Yorkers in Time Square who ignore you. Try walking down the street to the crosswalk with your rolling luggage, carryon bag and purse or camera bag - young folks just stand in front of you and don't move. Of course, if they are speaking French, you know they live there - but others seem to do the same thing and they aren't speaking French. Of course the Germans are pushy and will get by, given my heritage, I almost knocked over a young lady standing in my way on the way to the airport bus.
Food and wine are great even in the smallest of cafe's. No such thing as a greasy spoon or hole-in-the wall. We did discover in Nice that one place had warm croissants - so we ate our breakfast there! Hotels all offer breakfast, which includes cereals, cold cuts and eggs (hard boiled) and croissants but we could get coffee and croissants for the price of one breakfast. Besides, we didn't really feel we needed all that food in such warm weather.
Hot and sunny everywhere. Even though temperatures in the mid to high 70's, it felt much hotter, the sea was warm. Cool breezes on the sea coast but not chilly, even at night.
There are many tolls on the highway, but the roads are in excellent condition. Pretty easy getting from one place to another. Having little Garmin most of the time was a success - we never opened a map and I was sorry I carried those heavy Michelin maps over there. What little Nuvi Garmin did not tell you is that your hotel was on the side of the street where the bus lane was and you couldn't drop your bags off!! Good thing this was in Nice, we just returned the car and walked to the hotel. At least we already knew our way around there.
In Cassis, Nuvi tried to send us into the sea - but she didn't know that after a certain time in the morning they closed the road to traffic!! We found the back of the hotel, I walked around, and Michelle who I had talked to book the room told me to bring the bags around and where to park the car a short distance away. So, we did get there!! In Villefranche, we rode around with Nuvi "recalculating" several times - only because what looked like a dead end was a tiny road down to the sea!! We finally got it right when we stopped and I got out to look over the wall and see the rest of the little road!! Parking in small resort like Villefranche costs as much as NYC!! But, it was a breeze being able to throw luggage in the car and just drive off. If one takes a train there, there is a long walk downhill along the seacoast (which is OK, we've done that before) but it is an impossible climb up the hill back to the train station and requires a taxi ride. We have decided we like having a car!
So now, we are off to planning trip for next year! I want to go to Germany, but not sure Jim can tolerate 2 weeks of being around other people like me. He did say he would try! If not there, we may do the west coast of France, visit Bordeaux wine region and San Sebastian/Bilbao region where France borders Spain. That would be another foodie trip!! Stay tuned....
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