Ciao Italia!: Nice, Monaco & Monte Carlo- The French Riviera!

This weekend we took our final trip to the French Riviera. We were planning on going on a bus trip, but it was cancelled last minute due to the lack of people signing up. The French Riviera is very close by train so we were still able to go.

Friday morning we woke up early to begin our day of torture. We had to take 3 non air conditioned trains with Europe's finest body odor to get there. We arrived in Nice around 7 pm and already loved it because of its resort and ritzy feel. We took the tram down to the main square for dinner and drinks. It reminded us of a tropical and clean version of Rome. Tiffany and I had predisposed notions that all French people were rude and very metro sexual. They do smell awful, but they turned out to be very classy and fabulous people.

Saturday morning we woke up early to see the beach and go shopping. It was windy but I still bought a huge hat to try and fit in with the crowd.We window shopped at Cartier, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton (the usual) and then walked along the boardwalk to enjoy the sun. It was still too windy for beach weather, but it was gorgeous out. We decided to try the French cuisine, but could not find the baguette stands we expected to see everywhere. The French food was ok, but it was the setting and scenery that made the trip. We felt a little out of place there because we were dressed like Italians. All of the French people were wearing bright colors and less clothes, when even in 70 degree weather Italians still wear winter jackets. A few people even spoke to us in Italian thinking we were, which never happens to me.

After our day in Nice we went back to the hostel to try and make our clothes as ritzy as possible for our night in Monaco and Montecarlo. We took a 20 minute train to the land of Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, Maserati's and yachts. We were almost star struck by the extreme level of lavishness Monaco was. We went to a sit down pizza place for dinner assuming it would be our cheapest bet. We ordered a bottle of wine, and when the waiter brought it out to us he had me taste it before pouring it. We were both laughing so hard because we usually buy our wine in cardboard juice boxes in Florence. After dinner we went to the Buddah Bar which was the coolest restaurant/bar I have ever been too. We literally felt like the shit. Once we were done at the Buddah Bar we went to the famous Monte Carlo Casino to get our gamble on. We found slot machines much less amusing then we thought they would be and were too intimidated to play any card games so we decided on 17 euro cocktails at the casino bar.

My camera unfortunately died in Monaco so I wasn't able to capture as much as I wanted to. This was definitely one of our favorite trips, and we promised that we would one day come back and not be sleeping in hostel bunkbeds.