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Alpes-Maritimes

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    • Day 31

      Promenad till Cannes

      April 11 in France ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

      Började dagen med att tvätta kläder. Det fanns en tvättstuga på hotellet, kostade 5 € /tvätt. Med lite krångel och hjälp fick vi igång maskinerna till slut. Franska är inte vår grej.
      Dagens utflykt var en promenad längs kusten till Cannes, 18 245 steg (13,5 km), rekord! Vi hade tänkt ta en drink när vi kom fram men när vi väl var där och såg alla snygga människor, välsminkade med gucci väskor, kände vi oss något utanför. Men en paus i skuggan på två av de blåa stolarna blev det i alla fall.
      Fick lite panik när allt krånglade vid inköp av tågbiljett tillbaka, såg oss som Tom Hanks i filmen the Terminal, för vi orkade absolut inte gå tillbaka. Nu tänker vi INTE göra några fler långpromenader.
      Imorgon ska vi softa på stranden, dricka drink och förbereda oss för snön 😱
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    • Day 30

      Biot

      April 10 in France ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

      Vi hade fått tips hemifrån om en liten by, Biot en knapp mil norr om Antibes som vi besökte idag. Tog lokalbussen dit, som endast kostade 1€, värt varenda cent för det var väldigt mycket uppför. Byn har väldigt gamla anor. År 154 f.Kr. besegrades kelt-ligurier-stammarna av romarna. Under 1200-talet tilldelades området till tempelriddarna. Flera av de byggnader de lät bygga står kvar ännu idag.
      Vi började med att gå till turistinformationen och fick en karta med förslag på rutt till de olika sevärdheterna. Det var väldigt intressant att gå omkring i gränderna och känna historiens vingslag. Efter ett par timmars promenad kom vi till ruttens slutmål, Saint Maria-Madeleine-kyrkan. Kyrkan byggdes om på 1400-talet. Det är den enda kyrkan i Frankrike som har en trappa nedåt till altargången.
      Därefter åt vi lunch på Arcades-torget. Delar av vissa bågar kring torget och vid resturangen byggdes troligen under 1200- och 1300-talen. Lagom dagsutflykt och tur med vädret.
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    • Day 22

      Day Twenty-Two: Nice and Monaco

      April 6 in Monaco ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

      Day two of Contiki, and it started strong with having to pay for all the excursions. A solid 313€... big ouch after also spending almost 10€ a drink last night. But after having the included breakfast and being told I snored with my eyes open... we were on the move. And actually early! Unusual for us. We walked around with our bunk mate and some other guys for a while. We also stopped for a coffee. Afterward, we went to skip some rocks on the beach. It was not a sandy beach. But the views were just spectacular on the beach. You truly feel like you are in a movie. Just on the coast with beautiful buildings just layered on the hillsides. Then the other boys went off the bike ride we didn't do, and we just sat on the beach for a while. I decided to wear my flip flops walking around today, and I learned the hard way about breaking your shoes in. They were super comfortable, but the strap rubbed the shit out of the top of my foot. I couldn't walk around in them, but I was stuck in them. So you just suck it up. Spoiler alert, I guess, we are heading to Monte Carlo Casino later, but apparently, they have a strictish dress code and, of course, backpacking. I have nothing fancy. The only shoes I have are bright blue hikers. So Bec, our guide, said there was an H&M, so that is where we went. I ended up buying a new bathsuit (sorry, dad didn't really want your old one), a button-up shirt, and a cheap pair of nice-looking sneakers. Wasn't that cheap over all. Still spend just under 60€, ouch again. Then, on the way back to the hostel, we stopped at this burger place for lunch. And they even asked us if we wanted the burger well done! Thank god. And It was delicious, a nice BBQ burger with bacon and sautéed onions. It was expensive, for the burger fries and a drink it was 18€. We went back to the hostel and showered all the sweat from last night and got all fancy for the trip to monaco. I got to say it felt really nice to actually dress up and not wear the same t-shirts for once. Very refreshing! Ethan showered and everything first and went to get a quick drink before coming back to gether dressed. So then I showered and decided to get fully ready. Afterward, I met him, had a beer, and went back to get him dressed and for my passport. We did, in fact, not realize what time it was, and we were running short on it. We knew monaco was going to be expensive, so we quickly bought this chicken skewer from a Chinese place, shoved our faces, and left. When we reached the hostel, it turned out our hostel room door was broken. Our roommate was there too, and our door was just beeping at us. The problem was in monaco. The only way into the casino was if you had your passport because monaco citizens are not allowed to gamble. So we really needed it. And of course we talked to our travel guide and she explicitly said they can not wait for us if we are late... So, of course, we are all sweating our ass off. Luckily, the receptionist found a master key and let us in. Ethan was getting undressed before we were even in the room. And we sprinted our ass out of the hostel to the couch. Guess what?!? The couch was late anyways so we had plenty of time. But very stressful for sure. I really didn't want to miss out on that. The road to monaco was insanely beautiful, I am not sure if anything will beat those views. Just overlooking this city on the hills and the water... it was amazing just looking out of the window. And we had a quick stop for a grpup photo and pictures where they surprised us with some prosceco! I didn't realize either that monaco wasn't a part of the EU and has 12 millioniares per square km... it is only 2 square kilometers. We started monaco on a viewpoint overlooking the bay with all the crazy fancy boats. George Clooney has his yacht in there! We had time to walk around, and I wanted to get souvenir. Ethan just accidentally knocked over a hat, and he was just swearing at both of us and said he was closing and took the shit out of my hand that I was telling him I was buying. It's always the French people. Have yet to meet a nice one. Then we got to go to the Monte Carlo Casino. And as soon as we walked up, the whole street was just full of super cars. Millions of dollars just sitting right in front of me. With valet just driving these crazy cars, like how do I get that job?? But walking in to Monte Carlo was unreal, I'm used to the river Cree or the St. albert casino. This is a different beast. But honestly, it was smaller than I thought it would. I do guarantee there is plenty of the casino we can't see as commoners. Of course, the first thing I do is pull out some chips with another guy. And now I can officially say I gambled in Monte Carlo. And I can say I lost 50€ in one bet... of course, the guy convinced me to put all my money down on black at Roulette. The worst part of it was a different guy asked me to pick a number, I picked 12. A red number. And I pit money on black right after. AND IT LANDED ON 12. So I was stupid. I didn't want it to be over, so I grabbed a ten and put it into a roulette machine. Somehow, I did manage to turn that back into 60. So I did break even and even hit the right number! It was more fun than I would like to admit. But I had to leave, I only had an hour, unfortunately, or for the best. But afterward, we had a nice chill night. I just hung out with the group at the hostel and had a couple of drinks.Read more

    • Day 33

      Monaco Monte Carlo

      April 13 in Monaco ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

      Godmorgon. På väg till Italien ville vi bara göra ett fotavtryck i Monaco. Såg inte så mycket från tåget. Trångt, men de flesta klev av där, vad dom nu ska göra där en lördagsmorgon. Just nu sitter vi och fikar i Ventimiglia och väntar på tåget till Milano.Read more

    • Day 16

      Day trip to Monaco!

      April 6 in Monaco ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

      Had another early start today after having a long day the day before. We got up and had to pay for our excursions up front. Yay☺️ after biting on my tongue as hard as I could, we had our breakfast and left for a Café with a large group of people. Some people split off and did their own thing while Pearse, two others, and I sat to have coffee right next to the beach. After a while, the four of us kept on going down the beach. They signed up for the overpriced bikeride, so they had to leave after a while. Pearse and I made a plan to go to the shopping street because he needed a new outfit that was nice enough for the Monte Carlo Casino! We were told there was an H&M not far from the hostel. When we finally got to the shopping street, the first thing we noticed was Gucci, Chanel×2, Louis V. If you can name it, it was there, and we definitely can't afford. Finally, we found H&M tucked away in the corner like they were embarrassed by it lol. Still, the store was like one of the craziest chain stores I've seen. Why does an H&M need 3 levels? Especially when everything was so spaced out. All the shit in the store could have fit in the one at West Ed, but they still had a sky scraper for this place. Everything was very expensive in Nice, unfortunately. Anyway,Pearse grabbed a banging outfit, and we left to grab a burger at a place called Big Ferdinand. Finally, I had a well-done burger. Get your slimy medium rare burgers outta here. Our burgers were so good, though they disappeared like magic. It was kind of late afternoon at this point, so we decided we were gonna go shower a little early and get ready for Monaco. We had to be on the bus at 5:00 sharp because Monaco has very specific times and rules for coach busses. So, I showered first and went out to find a restaurant for a beer while Pearse prettied himself up. After my shower, I just got back into my regular clothes because I knew I wouldn't be too long and would come back earlier to get into my going out outfit. Pearse met up with me at about 4:15 for a quick beer. Shockingly, we don't like 9€ beers. They don't even taste good at that price. We left with more than enough time to get back to the hostel. Until we saw street food. To be fair, though, we didn't know if we were gonna be able to afford to eat in Monaco. We were pushing it, but we got back to the hostel 10 minutes before the coach left, and I still had to change, and he had to grab his passport. I wasn't worried until I was on the stairs of the hostel and saw our roommate Adam, who we also got coffee with in the morning. He told me "the door is fucked" in the strongest Kiwi accent ever. I asked what he meant. So he took me to the room and sure enough the door was fucked. The sensor for our keycards was continuously beeping, and we couldn't scan our key cards. The two of us ran back downstairs watching our entire group walk out the doors to the bus. We informed the lady at the desk the door wasn't work so she called somebody. I don't think she realized we were part of the group leaving in 4 minutes. I feel bad, but all 3 of us were telling her, "we need to go please you need to hurry up,"so we went up with her master key fob and of course it didn't work either. She had to run to the other building to grab an actual key to let us in. While she was doing that, I started stripping down in the hallway lol. She finally let us in, and it was so chaotic in our little room. I'm half naked, Pearse is rifling through his bag for his passport, and Adam is looking for his stuff while half naked as well. I was last to leave the room. I swear I was still pulling up my pants while in the hostel lobby. I jumped down every single stair in that building. When I got outside, the other boys were already out of sight. So, I started running as hard as I could around the corner and through the busy market. I caught up to Pearse, and we got to our meet-up spot together. Absolutely gassed and sweating our balls off, we made it. We were actually 2 minutes late, but luckily, Nice isn't exactly coach friendly, so our driver was 3 minutes late. If we had missed Monaco, I woulda lost it. The bus ride was only 30 minutes total to Monaco, and halfway there, we all got out for some pictures. The bus driver and tour guide surprised us all with some sparkling wine. I really enjoyed just looking at the prettiest views ever and having some bubbly. When we got to Monaco, I instantly fell in love with the country, which is smaller than most cities. It's the second smallest country in the world. I went to a souvineer shop with intentions to buy my first souvenir of the trip. I am the most clumsy human ever, I guess, and knocked over all the playing cards in like domino's in his store. The dude kicked everyone out and stopped selling to us after. That's okay because I walked 30 seconds down the road to a way cooler store with way better shit. We all got shoved back into the coach to go to Monte Carlo Casino. To get there, though, we had to drive on the famous F1 track. I've been getting into F1 the last 6 months, so I thought that was super cool. Once we made it to the casino I started to feel so bougee. Supercars were pulling in 1 after the other. Bently,Bently,Ferrari,Porsche,maserati. All one after the other. They were probably thrilled they had to share this fancy ass casino with 40 young adults who are literally just on an 18-day bender lol. Maybe we're not classy enough or something. We went into the Nino and everything there was so beautiful. Everything was gold with huge chandeliers. I swear it's the fanciest place I've ever been. Not just the casino but all of Monico. I actually don't like gambling, so I just put a 20 in a roulette machine and played for probably 30 minutes. I left 63 cents to the good, so that's a huge win lol. After we just went back to the hostel and had beers in the common area with a few people. Monaco was probably Mt favorite place. we've been so far it was so beautiful and made me feel bougee. It also made me feel broke lol, we definitely couldn't afford to be there for more than an evening. I'm tired now after writing a novel.Read more

    • Day 278

      Wintereinbruch ❄️

      April 18 in France ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

      Heute stand Klettern auf dem Programm. Leider musste meine Familie ohne mich in den Kletterpark, denn mich hat’s erwischt 🤒🤧😷.

      Die 3 hatten aber trotzdem viel Spaß. Bei strahlend blauem Himmel gestartet, wurden sie allerdings kurz vorm Ende von einem Gewitter überrascht. Es blitzte, donnerte und schneite gleichzeitig.

      Völlig durchnässt und mit kalten Nasen 👃 kamen sie glücklich zurück und berichteten mir von den vielen tollen Kletterpassagen und Ziplines.
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    • Day 9

      Cannes

      July 3, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

      Cannes war für 4 Tage unser Zentrum für Ausflüge. Der Sandstrand und die Palmenpromenade La Croisette ist riesig und wirklich schön. Am ersten Abend waren jede Menge Schüler abends am Strand, die wohl den Beginn der französischen Sommerferien gefeiert haben. Cannes selbst ist sehr teuer, wir sind deshalb auf Selbstverpflegung übergegangen (Spaghetti in 4 Variationen mit Vor- und Nachspeise 😅). Wir hatten ein Appartement mit Blick vom Balkon auf einen Partyclub, der zwar gute Musik, aber extrem laut und bis spät in die Nacht gemacht hat. Am Filmpalast stehen die Leute Schlange, um sich selbst auf der Treppe der Cannes-Rolle abzulichten 🙄). Das wars erstmal von der Côte d'Azur. Ab morgen (4.7.) geht's wieder in die Ruhe der Provence.Read more

    • Day 2

      Cannes

      June 17, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

      Wir sind bereits um 8 angekommen, aber die Suchen nach einem Parkplatz hat etwas länger gedauert. Jetzt sind wir erstmal am Strand bis wir uns Apartment dürfen.
      Zudem hatte ich bei dem 3. Zwischenstop keine Lust davon ein Footprint zu machen.Read more

    • Day 225

      Cannes

      April 12 in France ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

      Cannes ..eine Stadt der Schönen und Reichen 💒 gelegen am Meer mit einem sehenswerten Yachthafen 🛥️ ⛵ Eine Stadt alles wie geleckt, Preise entsprechend 😜 wir bummeln ein wenig und lassen uns an einer schicken Strandbar nieder🍹🍺, vier Getränke zum Preis von 50€ 😳, aber man muss es jal erlebt haben 🤣🤣🤣 Auf dem Rückweg zum Parkhaus gibt es noch ein großes Softeis🍦🍦, das können die Franzosen 🇨🇵 und dann noch ein Sprung ins Casino 🥳Read more

    • Day 33

      Cannes (from the Cheap Seats)

      August 12, 2023 in France ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

      After joining the nuns for their morning mass (entirely in Italian so I didn’t stand a chance), I hop on the train to leave Florence. The journey takes me via Pisa and then along the Riviera coast of both Italy and France. Much of the route seems to be through tunnels but the glimpses I get of the Mediterranean Sea are stunning! I have a change at Ventimiglia, my last point within Italy, and I have just enough time to grab a quick station Macdonald’s just before my next train. I discover that Italian Macdonald’s sell hunks of Parmesan cheese as a snack (upon googling I’m informed it falls under the concept of ‘Pocket Cheese’) and I quickly add Italy to the list of places to consider relocating to.😉

      I reach my hostel a few hours later than planned thanks to some unattended luggage being left around Cannes station. As I’m hauling my luggage up to my €25 a night bed, people come down the stairs towards me dripping in designer gear. It’s an apt metaphor for Cannes itself as I quickly discover that it’s a town full of people with money and those pretending to have money. The front street is lined with top line designer stores and the other streets are full of upmarket brands that certainly aren’t cheap but wouldn’t require multiple lottery wins to shop in. Most tourists flock to the second, while the first is lined with new range Lamborghinis, Porches, and Rolls Royces with foreign license plates.

      Obviously Cannes is known for its film festival held each year in May. In summer however it’s very much a beach resort. There is still however ‘the’ red carpet and a small walk of fame with handprints of people like Leonardo DiCaprio, Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman. It’s incredibly understated to say it’s probably what Cannes is best know for.

      Although it’s a small town, Cannes is incredibly busy and you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in a suburb of Paris. The waterfront is pretty but there’s only a tiny bit of public beach, the rest all fenced off for private clubs and restaurants. While it’s in a beautiful setting, I haven’t quite found the magic of Cannes yet but I settle in, enjoy the sea and get lost in a few French bookshops.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Département des Alpes-Maritimes, Departement des Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes Marítimos, Alpi Marittime

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