FRENCH RIVIERA, FRANCE: ROAD-TRIP

Dates: 05.08.2021 – 13.08.2021

RIX – NCE

05.08.2021: Today, after a year and a half, we’re finally back at the airport and actually going somewhere. This time – Nice, France. There are still plenty of places where masks are mandatory, but at least we’re travelling again.
The flight is pretty early – 08:05 – but that means we get almost the whole day in France.
This is my second visit to France. The first time was back in 2011, when the four of us travelled with my family to Paris for the European Indoor Athletics Championships. For Madara, this is the first time in France.

NICE OLD TOWN

05.08.2021: We’re travelling light, so after landing in Nice we simply start walking towards the city. It’s around 4 km to the famous 7 km long Promenade des Anglais. This is basically Nice’s most iconic place – with its crystal-clear Mediterranean beach. The morning is slightly cloudy, but very warm. Our accommodation, Villa Eden, is right on the promenade, around 2 km from the Old Town and only 200 metres from the Mediterranean. Check-in starts at 13:00, but we’re already here around 11:30, so first we need to solve the lunch problem. On nearby Rue de France, we stop at Le Petit Bouchon and have pizza. Very French food. 🙂
We settle into our room. It’s small, with a shower and a tiny balcony. The toilet, as it turns out, is in the hallway, but we’ll survive for two nights. At least we can see the sea from the balcony.
Two nights with breakfast in this little hotel cost us €162. In the Old Town, we wander through the narrow streets, look at cathedrals and monuments with names we have no chance of pronouncing, and climb up Castle Hill – Colline du Château. From the top, there’s a fantastic view over Nice and the coastline, as well as towards the east, where you can see Nice’s marina – Port Lympia. Slowly heading back towards home, we stop at an Irish pub on Rue Saint-François de Paule to refuel. Dinner comes from a grocery store and we eat it on the beach. By the end of the day, we’ve walked almost 20 km. We somehow never manage to do less.

NICE

06.08.2021: Today’s main mission is getting our rental car. At the hotel we have a standard French breakfast – croissant, baguette, coffee and freshly squeezed juice – and then head towards the centre to pick up the car. Small misunderstanding: the car is actually at a completely different address from the one shown in the booking. We quickly reorganise, jump on a tram and go after our little machine. After sorting out the paperwork, we get a Citroën Aircross, even though the booking said VW Polo or similar. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter to us. As long as it drives and can climb mountain serpentines, we’re happy. Six days of rental cost us €450. The security deposit, however, is an uncomfortable €700. To be fair, we couldn’t really find anything in Nice with a lower deposit. The plan is to stop at a shop for lunch and dinner supplies, and then drive to nearby Èze. The problem is that Èze is such a tiny cliffside town that finding a parking spot is close to impossible. Fewer than 3,000 people actually live here, but I’m pretty sure at least ten times that number of tourists pass through every day.
Instead of spending the entire day circling parking lots, we settle for taking photos of the cliffs from a distance and drive back towards Nice. Still a beautiful view, with the so-called Devil’s Bridge in the background. According to legend, a shepherd asked the devil to build a bridge to Èze in exchange for the soul of the first living creature to cross it. Later, we take one of the tourist rental bikes and make a nice loop along the promenade, going around Castle Hill and as far as the yacht harbour.

VERDON GORGE

07.08.2021: Today’s main attraction – Verdon Gorge. One of the largest gorges in Europe. Apparently, in reference to the American Grand Canyon, this one is often called the “Grand Canyon of France”. At its deepest point, it reaches around 700 metres. Our first impression – very dry, rocky and dramatic. The endless serpentine roads test both the technical condition of the car and the mental stability of the driver.
This time everything goes smoothly. The car is good and climbs the hills without too much suffering – especially compared to our 2017 Bosnia and Herzegovina adventures, when it sometimes felt like the Opel was about to take its final breath somewhere in the mountains. The roads are so twisty that even Madara starts feeling slightly sick. We continue winding through the serpentines, passing countless cyclists burning their thighs on the endless climbs. Every now and then, we stop for ten minutes to take photos. One interesting stop is Pont de l’Artuby, a bridge crossing the gorge. Built in 1946, it’s popular with bungee jumpers because there’s around 180 metres of free fall down into the valley. We watch a few brave souls jump.

PONT DU GALETAS

07.08.2021: I suggest renting kayaks and paddling through Verdon Gorge and the lake. Madara isn’t exactly excited about the idea at first. I get the feeling she doesn’t really understand what I’m talking about, so I basically tell her we’re doing it anyway. Two hours of kayaking cost €30.
Later she thanks me for not listening to her. It’s beautiful.
The water is full of other tourists in kayaks and boats, but the place is still seriously impressive.
Verdon Gorge is an extremely popular destination for all kinds of active people. Some come here to drive their Porsche through endless serpentines, climbers come for the hundreds-of-metres-high white cliffs, paddlers and boaters for the turquoise-blue transparent water, and hikers for the countless kilometres of trails. Everyone can find something here. It’s warm, the sun is shining and the water is bright blue-green. In total, we paddle a respectable 5.3 km. At the end, I also go for a swim. Very refreshing. Definitely worth it.

MOUSTIERS-SAINTE-MARIE

07.08.2021: After all that paddling, our appetite is properly activated. In the nearby village of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, the plan is to find a small restaurant and eat. But apparently the French don’t plan to eat at 16:00. That’s still drinking time. Food comes later. We manage to find what feels like the only café still serving food. For the second time in France, we end up eating pizza – and even that only because some Asian guys are willing to cook it for us. Before eating, we wander through the little village streets. Narrow, beautiful and full of tourists. But mostly French tourists, not Japanese pensioners. That’s actually pretty cool.
The fact that almost all we hear on the streets is French – instead of British English, Russian or Asian languages – confirms it. One small bonus of travelling during the pandemic, when many borders still have strict restrictions. The village itself is interesting and apparently has only 693 residents, yet there’s an impressive chapel built high on the edge of the cliff – Chapelle Notre-Dame de Beauvoir.
This time, to save time and energy, we only explore what we can from the streets below. We don’t climb up. If circumstances ever bring us back here, we definitely will. The village sits between two cliffs, with a golden star hanging on a 225-metre-long chain between them.
According to legend, during the Crusades, a knight named Bozon de Blacas was captured by Muslims and promised that if he ever returned home, he would hang a golden star above his village. Nobody really knows exactly how the star got up there. But apparently Bozon made it home.

MARSEILLE – EVENING

07.08.2021: We decide to skip the lavender fields because, from what we can see, the season is already over. So we head straight towards France’s second-largest city – Marseille. Within the first few streets after leaving the highway, it becomes immediately obvious why everyone recommends avoiding driving in Marseille. The streets are ridiculously narrow, cars are parked on both sides, and it’s often impossible to understand which street is one-way and which one isn’t.
Tomorrow we’re not touching the car.
We’ll explore the city on foot and by public transport. Very few cars here seem to be free of dents or scratches. Good thing our hotel has a secure underground parking garage. We’re staying relatively far from the centre in a budget hotel – Montempô Marseille Dôme Appart’hôtel. At least in the evening, the neighbourhood doesn’t look particularly cosy. It also starts raining a little, so we call it a day. It’s been a long one. Two nights here cost us €130. Our room is on the 10th floor, so the view from the window is actually quite nice. We use the relaxed evening for a FaceTime call with Grobiņa.

MARSEILLE

08.08.2021: Today we properly walk through Marseille – France’s oldest city. Somehow, completely by accident, we collect another 20 km. Apparently Marseille is around 2,600 years old.
The area around the national museum – Mucem, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations – and the touristy Vieux-Port is polished and nicely maintained. The port has to look good, of course. Marseille is one of Europe’s major maritime cities and the largest port in France.
The rest of the streets are more ordinary by Western European standards. Quite dirty, plenty of graffiti and so on. To be fair, the graffiti is often actual art, not just some poorly drawn reproductive organ sprayed on a wall.
We walk through all the main sights and finish the route at Notre-Dame de la Garde on top of the hill. Okay, technically we take the bus up the hill. From there, there’s a panoramic view over Marseille. In the evening, we finally decide to go out for a proper restaurant dinner. After all, today is our first wedding anniversary. Until now, restaurant prices in Nice haven’t exactly encouraged us to eat out. In Marseille, however, “menu” deals are common – around €20 for a three-course meal where you can choose each course yourself. Madara goes for salmon tartare, half a roasted chicken with baby potatoes and tiramisu. I choose mozzarella bruschetta, a properly cooked beef steak and panna cotta. Even though the maths should be pretty simple, the final bill somehow seems slightly higher than expected. But okay. Let the Marseille guy have it.
The food is tasty, the portions are unexpectedly generous, and the atmosphere has that relaxed southern feel.

BELVÉDÈRE DE SUGITON

09.08.2021: In the first half of the day, we do a mini-hike in Parc National des Calanques, right next to Marseille. The walk itself is around 40 minutes each way on well-maintained trails. But the views at the end! Rocky Mediterranean coastline with small turquoise bays tucked between the cliffs. From above, little boats look like ants moving in and out of the small marinas below.
Not a bad place to celebrate Madara’s name day. 🙂 If we ever come back here, the plan is obvious – spend as little time as possible in Marseille itself. Maybe go into the city in the evening for a bar. During the day, hike around this park. There are loads of trails here and the views are incredible.

SAINT-TROPEZ

09.08.2021: Our accommodation is in Port Grimaud, a village very close to Saint-Tropez. We’re staying in small camping-style cabins. Judging by the cars in the parking lot, plenty of people staying here could probably afford much fancier accommodation. The cheapest places we could find in Saint-Tropez started at around €350 per night, so choosing one of the nearby villages was an easy decision. As it turns out, our problem of getting into the town solves itself. Boats run every 30 minutes to tiny Saint-Tropez, which is roughly the size of Grobiņa but somehow attracts around six million tourists every year. In less than two hours, we seem to walk through almost the entire town. The streets are beautiful and very well maintained. The actual beach, though, looks like it’s barely 100 metres long. It’s hard to understand why exactly this tiny former fishing village became one of the world’s most exclusive and famous holiday destinations. Historically, it was just a small fishing village, but after World War II it rapidly developed into a luxury resort.
Villas here have been bought by global mega-stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez and others. In the harbour, multi-million-euro yachts are parked side by side. The car park on land is no less impressive. We assume that without purple euro banknotes we simply don’t have access to the right places where all those famous parties happen. So instead, we have a picnic on the breakwater at Phare de Saint-Tropez, watch the sunset and wait for our boat back to the accommodation.

CANNES

10.08.2021: As expected, parking in Cannes turns into a challenge too. We have to circle around the city’s narrow and steep streets for a while, but eventually manage to find a space in a multi-storey car park. We don’t have any serious plan or route prepared for Cannes. We just go with the flow. We walk along the harbour and bay, where ridiculous yachts are parked next to equally ridiculous cars. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, several Bugattis and so on. Life here clearly happens in a completely different financial dimension. We continue along the roughly 2 km long Boulevard de la Croisette and see pretty much every luxury brand imaginable. Apparently, only Paris has more high-end shops concentrated along one street. Of course, Madara needs the mandatory photo on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet, which has been rolled out every May since shortly after World War II. Interestingly, during the few days of the festival, local hotels and restaurants supposedly make around 15% of their entire annual turnover. Tourists are standing in a proper queue to take pictures in the middle of the carpet. We cheat.
Madara stands on the corner, we take a quick photo from an angle where you can’t see the other tourists, and move on. Standing in line for 20–30 minutes just for that photo seems a bit silly.
But I have to admit – the city is spotless. Everything shines. Everything is incredibly well maintained. There are also normal shops and cafés for normal people. And, as always, McDonald’s exists everywhere. After a few hours of walking, we have to admit that Cannes actually feels even more elegant and luxurious than the famous Saint-Tropez.

ANTIBES

10.08.2021: Antibes was originally just a backup option if we had extra time. Apparently we still don’t know how to walk slowly, because we get through Cannes pretty quickly and manage to squeeze Antibes into the same day. It’s only around a 30-minute drive away. Like many towns along the French Riviera, Antibes has a rather impressive marina full of yachts that probably represent a noticeable percentage of Latvia’s annual national budget. Antibes also has a long history. It was founded by the ancient Greeks in the 5th century BC. The name itself is pretty funny. Translated from Greek, it basically means “the city opposite”. So first they founded Nice, and then apparently went: “Let’s build that city opposite Nice, on the other side of the bay.”
Very original. 🙂 The beaches here are rocky, as is common in France, but that doesn’t stop the French from roasting themselves on the beach all day. Even when it isn’t particularly sunny.
The Old Town has narrow, beautiful streets lined with historic stone buildings. Is Antibes worth planning an entire trip around? Probably not.
But if you’re passing through, it’s definitely worth stopping for a walk. The city itself is roughly the size of Liepāja, but you can walk through the main tourist area in about an hour.

MONACO

11.08.2021: After successfully returning the rental car, today we’re heading to the most densely populated country in the world – Monaco. The whole country is barely two square kilometres.
Apparently almost one in three residents is a millionaire. For me, this becomes the 20th country I’ve visited. We take the train because having a car here would only create problems. It’s just 25 minutes from Nice.
The moment we step out at Monaco station, everything already feels slightly royal. Marble floors, gold-plated chandeliers and everything sparkling clean. Today is extremely hot, and of course this is the one day we forgot our hats. Our heads start boiling, so we slow down and begin actively searching for any piece of shade we can find. We walk along the harbour and marina, looking at what has now become an almost familiar sight – luxury yachts several storeys high. The cars on Monaco’s streets are equally impressive. The whole thing about Monaco being full of supercars is definitely not a myth. It’s a fact.
It would be incredibly interesting to be here during the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix in spring.
You can still see the red-and-white markings along the roads that define parts of the racing circuit. We finish our Monaco day at the Oceanographic Museum, checking out all kinds of marine life.

NICE: NIGHTLIFE

11.08.2021: We get back to Nice relatively early, so we first head to our new accommodation.
This time we’re staying very centrally, on Avenue Jean Médecin, around five minutes on foot from the Basilica of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption. After a short rest and making ourselves look slightly more presentable, we head back out. One of tonight’s missions is to finally find and taste oysters.
Neither of us has ever tried them before. After some serious internet research, we find a seafood restaurant called Peixes near Place Masséna – basically in the Old Town. The oysters are fairly tasteless. The positive side is that they’re not bad either. Six oysters cost €18, which actually feels pretty reasonable for Nice. We also try mussels and fried sprats. Even I, as someone who isn’t particularly excited about seafood, have to admit it’s all pretty tasty. We wash everything down with a nice white wine.

NICE: BEACH DAY

12.08.2021: Today we were supposedly going to take public transport back to Èze, which we skipped at the beginning of the trip. But last night we enjoyed Nice’s nightlife a little longer than planned, so we sleep in quite seriously.By late afternoon, neither of us feels like spending time travelling around on public transport. So today is officially declared “plage day”. Beach day.
Our milk-bottle skin colour doesn’t allow us to roast on the seaside rocks for much more than an hour, but still – mission accomplished. I also really wanted to buy myself a little crocodile in France – meaning a Lacoste shirt. After all, it’s a French brand. Sure, 90% of it is probably still made somewhere in Taiwan, Vietnam or China, but there’s still that psychological effect.
Lacoste from France. In the end, I also get some colourful socks. I almost break down and buy a watch too. Luckily, my inner cheapskate is still alive somewhere inside me. 🙂 My goddaughter Enija also gets her own crocodile. After the plage and shopping, a nap at home is necessary.
Our final accommodation is right on Nice’s main shopping street, so we can even pop back home several times a day for a break. The view from the window is nice too – if you ignore the fact that the building façade is currently being renovated. So technically, the windows are covered with scaffolding and protective netting.

NCE – RIX

13.08.2021: Our flight is in the morning, so we can’t drag things out for too long. Near Notre-Dame in Nice, we have a breakfast croissant and a strong coffee before heading to the airport.
This time we’re slightly smarter and take the tram. On the first day, we spent almost 1.5 hours walking along the promenade from the airport into the city. Today, for €1.50 each, the tram gets us to the terminal in about 15 minutes. As usual, we arrive at the airport early enough to avoid unnecessary stress, so there’s still time to walk around the shops, spray ourselves with random perfumes and have coffee at Jamie Oliver’s airport restaurant. Overall, the trip has been a huge success.
After almost a year and a half of carefully following Covid-19 restrictions, simply being able to travel again adds a whole extra emotional boost. This is also our first trip during the absolute peak tourist season – August. We walk the streets of world-famous cities and luxury resorts where people clearly live in a completely different financial universe.
We really loved it!

Total Trip Costs
Transportation expenses (airfare, car rental, fuel, etc.): ~900 EUR
Living expenses (accommodation, meals, etc.): ~1,000 EUR
Entertainment (entrance fees, souvenirs, etc.): ~350 EUR
Total costs: ~2,250 EUR
Total cost per person per day: 126 EUR