nice nice

From the moment we handed in the car keys, Nice wasn't so bad! We resumed our lives as carless backpackers and slowly got that 'nothing really matters' attitude working again!

And how could we not - Nice was all about sun and pebbly beaches. It would be more fair to call them stone beaches, as only small portions of the area had pebble sized rocks - these things were the size of baseballs.

We called into the Matisse and then the Chagall museum. It was quite a walk from the town center up the hill, in summer heat too! During such walk I experienced a sudden loss of traction in one foot followed by an infuriating annoyance at the french for not picking up after their dogs. But, we got there. 

For chagall, it was a short exhibition but amazing works to see.

The food wasn't too cheap, being such a tourist filled destination. We did seek out for some Nice specialties - sardine beignet, eggplant beignet, and some other thing that tasted like vaguely like spinach and feta.

Most nights however we were cheap and decided to skip the tourist traps and cook our own goodies.

Nearby we climbed the short height of steps to the top of the Colline du Chateau (Castle Hill), providing a great view of the Promenade des Anglais (main drag along the beach) and the rest of Nice.

There was also a lot of ocean to look at!

There was a lovely green park at the top were we basically spent an hour sleeping.

No backlight in this photo!

Nearby there was Monument Aux Morts, a large war memorial to feel small at.

We spent a good portion of every day relaxing on the pebble beaches. 

Hmmm... trying to get rid of those t-shirt tan lines! Yea Grace is making me include this photo! But the water was really good, if a little cold on some days. At first, the very crowded public beaches were a little annoying, especially when you're sitting on a beach in france surrounded by (very loud) random australians. But once you get over it, it's good - you could make a habit out of it, coming here every day!

We had the best weather while we were there - it only rained on our way to the airport. Overall, it was really really NICE. (grace: groannnn!) We spent most of the time simply relaxing and soaking up the sun.
(sorry topless person)

driving chaos in nice

We had to return the hire car in Nice at 11am, and we drove into Nice still with an hour to spare.. plenty of time to drop our bags at our hotel, fuel up and return the car... right?

Driving in Nice turned out to be an absolute nightmare! A good majority of the roads are one way streets; there are roads that isn't immediately clear if it was a pedestrian zone, tram-only, or a one-way street.  On top of that was chaotic traffic and lots of pedestrians, and us occasionally getting our left and rights confused didn't help.... Though we weren't the only confused ones, the GPS sometimes couldn't figure out where we were (which has never happened elsewhere!) and other times it tried to lead us down one way streets the wrong way. After 20 minutes of trying to get to our the hotel, we abandoned the idea of getting there in a car.

Fuel was the next problem - the first petrol station the GPS located did not exist; the second one was so small - just a single pump wedged between a chaotic carpark and a motorshop, it took circling the carpark three times before we could locate it.

Then finally, returning the car! After a few wrong turns we managed to get to the Europcar office - but the garage for dropping off the car was 50m away from the office, separated by a one-way street that we were on the wrong side of!  We were so close, yet we did not dare driving the wrong way down a one way street in front of a police station. It took 20 minutes of circling before FINALLY getting to the garage, and by that time we had driven around the city centre, not more than a few kilometres wide, for over an hour!

After that horrible experience, thankfully our time at Nice got a lot uh, nicer!

cote d'azur & marseille

We were looking for a creek to swim at, and the staff at the Aix-en-Provence tourist information pointed us towards Carry-le-Rouet - not a creek but a most picturesque cove.

 Plenty of pebbles here for Joe to skim stones.

The water was calm and warmish, quite lovely to swim in. Joe didn't get in the water because he was being a wimp.

The next day we stopped at Marseille for the morning. Marseille made quite a contrast to villages and towns of Provence - it's quite more noisy, crowded, colourful and multicultural.

After Marseille, we stopped by Cassis and had lunch upon a rocky shore. The water was pretty damn cold here.

After lunch, we embarked on a lovely drive to St Tropez along winding mountain and coastal roads. We listened to an English radio station that had a lot of ads for superyachts agents...  we were now in the French Riviera - the playground of the rich! We stayed at St. Tropez just long enough for a quick dip.  There was a lot of tourists, yachts, expensive cars and massive carparks.

the villages of provence

Provence is dotted with many very picturesque villages. L’abbaye de Sénanque is a popular photo spot as it is surrounded by lavender fields.

Although the most popular quaint villages are also very touristy and have big, crowded not-so-quaint pay-carparks.

The weather in provence was just brilliant! It was dry, warm and breezy. I think it only rained once (and only briefly) over the 10 days we were in the south of France.

There's a rating system for beautiful villages in France. This is the view from Gordes, a 'plus beaux village' (the loveliest of beautiful villages)

A grave overgrown with lavendar at a cemetery in Gordes.

Looking at Gordes from the nearby hill down the road.

Having experienced the Pont du Gard the previous day, all I wanted to do was find more swimming spots! Joe found this village - Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, which has a gushing source of spring water.

The water was just so incredibly clear! The beautiful emerald colour is the reeds growing in the riverbed. All I wanted to do was jump in!

When we finally got to test out the water we realised why there was no one swimming, and why the water was so incredibly clear and algae-free - it was freezing! I could not keep my foot in the water for more than a few seconds.

Walking upstream, there is a still looking pool of water which is the source of the gushing river. This pool is incredibly deep - in 1985 a small robot submarine went down 315 m into the pool, and found no bottom (source).

The next few days we trawled through a few more quaint villages...

Also stopped to see some Roman ruins at Glanum.

and arrived at Aix-en-provence, a most pleasant artsy town where Van Gogh used to hang out.

This seemingly uninteresting courtyard...

was actually the subject of a Van Gogh painting.

We explored a lot of alleyways... 

and we took a LOT of photos of cool looking doors...

With my swimming urges still unsatisfied.. we searched far and wide for a nice creek or lake... and arrived at this pebbly lake Plantain at Peyrolles-en-provence which used to be a quarry redeveloped into a recreation park.

Despite the busy road nearby and the unsightly power lines in the background, it was a very peaceful spot.

This was about 8pm as we were leaving the lake... isn't the sky just beautiful!