25 March 2011: Cinque Terre/Nice Day Eight.

Up early this morning to catch our train from Genoa to Nice and felt a little sad about leaving Italy. Not to worry, there are plenty of exciting things happening ahead and as I’ve said a few times in this blog, Italy is a must return. Again have to say, the trains here are fantastic and the four-hour trip was very comfortable.

During the train trip, made a mental note that I had to drop my fluent Italian and start thinking about my French. Hmmmmm, three years of high school French and the only thing I can recall is my teacher at the time, Fernanda Pettenuzzo……oh and je mapelle Steve…….that’s it, should be enough to get me by.

On arriving in Nice, we took a cab to our hotel, Le Meridien that is located right on the sparkling Cote d’Azur water. Also met up with Michelle’s cousins, Georgina and Lucas. They were full of banter about their trip through Dubai and surprisingly, Lucas (a Policeman) seemed to get into a bit of strife there with the local traders. It only took me two minutes to discover that Lucas would be the one to stick with if you wanted to get up to any mischief (the quiet unassuming guy that he is…).

The late afternoon was spent strolling the promenade and shopping for clothes. Gee the fashions are unbelievable here…..and very expensive! But, if you go by the saying, “when in Rome…” then obviously in Nice, you must buy clothes. Went a little out on the limb for me, hope that purple shirt gets some wear back in Aus.

This evening we all went to a restaurant recommended by Laureen (Laureen who we met in Cinque Terre) and sat down to have a nice meal together. The Linguine and Muscles Spaghetti arrived in a bucket bowl for Dominique and our eyes nearly fell out of our heads. Everything was big and there was no way we were walking away from their still hungry. Michelle’s slab of Lasagne was something to see, she only managed to eat half.

We all hit the pillow pretty early tonight to get ready for a full onslaught on Nice the next day.