French Riviera Day 3 & 4 – Monaco

On the second half of our trip, Branden and I again took the bus from Eze to Monaco. Click here to read Day 1 & 2 in Nice and Eze.

So, I didn’t know this, but Monaco is not part of France — it’s actaully its own country. We didn’t have to show our passports or do anything special to cross over, though.

You might have heard about the Monaco Grand Prix, which is a famous motor race that takes place every year.

The track loops around the city, and there’s a famous hairpin turn (above) located in front of the Fairmont Hotel, which is where we stayed.

The hotel itself was quite nice, it had a pool, gym and 3 restaurants. The restaurants were pretty expensive, but so was every other restaurant in the city.

We got a free upgrade to a room with an ocean view, which was pretty sweet.

Our time here was also spent walking around and eating.We didn’t go to the casino because neither of us gamble, and you have to pay just to get in.

There’s a lot of pizza and pasta because of the Italian influence (Italy is super close to Monaco). Although service does tend to take long compared to what we’re used to, it’s actually hard to get a bad meal.

We passed by the church where Grace Kelly — who was an American actress — got married and became Princess Grace of Monaco.

One of the main tourist attractions in Monaco is the Oceanographic Museum. I thought it was going to be more like an actual museum but it turned out to really be an aquarium. After having gone to the Vancouver and Monterey Bay aquariums, I wasn’t too excited about this one, but I still enjoyed the ocean-inspired decor — check out that light fixture, it looks like a sea urchin.

Another tourist attraction is the Jardin Exotique. Yes, another one here too, and it’s also full of cacti. Since it’s also on a cliff, we had to take like 6 elevators to get there (I’m not exaggerating). The elevators were also not in obvious places, but the people who lived in the area helped point out where to go. Most of the residents seemed to not speak English, but thankfully Branden speaks a bit of French.

Again we went mostly for the views.

We were leaving on the Sunday, which was my birthday, so on Saturday night we bought a bottle of champagne and some truffle chips from a swanky grocery store (because I don’t think there were any normal grocery stores there) and drank it on the balcony.

Well, it’s almost 7am and I have been awake since 4am lol. Branden and I went to bed at 8pm and are still jet lagged. Here’s hoping we don’t fall asleep at dinner 🙂

French Riviera Day 1 & 2 – Nice and Eze

Bonjour! I’m writing this from a plane to my home town of Toronto. WestJet’s wifi is actually not horrific. It’s not great either, but I was able to upload all these photos to WordPress.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I turned 30 and wanted to go on a trip to the French Riviera, also known as Cote D’Azure. We planned a 4-day trip, with a day each in Nice and Eze, and 2 days in Monaco.

Day 1: Nice

When we first got there, it was overcast all day, and it rained a tiny bit.

We basically just ate and walked around, occasionally stumbling on cool little things like the building above, where famous artists once lived. I thought it was really neat how much history there was.

We also took a short (1-hour I think) tour on a train called Le Petit Train de Nice. It’s really casual and there’s no tour guide, just an audio guide that you listen to with headphones. The highlight of the tour was when it took us up to this old castle, which had some nice views.

Hmmm…

Day 2: Eze

Eze is a small town that sits between Nice and Monaco. We actually took a bus there from Nice, which was only about an hour.

We were debating whether or not to rent a car, but thankfully the buses really were as convenient (and inexpensive) as people online said. The one thing to worry about is that some of them don’t come very frequently, and service can also stop early, BUT there’s also Uber, in case you get in a jam.

Anyway, the bus ride up to Eze had amazing views, because Eze is up in the hills.

The downside of that though is there are also a lot of stairs!!

The theme of this trip was overeating and then climbing dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of stairs. One one of the days, my Fitbit said I climbed 97 floors lol.

Le Cactus, a crepe restaurant

The coolest thing in Eze was the “medieval village”. We discovered it when we were trying to go to a crepe restaurant for lunch.

There’s no sign or anything that says what it is, but as we walked through, we discovered that it was full of tiny little restaurants and shops with stone walls and steps. There’s also a Jardin Exotique, which has even better views, although I didn’t consider the plant life to be exotic. It was mostly full of cacti, which grow in California where I used to live.

Out of the 2, I did like Eze more than Nice, because of the views and all the cool restaurants in the village. See you in the next post! ~

£1 movies with costumes and confetti

A little while ago, Branden and I went to see the Lion King for £1. Everything is expensive in London, so that was an amazing deal, but because of that I also had low expectations.

When we got there, it turned out to be way more than just a movie screening: People were in Disney costumes and they had a photo shoot set up for people to take photos with funny hats and things.

The movie took place at The Grand in London. Each week they have different movie screenings with different themes, and the venue feels kind of like a night club combined with a theatre.

After the movie, they choose a bunch of audience members to play musical chairs, and it was kind of amazing and hilarious how into it all of the staff were.

Chilling in Costa Blanca

¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? I’m writing this from Moraira, Spain. Branden and I have been here for a week and staying in our friend’s relative’s house.

The pool behind the house. Too bad it’s too cold to swim!

We’re working remotely while here, and spending the weekends and evenings being tourists, drinking lots of sangria and eating lots of tapas & paella.

During the day, we like to work at one of the many sidewalk cafes. There’s one place in particular we keep going to called Restaurant Eleven. It’s right by the water and has good food and good wifi. Plus there are always plenty of empty tables so I don’t feel bad sitting there with my computer for hours.

Computers by the ocean

Admittedly, there’s not a whole lot of touristy things to do here, which is fine if you just want to relax in the sun by the water, eat good food, and learn some Spanish.

I would definitely get a car. Parking is really, really easy to find and free. We were initially going to just ride bikes around, but I’m glad we didn’t because it’s hilly and we wouldn’t have been able to go very far. Also, there aren’t any bike lanes and the only people I see biking look like they’re training for a race.

On the weekend, we went paintballing and go-karting, and also hiked up to the Torre del Cap d’Or, which is an old watch tower used for looking out for pirates.

The steepest part of the walk is actually through the roads leading to the trail head.

A few days ago, we ventured out to the town of Javea (also known as Xabia), which is about 30 minutes away from Moraira. We were aiming to get dinner, but most places were closed, despite it being opening hours. Restaurants seem to close at any point if there aren’t many customers eating there. It’s kind of frustrating, but we eventually found a pretty good Thai place that was open.

We also went to the city of Benidorm, which is known for being full of Brits. It definitely seemed way more touristy than either Alicante or Moraira. There were tons of fast food restaurants and American-style restaurants. One other thing we noticed was it’s full of senior citizens!

Btw if you didn’t know, there’s a comedy TV show about Benidorm (I’ve never seen it).

One of the top things to do (according to the internet) is to go to Placa del Castell, which is a nice little area to walk around in and has a pretty balcony that looks out to the ocean.

A grumpy man photobombed our selfie lol

Well, I’m off to have more paella y sangria 😉

Alicante, Spain

I’m writing this on our last night in Spain. We’re currently in a town called Moraira, which close to the city of Alicante, where we spent the first night. Both places are in the Costa Blanca (“White Coast”) region of Spain.

We landed in Alicante Airport and took the bus to Alicante. The bus ride to our AirBnB was short and there were nice views of the water. I also noticed you could charge USB devices on the bus!

Since we were only in Alicante for one day, we just ate and walked around.

The highlight of Alicante for us was the Santa Bárbara Castle. You can drive or walk up (for a workout) for free, or take a lift.

We went around sunset and got some amazing photos.

One of my favorite things was this cat we came across while leaving the castle. It seemed very stoic / indifferent. It didn’t really want to be pet, but it also wouldn’t move away from us, or it would move just a few inches away and sit down again.

The next morning, it was time to leave. Branden and I got up early and had breakfast at a tiny little restaurant called Demordisco. I think this little sandwich with coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice was 5€ — I recommend it.