FRENCH RIVERIA

The French Riveria or the Cote d'Azur refers to the south-eastern coast of France, dotted with beaches to die for, crystal-clear light turquois water and populated with the rich and famous. During our 3days there, we were based in Nice and made day trips to Cannes, Antibes and Monaco. Cheapos alert: Ok face it, attracting budget travellers wasn't on the agenda of the tourism board in the French Riveria. Hostels (what hostel?) are a rare find in Nice and they are >20euro a night. And there are no hostels in Monaco.You'll understand why when you scroll down.

We flew into Genova in Italy, thanks to a 0.01euro Ryanair flight. Genova is supposed to be real pretty (as seen in Dee's blog) but we were too shacked to explore it after spending a night sleeping on the floor of Frankfurt Hahn airport.

Took a train from Genova to Nice on a EuroCity train, and from Jem's snooze shot you can gauge how comfy it was. BUT the scenary along the way was tooooo beautiful to waste our time dosing off! Check this out, pardon my embarrassing "Wah I want to swim now" murmur.

NICE

A very out-of-place Russian cathedral in the middle of Nice. Strolling along the very very famous Nice beach. If you scrutinize the pic, you would notice that this is not a sandy beach! It's full of rocks, stones and pebbles.The focus is not us. Check out the naked lady behind hur hur. An uncountable number of chicks sunbath naked on the beach. So guys, another incentive to go Nice.Cafes and souvenir shops grace the sidewalks of Cours SaleyaSplendid view of the Nice PortNice beach at night... A unison of water and sky.The famous Negresco hotel, an icon of Nice
CANNES

The annual Cannes Film Festival has brought this sandy-beach paradise into the limelight. A 25min train ride away from Nice, Cannes has more tourists than inhabitants, for sure. About 3/5 of the strip of beautiful sandy beach are private, lined with blue umbrellas and comfy-looking sun beds. Fear not, small parts of the beach are free for the public to laze around and sunbath.

We headed straight for the old town; narrow winding streets filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. Climbed up a small hill to the the castle ruins and enjoyed the splendid view of Cannes from there.

This is the convention centre where the annual Cannes Film Festival is held! Doesn't look that glam now without the red carpet and paparazzis. The top is a helipad!

MONACO
Oh how we love this place! It has a beautiful coastline, interesting history, a damn-famous casino and a real-life (tiny bit screwed up) monachy that you can gossip on a whole afternoon. Psst! For more, please consult Dee the hands-down royal family gossip expert.
?Did you know? The head of this country will always be a "Prince" and not a "King"! That's because a long time ago Monaco signed a treaty with France which states that France will only recognise this place as the "Principality of Monaco" and its leader shall always be a Prince.

The Palace at night...
The St. Nicholas Cathedral, where the royal family has been buried through the years, and also where the wedding of Prince Ranier and Grace Kelly took place. They are buried beside each other inside now. Institut Oceanographique, started by Prince Albert I, partly because he himself was a great seaman.
I was initially quite against the idea of going to another Underwater World kinda place, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise! Aside from the pretty fishes, we saw much on the history of ocean studies and extinct sea animals.
The Coastline behind the Institut Oceanographique

We're in Monte Carlo! How can we possily skip going to the casino!! The most famous casino is 'Le Casino' hur hur. We didn't make it with our sneakers and burms outfit, so we went to Fairmont instead. Had fun and with some luck (phew!) with the Roulette, we walked off with our 35euro winnings :)Night view of Monaco Ville... You can see the Monaco Grand Prix viewing stands in blue.A piece of advice: If you becomes a millionaire in the future and decide to live in Monaco (the tax heaven), please don't buy a black Bentley coupe. On our short bus ride from the palace to Monte Carlo, we saw Porsches, Lambos, Mercs, etc but a stunning 20% of all cars we see are black Bentleys. So, if you don't want your car to look as common as a taxi in Monaco, you know what not to get.