Vacances de Printemps: Italy

After our wonderful stay in Spain, Kath and I jetted over to Italy to get to know our other neighbor a little more. We took the bus back to Santander from San Sebastián and flew to Milan. We had to stay in Milan overnight because our flight got there really late, so we couldn't take a train to Treviso right away. So we got a cab to take us to our hostel, except the cab driver was on her phone the entire time, and she tried to rip us off. I had told her the address quite clearly when we first hailed the cab, and she seemed to be fine with it. But after about 10 minutes of driving in the wrong direction (I had a general sense of where we had to go because I had looked at a map before), I asked her again if she knew where we were going, and showed her the address on the reservation. She looked at it and started muttering to her friend on the phone (in Italian, but I could understand most of it because I had taken a year of elementary Italian), "Where is this street? Do you know where it is?" I could not believe that she didn't know it! Finally though, she managed to find the hostel, and the meter said we owed around 25 euros. I was not going to pay that much when she spent 10 minutes driving in the wrong direction, so I argued with her and managed to get it down to 15 euros. Having dealt with that, we checked into the hostel, where we also got some trouble because she made us pay extra due to some sort of fee, but it wasn't an exorbitant amount so we just let it go.

After staying the night in Milan, we walked to the train station the next morning and planned on buying tickets straight to Treviso, a small town near Venice where we had a CouchSurfing host, but when we saw the ticket prices we couldn't believe how high they were, so we decided to take a look at tickets to Venice. They were so much cheaper, so we bought tickets to Venice and ended up spending the afternoon in Venice. Tickets from Venice to Treviso were only 2 euros, so it saved us a lot of money, plus we got to see some of Venice!

Obligatory gondola photo =P

A lot of people I had talked to before going to Italy told me that Venice was overrated and that it wasn't worth visiting, because there were so many tourists and because it smelled so bad. I, however, really liked Venice! Maybe it was because we only spent an afternoon there--maybe it's not the best place to have a long stay in, so what we did was perfect. We spent only a brief period of time there, walked around, saw a bit of the city, got gelato (of course), and enjoyed its charming canals. I really didn't think it was that bad. I mean, yes, it is touristy, but it's still beautiful! And it didn't smell bad at all. But maybe that's because we weren't there in the peak of summer. Either way, I still think Venice is worth a visit, but maybe just a short one.

That evening, we took the train to Treviso, and met our CouchSurfing host, Fabio. He didn't have a lot of time to take us out or anything, but he told us about this little restaurant in town that was good, so he dropped us off at the entrance to the city center and we found our way there, although it did take us a while. It was called Osteria Ai Filodrammatici, and the food was pretty freaking awesome.

My dinner--rabbit and polenta! So good.

My dessert...yummmm. It was some sort of...creamy log pastry thing, no idea. SO GOOD.

Kath's cookies for dessert

We wandered a bit after dinner, got gelato, and then walked back to Fabio's place. Didn't do much that night, just chatted a bit with Fabio and his roommate.

The next day, Kath and I set off to the city center again, to do a little more exploring. Turns out, Treviso does not have a lot going on. It could also have been that we were out right at lunchtime so not many places were open, but it was still really quiet. Really pretty though--it's a very picturesque little town. We did get some pretty good Italian pizza for lunch though! Other than that, we just walked around, took pictures, got more gelato...it was drizzling though, which made it less fun.

Pizzaaaa

Treviso has canals too =)

More gelato, of course...I mean come on, we were in Italy!

One of the main entrances into the city center

We saw some duckies on our walk back! =D

So clearly, not the best day to explore Treviso. But it was still nice. Relaxing, for sure! Anyway, we left Treviso that day (yeah, we were only there for one night) and went back to Venice briefly, just so we could take another train back to Milan. When we got back to Milan...well, needless to say, our impression of Milan was not improved, because there was a torrential downpour going on--so much so that it was raining INSIDE the train station. Yup.

It's kind of hard to capture rain on a crappy camera, but...

...maybe you can at least see how wet the floor was.

Our cab driver this time was much nicer though! He was an older man and kept trying to teach us Italian curse words, haha. And our cab ride only cost 13 euros, as opposed to the 25 that the first cab driver tried to charge us. He drove us to the same hostel that we stayed in our first night there, and we spent our last night in Italy. The next day we took an entire day to get back to France because we took trains the entire way back. We went from Milan to Ventimiglia, then Ventimiglia to Nice, then Nice to Nimes with switches in Toulon and Marseille. Yup. It was a loooong day. But, we finally got back! And it was home sweet home for just another 3 weeks...

Côte d'Azur: Nice, Monaco, Cannes

During the week of March 25th, I only had two days of work instead of three because there was a strike on Thursday (big surprise), and the following Monday was a national holiday (Easter), so after Tuesday I was free for basically a week. I was ecstatic about having a random week off from work, and while perusing Facebook on Tuesday, I saw that a fellow assistant, Katy, posted that she was planning a trip to the Côte d'Azur (also known as the French Riviera) because she didn't have class for the rest of the week either! I mournfully thought, "Man, I've been wanting to go for so long..." but then it hit me: I could go, I had the time, didn't I? A week off! So I asked Katy if I could join her in her little adventure, and she happily agreed! Even though we had never met in person before, we had talked on Facebook a few times and knew of each other, so it wasn't as sketchy as it sounds. I bought train tickets and booked the hostel that night, after unsuccessfully trying to find a CouchSurfing host, and the next morning I was on my way to Nice. As we were about to pull into the Cannes train station, I glimpsed my first view of the beautiful blue Mediterranean waters:

SO PRETTY!

Once I got to Nice, I found my way to the hostel and met Katy. We decided to go get lunch, ended up buying a panini and pizza from a small Italian place, and ate them on the beach. It was actually not very nice out--windy and cold, with rain on the horizon. But, hey, we were eating on the beach in Nice. Still pretty awesome. However, we did get hit by a wave, sort of, because the tide was coming in. I didn't get wet since I managed to jump back in time but Katy's foot did, haha. Obviously I took some beach photos...

Random dude fishing

After lunch, we went back to the hostel and then left to go find the bus that would take us to Monaco. Yes, I went to another country in an afternoon. It was awesome. We basically spent the rest of the day in Monaco, walking around and seeing the main sights:

Monte Carlo, of course

The port!

Pretty street

The Prince's palace!

Cathedral where Princess Grace got married =)

Me and Katy in front of a yellow submarine! Outside the Oceanographic Museum.

When we got back to Nice, we got dinner at this very charming restaurant in Vieux Nice (Old Nice) called L'Ecurie. I had a delicious dinner of rabbit and tagliatelle, followed by a dessert trip to Fenocchio's, a popular gelateria in Nice. It was amaaaazing, my first time trying it!

Dinner.

Dessert. I got fleur de lait and speculoos for my two flavors =P

The next day, we went back to Fenocchio's for "breakfast" to try out some more of their insane amount of flavors. After that we headed up to the Chateau de Nice to explore the ruins a bit and also enjoy the view. Unfortunately, the weather was not that cooperative and was being gloomy and drizzling all morning. Then we tried to go see the Russian Cathedral, but it was CLOSED. So upsetting!

It was way less crowded during the day.

Mine on the left: lavender, jasmine, guava. Katy's on the right: fig, cactus, melon. Different, but tasty!

View of Nice from the chateau!

Vieux-Port

Castle ruins

Waterfall =)

So this is the Russian Cathedral...

...EXCEPT IT WAS CLOSED. WHAT.

Disappointed, we headed to Cannes for our next leg of the trip (also my final leg, sad). Our first stop was supposed to be the Palais des Festivals where the Cannes Film Festival takes place, so that we could take a picture on the steps (as everyone does). Keep in mind it was still disgusting and rainy...

So of course, OF COURSE they were under construction...that is me being sad.

The port. 

After that we wandered into the old town and of course EVERYTHING was closed because it was at that awkward time of day right after lunch but not before lunch is over, so we literally had nothing to do. We eventually found a small cafe that was open and got some food to comfort ourselves over the fact that it was an absolutely miserable day.

Street leading into old town, which would have been nice if  it hadn't been RAINING.

Comfort food, aka tarte tatin (France's apple pie)

Now slightly more satisfied, we went and walked down the main shopping road just for something to do, and then Katy had to leave pretty soon after to catch her train to Aix-en-Provence. I walked around a little more (wasted about half an hour in Sephora) and finally headed to the train station to take the train back to Nimes. And that, my friends, was my slightly disappointing trip to the Côte d'Azur. Not that I didn't have a good time--it was awesome meeting Katy (whoo shout out for her blog!), don't get me wrong, but I just wish it had been better weather. Still, now I can say I've gone!