Tue. 09-11-07 -- Train to Nice, France
This morning we got up at 7:15am to pack up and walk to the train station. We bought breakfast from a vending machine and boarded the train. The train left at 8:45am and the ride was about 4.5 hours long. We got a few glimpses of the Mediterranean Sea as we railed to Montpellier. We arrived in Montpellier at about 13:30 and our next train didn't leave until 15:11, so we had some time to kill.
We left the station in search for lunch, and agreed on a kebab place. The food was pretty good! Then we walked a few door down to the internet cafe, but it was closed for renovations. The guy at the cafe told us where there was another one down the road, so we walked there. We got a computer for a half hour, so we could see if we had a confirmation email from the hotel in Nice. Unfortunately we didn't, so we checked our other email and played with a map of our trip until our time ran out.
We walked back to the train station and looked at the big board to find our track. The sign said our train would probably be 20 minutes late, so we sat down and read until it showed up. When the train pulled up, we got on and took our plush first class seats. A four hour train ride, with more glimpses of the Mediterranean. We read, Kara played Tetris & Dr. Mario, and we listened to a kickass playlist I whipped up on the ol' iPod... I should become a professional DJ! :p I looked up in the tour books where our hotel was located and since we were arriving late-ish, we decided to take a cab.
When the train arrived in Nice, I showed the address to the cabbie, and he said it was only a 5 minute walk. So we set off down the street for what was more like a 10-15 minute walk. When we found the hotel I realized that we went to the wrong one. We had booked at Hotel Petite Louvre, but I had lead us to Hotel Petite Trianon! All that walking for nothing! We hit an internet cafe to confirm that it was indeed the Louvre and that we had received a room confirmation. It was and we had, so we marched back toward the train station where our actual hotel was located.
Check-in was quick, we rode the lift to the 3rd floor, and got into our room. We were hungry for dinner, so we left our room and walked around until we found a place that looked good. I got a pizza that had tomato sauce, cheese, kalamata olives, and anchovies on it! It was pretty tasty, but as usual those anchovies are too salty! With our bellies full, we walked back to our hotel room.
Since we are staying in Nice for 2-3 nights, we decided to do ALL of our laundry. There are 2 sinks in our room (there is a bathroom and a kitchenette) so we each grabbed a sink and washed our own clothes. With our laundry done, we turned on our AC and climbed into bed. So, nothing very exciting today, but it was nice to take it easy & get our chores done.
