A week ago today I spent my evening with one of my Wisconsin housemates, Caimyn, up on Piazzale Michelangelo at the Gelato Festival! The gist of it is that you pay a little bit of money (in our case, six euro each) and you get to try fourteen different flavors of gelato and vote on your favorite! However, this is no little taster spoon of some ice cream, this is them giving you a small dish or a mini waffle cone and you soon find yourself with the challenge of eating it all.
We did in fact manage to try all the flavors, which actually ended up being fifteen, and we only threw out the second half of a couple of cones, because we either didn't like the flavor at all (cherry) or simply did not want to waste the stomach space. It was an incredibly enjoyable experience and we got to ogle over our beautiful city at night because we were up there for quite a while.
(To the left was my favorite flavor of gelato, one that was an egg-like flavor, and to the right is one of the many pictures of the other fourteen flavors Caimyn and I had, however this gelato was lucky because it was set in front of the beautiful city backdrop for its picture.)
(Look at my beautiful little city at night. It'd be nearly impossible not to love it.)
So the day after the phenomenal Gelato Festival I went with one of my housemates here, Bri, to southern France! One thing to preface the rest of this blog: I had a chocolate croissant every day I was there, and they were phenomenal. Alright. On to the French Riviera:
On Friday we left by bus to Nice, France, where we of course made innumerable jokes about it being nice, or having nice things there. We wandered around that evening to find food and fell in love with the main little boulevard. It was very pretty. We walked for quite a while around to different places and eventually settled upon this little place that had French onion soup! I was so excited. We both ordered soup and it was delightful. It was thicker and a little less broth-based than most French onion soups I’ve had but obviously still delicious. I was also very happy because I have been to Northern France but never had soup, and since it's one of my favorites I felt very accomplished.
(Me and my French onion soup that is about to be happily devoured.)
The next morning we made our way through some public transportation to get to Eze, France and the tiny country of Monaco. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world (after the Vatican), based on land space, and actually is the most densely populated country in the world, currently.
We were in Eze village which was beautiful and the weather was wonderful for us. We explored some artsy shops before stopping at this wonderful little sandwich shop for a bite to eat. Then we went to the exotic gardens which were absolutely incredible. Many of the plants reminded me of my favorite landscapes in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(Exotic Gardens at the top of Eze Village)
When we were done in Eze we took a bus a little further east to Monaco, where we visited Monte Carlo Casino! It was so exciting too because we actually got to go in! I wasn't sure how it would work because it is obviously still a functional casino and since we are obviously not of the proper caliber to really stay and gamble there, I wasn't sure what our experience would be like. To take matters even better, we payed to get into this section of the casino open to the regular public, put five euro into a slot machine and struggled through figuring out how to use it. We obviously didn’t win anything but it was awesome. Plus now I can say that the first casino I have ever gambled in was Monte Carlo. I don't think it can get much better than that.
(Bri and I standing in front of Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco)
We took a train back to Nice and stayed there for the night. We found a place to eat and I had risotto with prawns, which was a big step for me since I really don’t enjoy shrimp-like foods. I also had myself a glass of Chardonnay which was quite nice.
On Sunday we headed west to Antibes. There we went to the Picasso Museum and got ourselves some macaroons to enjoy out by the marina.
(All three above are photos taken in Antibes, France, including a landscape shot, a detail shot of some flowers on our way to the museum, and our beautifully colored macaroons.)
Our next stop was continuing west to Marseille. We arrived there some time in the afternoon, and after walking across the oddly dirty and empty city streets to our hostel, we wandered out to explore a bit. The city was bizarre. First of all, it was windier than I've experienced in a while. Forty to fifty mph winds with gusts up to sixty mph… It was unbelievable. We walked around the Vieux Port (Old Port) for a little while and then saw St. Victor’s Abbey before walking up to see Notre Dame de la Garde. I thought we were going to fall over it was so windy and the wind made it way too cold to enjoy walking around for the sake of it, but we made the best of it.
Now I had one main goal of going to Marseille as we planned this trip... going to visit Château d’If, which is the castle and former prison made famous by the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. A big chunk of the story is based off of Marseille, and having seen the movie I have been determined to go to the island since the last time I was in France. When we got up to the church we could see Château d’If sitting on it's little island because we were basically on a mountain. Unfortunately we couldn’t go in the church because we got there fifteen minutes after it closed, but we took some pictures, sat in awe of Mother Nature’s insanity and then made our way back down to get home.
(A few of Vieux Port as we were walking around the city)
(Me standing up by Notre Dame de la Garde pointing out at the tiny If Island and castle)
For dinner that night we braved the wind once more and went to a place very close by in this cute little square. The restaurant basically makes all different kinds of crepes. I was a little confused at first but they put all sorts of crazy things in these crepes so they are actually dinner foods, not just fluffy desserts.
Monday we were lucky enough to have off of school, so our adventures in the French Riviera continued. On Sunday we got up early and checked out of our hostel in Marseille and headed down to the port in hopes that it would be a little less windy. It wasn’t. This meant that we were unable to take the boat to Chateau d’If so I was devastated, especially since the city has been so odd and not really what I expected. We decided to take the boat to the nearby islands of Frioul which were still running thankfully, so we got to sail up pretty close to the castle, but still were unable to tour it which made me very sad.
(Left: me standing on one of the Frioul islands, Right: a view of Château d’If with Marseille in the background as we passed by boat)
(A view through a boat out toward the mainland of Marseille from the shore of the Frioul Islands)
When we got back we wandered around the other side of the port which was supposed to be like the old town. It was definitely nicer than the side we had been on, but it was still a little odd. We did end up stopping into a café and I got the biggest chocolate croissant I have ever seen and a pretzel bun sandwich! The best part of that was I only paid €3.90 for the two of them.
We walked until we found the other major cathedral in Marseille, ducking into the couple of little shops we saw on the way there, and walked around the coast area for a little while. Eventually we made our way to one side of the port and found this little stretch out of the wind and in direct sunlight where we sat for a while to toast up, and that was great. We tried finding some souvenirs but honestly struggled because so many closed shops everywhere, which was odd.
(The main doors into Cathedrale la Major-The Marseille Cathedral-which I think are some of my favorite doors I have seen here so far)
(A little sailing ship in Vieux Port)
(Trying to soak up some sunshine)
We also took the little tram up to Palais Longchamp, which was very pretty and less cold thankfully. We took lots of pictures there and eventually made our way back to the hostel to grab our bags, to the train station, and on another ride back to Nice.
(Me sitting in front of the Palais Longchamp, which houses the Fine Art Museum and the Natural History Museum)
When we got back to Nice we ended up in a wonderful hostel two minutes from the train station, which was actually more like a hotel, and Bri and I had a double room to ourselves! It was amazing. We went like 50 feet down the street, got ourselves some cheap Chinese fast food, and ate it in our rooms as a late dinner. Cheers to being college students.
We got up early the next morning to spend the day traveling back to Florence, which a city bus, another big bus to Genova, and two trains. It was a long day but we got milkshakes when we got home, as if we hadn't been eating enough unhealthy food. It was a wonderful weekend and beginning to the week, and it's already Thursday so I will be doing other fun stuff this weekend starting tomorrow!
It has started to sink in that we don't have much time left here in Florence, which is freaking everyone out quite frankly, as we try to cram in everything we have not gotten to yet. I still have some pretty big adventures ahead of me, but until those arrive, I am trying my best to enjoy every last bit of my lovely little city. I actually just got back from a free show at the opera, which was a great experience. It was actually the last opera Tchaikovsky wrote, called Iolanta. Random gardens have popped up outside the Uffizi, and there is a golden man riding a giant golden turtle in Piazza della Signoria. The street performers are growing by number as the weather improves and they play earlier in the day as well. Although the tourist numbers are growing almost intolerable, it is still wonderful to be in Florence. I must take it in while I can.
Love, abbie