A night in Nice
We traveled safely along the coast to Nice from Levanto on the train. It was very comfortable and allowed me to catch up on some blogs and Cam on some work. We arrived in time to walk happily to our simple hotel which was very central and close to the things we wanted to see. A short walk around the the square, fabulous fountain and out to the seafront was well worth the leg stretch.
We did this again in the evening after hunting down restaurant on google to find that it was just a hole in the wall. We felt like a bit more than this so ended up with a really nice little restaurant down a side street and had a great meal – writing this now a few months later I can no longer remember its name sadly. I was keen to see what the lights were like at night so we headed back to the square and boy it was so worth it – the very strange people on the stands were lit up and very impressive.
We just had the one night her and Cam and Holly popped up to get our rental car the next morning while I did a supermarket shop armed with handy google translate!! It was a wet get away our first really rainy day but we had been upgraded to quite a bit bigger vehicle with proper GPS instead of Mrs google who was a bit slow so that was a bonus. Off we headed with Nimes our next stop and only a few hours travel luckily as we were keen to explore the area around Nimes.
Nimes – Flamingos Who Knew
After a bit of a wet drive we arrived safely in Nimes and at our very comfortable accommodation – we were all in one room and we kept teasing Holly about being in the little bed by mum and dad. it was perfect for one night, absolutely central and very friendly staff.
We took a walk around the local area and keen particularly to see the Colosseum, much smaller than Rome but very intact. Holly having done the real thing and being a little tired stayed for a rest in the hotel while Cam and I did a pretty quick whip around it. We could have spend ages more and would definitely suggest a few days in Nimes if you have it but we didn’t. We were also keen to go for a drive to Camargue park to see if we could find some flamingoes – we were told you just see them by the road, we were not so sure but headed out towards the end of the day to see what we could find. We headed to Aigues-Mortes which is also a very pretty walled village that again sadly we could not visit.
By this time it was mid to late afternoon and I said to the car “there is zero chance we are gong to see flamingoes how do we know where to go” when less than one minute later there they were just along the side of the road in the estuaries.
Out came the camera and driving on to sea and then along the roads to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer they were just everywhere and really close to the road. There were also ‘wild’ white horses and herons. Rain or no rain it was a massive highlight and definitely worth the drive. Once again it would be great not to be rushed. With the light failing we had to head back.
On the advice of our hotel we went to a local french restaurant run by a local family. It was an incredible meal with grandson, mum and grandma all having their part. The food was incredible and atmosphere just perfect. Once again writing this when I have come home I am sadly forgetting some of the detail.
The morning saw us head off for Spain and our adventures over the borders. We made just one more stop and that was at the walled city of Carrcosone. We made this our lunch stop and had a really interesting walk around it. The church had huge stained glass windows and was really worth a look, it had a huge museum that would have been great to go into and heaps of little stalls all set up inside.
