Bonjour!

day 69 // manarola (ct) // monterosso (ct) // monaco // nice

What a day! Today was a traveling day. We woke up a bit earlier today so that we could grab breakfast next door before heading out to take the train to Monterosso. Except the breakfast place was closed. We looked around for another place, but the town is so small and we are convinced it just shuts down on Mondays. We found a little "coop" store were we got some orange juice and a banana, then went back to our room to eat some granola bars we had packed. We made sure we were all packed up before we checked out and boarded the train. It was a quick ride to Monterosso, but right when we got there Shelly realized she forgot her little backpack back at the other station. We called the station and they had it, so Shelly took the quick train back there to get it. When she was doing that, my mom and I just sat at a little cafe overlooking the ocean at the train station and it was awesome. When Shelly came back, we walked along the ocean sidewalk and found a place to grab lunch on the water. We had foccacia paninis and drinks (I had a smoothie and they had wine). Monterosso is known for being the more beachy, resort town which is totally true, but since it's not tourist season it was so nice and calm. Cinque Terre in general is truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It's just perfect. After lunch we headed back to the station to catch our train to Nice, France. This was our long one - 5 hours. We thought we were going to be on the nicer, faster train that hardly stopped for this ride, but we weren't. Oh well. We sat next to a guy who was continually making Italian mating call sounds at us the whole 5 hours, so that was fun. After several long hours we finally arrived at Ventimiglia (correct me if I'm wrong on the name Mom) where we had to get out and switch trains. We switched to a little bit nicer one, but not a whole lot. Then it was a short distance to Monaco, where we switched trains to get to Nice. There were some obnoxious French teenage boys on our last train ride, but it made it interesting. Plus we were just so happy to finally hear some French accents and language. When we were asking the lady at the station information desk about how to get to our hotel, Shelly looked down and saw her purse open and wallet gone. We looked at each other in shock because we had no idea when or how she could have been pick-pocketed. We were right, she hadn't been. She had subconsciously put her wallet in her other bag and left the zipper open. So all was well and everyone had all their stuff once again. PHEW. Then we took a taxi to our hotel in Nice. WHICH IS AWESOME BY THE WAY. I'll try to get good pictures to post, but the hotel is just great. I'm not used to nice hotels and stuff on this trip, I'm used to hostels and unisex community showers, so this is quite the step up. We got settled before heading down to the main square nearby for dinner. We found this awesome restaurant and all had really awesome meals. The best part was the delicious crepes for dessert. I had bananas & chocolate, Shelly had plain chocolate, and my mom had caramel. I talk about food too much but these were soooo good. When in France right? Then we headed back to the hotel full and exhausted from a long day of traveling.

PS - Look back on my most recent couple of posts. I added the photos from my camera of Cinque Terre. I'M OBSESSED WITH THAT PLACE.