Cannes You See the Stars?

Day 116
My alarm went off early and I packed up as quickly and quietly as I could. When I brought my bags downstairs to leave with the Pink Lady for some time she asked me if I was comfortable. I replied yes. The hostel was a dump, but I couldn't tell her that to her face.

A few minutes later I met Laura and we headed off to Cannes. While we looked for the tourist office we wandered by the beach. I guess that I am a bit of a prude because I really feel that bikini tops belong on the body and not on the sand. Also, if you cannot see your feet when you look down a speedo is simply not appropriate beachwear. This goes treble for anyone over 60. Laura seemed more appalled by the silicone body parts than the missing tops.

Near the tourist office was the red carpet. Along with the other tourists we took turns posing. There were also some cutouts that we took corny pictures with.

After admiring the huge boats (one even had a helicopter) we walked down the main shopping drag. We stopped to take pictures by one of the fancy hotels and a paparazzi guy took the picture for us.

There are two islands near Cannes, one has a monastery and the other a prison. Not just any prison though, St. Marguerite is where the man in the mask, and Leonardo DiCaprio was imprisoned. After a boat ride, which I managed to not puke on, we got to the island. We wanted to head straight for the prison but go really lost along the way. We ended up exploring almost every side of the island before we got to the place that we really wanted to be.

The fort itself was kinda boring. The museum was pretty good though. Basically the king could imprison people without a trial for any reason. Those were the types of people imprisoned here. The man in the iron mask was here for quite a while. It is a mystery as to who he really was. About sixty people have been suggested, but the truth is lost to history. Also imprisoned here were a lot of protestant ministers. They were here to be reprogrammed.

Prior to being a fort the Romans had some stuff up here and we were able to visit the cistern. It was pretty cool to see how these had been changed into a prison.

At this point we had seen the island and I had a really nasty sunburn. It was time to go back to Cannes. Due to the timing of the boat I didn't have any time left and had to go straight to the train station while Laura planned to stay and check out the old town. We said a quick goodbye and made plans to see each other in Germany before I ran for a train.

Back in Nice I had just enough time to grab my bags from the Pink Lady and head off to the train station. I had a very early night train to Dijon. When I boarded the train I was disappointed to find that there wasn't really enough light to even read by so I simply let the rocking of the train lull me to sleep.

Happy 4th of July!

Day 115
Today was my day to see Nice and it was a hot one. It was also laundry day. Due to this I was forced to wear jeans as they were the least smelly item of clothing that I currently owned. I dropped my things off at the laundromat and headed out for the day.

To get to the Matisse Museum I had to spend about 45 minutes walking up hill. I was an extremely hot person by the time I got up there.

Much to my delight the small museum was free and sorta air conditioned. Everything on display here was either created by Matisse or part of his personal collection. Some of his first works were here. He practiced by copying older paintings in the Louvre. Seeing those paintings was quite interesting. It was really easy to see how his work evolved and became his own.

While I was near the museum I also visited some Roman ruins. The plan had been to make lunch at the hostel and then head to the art history museum. This didn't quite happen. I was just so hot and uncomfortable that I couldn't go all the way down there. I ended up taking a nap and then spending a bit of time at the internet cafe. It wasn't long before it was time to pick up my laundry and get myself ready for a night out.

Around 6 I met up with Laura. We headed to the old town for dinner. At the first place we sat down at a rather rude waitress told us to come back in an hour. We grabbed a drink and wandered a bit looking at prices. In the end we liked the prices at the first place and went back. The waitress said 'it look like you two survived.' Looking over the menus we couldn't find the dish that we wanted. At this point we realized that we had been looking at the menu at the place next door. We left and the waitress followed us out and yelled at us for leaving. I'm kinda glad that they didn't get any of my money.

After dinner we wandered along the beach and got some ice cream. Laura got olive ice cream of all odd things. After another drink we decided to call it a night. Luckily we were only staying one block from one another so neither of us had to wander Nice alone at night.

Cloudy Day

Day 114
I was finally able to sleep in a bit because my train wasn't until 7:20. Still, it wasn't long before I had my act together and was on my way to Marseilles.

When I arrived in Marseilles I had no idea which way I should go to find the tourist office and a map. After some lucky wandering I stumbled upon it. I actually just picked the downhill direction.

After a short walk around the Vieux Port I came to a memorial dedicated to WWII and the concentration camps. The ground floor had quotes in French about I don't know what. The second floor had pictures of the camps and ghettos. The top floor had some earth and ash from each of the major camps. Overall it was small but still well done.

Nearby was a cathedral that the guy at the tourist office had recommended. It was alright, but nothing too special. I then tried to visit the Roman Dock Museum, but for some reason it was closed. Instead I took a stroll around the harbor as it began to rain. It was a nice change from the last few uber hot days.

Eventually I came to the St. Victor Abbey. The Abbey dated all the way back to the 5th century and sat on a much older Greek aqueduct foundation. Most of the current building was constructed in 1040. It was a nice church, but I was there for the crypts. I didn't know if there would be anything creepy down there, but it was worth a try.

I didn't find any dead bodies, but I did manage to find some interesting statues and architecture. I was even able to take pictures which is always good.


Afterwards I headed up, and I mean up to Notre Dame de la Garda. This cathedral is located on a 154 meter hill. It's rather new at only about 150 years old. The nautical theme was pretty interesting. I spent some time here just sitting and catching my breath. The view of Marseilles was simply amazing and I studied it from each angle.

At this point there wasn't anything left on my to do list in Marseilles so I headed to the train station and got the next train back. I was happy that it was still pretty early on in the day. I headed straight to the internet cafe and spent almost 5 hours getting the blog up to date and dealing with some credit card issues. By the time I had finished it was just about midnight. Back in the hostel I tried to fall asleep. There was another room that you could only get to by walking through my room. The door to this room didn't close the entire way. The couple in there was having very loud sex. Even with my ipod on high I couldn' t cover the noise. Eventually they finished and I was greatfull for the silence.

Popes and Bridges

Day 113
I was up early again and on the same train as the day before. However, this time I was going a bit further to Avignon. It's too bad that the day trips couldn't have been switched, meaning less time in Axe and more in Avignon.

When the train got there I was some ways out of town and had to take a bus in. At least I wasn't so confused this time around. After stopping by the tourist office and getting a map I headed straight to Le Pont Saint Benezet. Apparently everyone in the world learns a song about the bridge except for me. Still, I felt the need to check it out.

In 1177 a farmer had a vision from god that he was to build a bridge over the Rhone. Everyone thought that he was crazy. The local priest told him that they would build the bridge if he could move an impossibly big stone on his own. Somehow he did it and the bridge was built. St: Benezet's bones were placed in a chapel on the bridge, but later moved.

The bridge was partially destroyed in 1226 and then rebuilt. During the middle ages Avignon was a huge port and tolls were received on the bridge. Apparently salt was stolen by the locals in such large quantities that they became known for it. The bridge was also quite narrow, making it very dangerous to cross. Despite the large danger of falling people did cross it, they joked that upon crossing the pont you always passed 2 nuns, 2 prostitutes and 2 soldiers. I seemed to only pass other tourists. In 1633 part of the bridge collapsed and it was abandoned. It wasn't until the 19th century that it became a tourist attraction.

I think the most interesting part of the bridge was how it affected local history. The audio guide spoke more about Avignon history than the actual bridges history. Even though I didn't know the song I very much enjoyed the story.

During the 13th century Italy was a pretty dangerous place and the papal court was forced to spend about 100 years traveling around. In 1309 Pope Clement V (the same one to give the order to kill the Templars) got to Avignon and decided to stay. This move radically changed Catholic history. Over 100 years 9 popes reined from Avignon. In 1335 construction began on a new Papal Palace, this was my main reason for coming to Avignon. I was a bit disappointed to find out that there isn't very much left from the papal court, however a huge amount of research has been done so it is easy to see how the place looked and how it functioned.

The papacy essentially owned Avignon. They seemed happy there, but the Italian princes often tried to bring them back to Rome. In 1376 Gregory XI went for a visit and died there. Rome took this as their chance to reclaim the papacy and elected Urban VI as pope. France didn't want to loose the papacy and elected Clement VII. This began the great schism that lasted 40 years. Both sides wanted the other to step down. This never really happened. In 1423 the French pope died and they simply did not elect another one.

One the papacy had left Avignon they palace was left to the care of various cardinals. Some of them restored and even enlarged the palace, while others ignored it. Eventually there were a few fires and the building fell into decline. Napoleon actually used it as barracks. It's easy to see how so much was lost. Restoration began in the 1930's and continued until the 1960's.

It was really fascinating for me to be able to visit something that I had studied so often in school. I love how travel does this again and again!

The palace was huge and the free audio guide was very detailed. Basically the palace took up my entire day. There was no way that I could visit the art museum as planned. Instead I wandered the medieval streets for about 30 minutes before heading off to the train station.

Back at Nice I spent some time blogging before calling it a night.

Axe Marks the Spot

Day 112
In hindsight I really should have spent 3 nights in Nice and 4 nights in Marseilles. Three of the five day trips I have planned have me going right through there.

During my high speed train ride to Axe-en-Provence (pronounced X) I caught up with my journal and listened to my ipod. Once I got to the TGV station I was a bit dismayed to find out that I wasn't in Axe. I was about 10 kilometers from there and had to take a bus.

When I had finally gotten to the city I was greeted by a huge fountain and the tourist office. After consulting my options over a cup of tea I headed to Cezannes Studio. It was a small cottage and a garden on the outskirts of town. The English tour wasn't until 5 pm, after the last train, so I simply wandered the gardens.

While I was wandering I found a beautiful square with a market. I tried to buy something that looked like an apple but felt like a plum, but the guy at the stall told me that it was a gift. I thanked him and found a fountain to wash it off in. I don't know what it was, but it was yummy.

Aix is a really cute town and I had a good time just wandering. I did, however, purposely seek out the St. Sauveur Cathedral. My guidebook told me that during the revolution the heads of the statues had been chopped off and had not been replaced. I looked everywhere, inside and out, but the only statue without a head on its shoulders was a saint that 's head was in his hands instead. Bummer.

Paul Cezanne spent quite a bit of time here and some of his works ended up in the Granet Museum. His paintings were all upstairs and there was quite a bit to see before getting there. I particularly like the small sculpture collection and the one of Pandora emptying out the box. The bad things looked like ribbons floating over her body. There were also several painted that were inspired by Cezanne, some of them were good, but many of them just looked like ripoffs to me.

I had expected the Cezanne collection to be larger, but it was still quite good. There were a few still life's and portraits. My favorite was the Girl with a Mirror. The most interesting object they had was one of Cezannes paint pallets.

Inspired by the art in the museum and the music in the streets I headed to Deux Grcon's, a favorite hangout of Cezannes. I don't blame him either, the food was pretty good.

After wandering a bit more it was growing quite hot and I was tired. I decided to head back to the train station and see if I could get an earlier train. Luckily I could, and if everything went well I would be back two hours earlier than expected.

When I got to Marseilles I was upset to find out that my train was an hour and a half delayed. To kill the time I bought a book and went to have a drink at the bar. Suddenly a massive commotion broke out. One of the women at the bar was yelling at the bartender (also female) who yelled back. The very loud woman turned her beer upside down letting it spill everywhere before putting it down hard on the bar. After a few more screams she left. I thought it was over. Then she came back and yelled some more. The bartender had a glass of water in her hand and threw in on the womans face. This did nothing but enrage her more. She picked up the glass had set down and hurled it at the bartender. Luckily she missed and it shattered on the coffee machine. Everyone at the bar grabbed their glasses so that she wouldn't have any more ammunition. Finally security showed up and lead her away. The whole thing was just crazy. I don't even know what it was actually about because I don't speak French.

When my train finally showed up it sat at the station for about 30 minutes. By the time I actually got back to Nice I was 45 minutes later than I would have been if I had stayed with my original train. I guess you win some and you lose some.

After a brief Internet session I headed back to my gross hostel a very very tired person.

Friend in Nice

Day 111
After another cold shower I was definitely wide awake and ready to go. I was headed to Monaco, a country the size of Central Park. The train wasn't air conditioned and there was no first class. This is simply not the way I travel.

Some girls at the hostel had given me a map so I didn't need to find the tourist office and was able to hit the ground running. I headed straight up to the Prince's Palace, but it wasn't opened yet. I had about 45 minutes to kill so I grabbed a cappuccino. This didn't quite fill the time though, so I went to the Cathedral instead.

This cathedral is where American actress Grace Kelly married Prince Rainer in 1956. Outside of the cathedral were pictures of their wedding. In fact, all over Monaco were pictures of Grace Kelly in the same spot, it was kinda cool. Princess Grace was killed in a car accident in 1982, Prince Rainer died in 2005. They are buried besides each other and about 32 other generations of Grimaldi princes.

Once I was back at the palace I was delighted to find out that a free audio guide came with the ticket. I just wasn't allowed to take pictures. More impressive than the stately rooms was the crash course in Monegasque history. In the 15^th century the Grimaldi family took control of Monaco. The title of prince was not used until 1612. The palace, which began as a fortress, is still occupied by the royal family. The 15 or so rooms that I was able to see were decorated with various period themes in mind. They had an interesting feel because the artwork was both French and Italian and therefore in rather conflicting styles. Monaco is basically protected by France under the Treaty of Peron, in fact, even the police are French citizens. One of the many portraits was of Prince Rainer, Princess Grace and their three children circa 1981.

Next to the palace and included in the ticket was a small history museum and a display on Napoleonic stuff. Why it was here, I don't know. They had wall paper from the jail cell Louis XVI was kept in before his death as well as several of Napoleon's hats. The history bit wasn't very interesting. I just had a lot of metals from various orders and wooden figures. Not sure why.

Still wanting to know more about Monaco's history I headed to the Monaco Story movie. I was the only person there at that time so they couldn't run it, however I was able to ask a few of the questions that I was most interested in. Basically Monaco was neutral during WWII and only pulled in due to their relationship with France. No on from Monaco fought, however some bombs were dropped on the town.

There wasn't really anything else I was interested in other than checking out the Monte Carlo Casino, the source of Monaco's wealth. I was way under dressed and really sweaty so I couldn't get it, but I could admire it from the outside. It was quite a building.

At this point I had to get back to Nice so that I would be on time to meet Lauren to go swimming. Unfortunately, she had not known that she would have classes in the afternoons. However, she snuck away to let me know so that we could push back our plans.

With my free afternoon I went to the supermarket and spent some more time at the Internet cafe. For whatever reason I was having an awful time getting the pictures off the memory card from paragliding. The people at the Internet cafe were really nice and it took all three of us to figure out the problem. By the time I left the pictures were ready to go.

At 6pm it was still warm and light out and I was definitely ready for a dip in the Mediterranean. Lauren met me at the corner and we walked about 20 minutes to the beach. We spent about an hour or so floating and chatting. Some nearby Spanish boys kept taking each others trunks off. Suddenly Lauren screamed and told me that something had bit her. Right away we started moving towards the shore. Lauren was much faster than me and I trailed behind. Once we were on the rocks (no sand here) we could tell that she had been stung by a jelly fish. I didn't even know they had those here. We sat and dried off for a while. Neither of us really felt like getting back in the water. When it started getting cold we headed back. Before we parted ways we made plans to meet up for Friday night. It was really nice to have a friend in Nice!

After washing away the salt water in my first hot shower in days I spent a bit of time planning a future leg of the trip before calling it a night.

Isn't it Nice?

Day 110

I was up early but I don't know why. After a cold shower that left me feeling dirty I headed to the train station to make some reservations. I didn't want to run into the same problem again for my day trips and my night train out of here. I also picked up some info from the tourist office.

After wandering down to the beach I tried to figure out what to do with myself. I was still really sore and didn't want to walk too much. I couldn't find an English movie without great effort and decided to simply take a nap.

When I woke up I went to a nearby Internet cafe and started the arduous process of getting blog up to date. I think that I will just refer to it as blog from now on, I feel like it is my travel companion at this point and deserves a name, even if it is an uncreative one.

I got most of my pictures organized before I decided to find some dinner. The final Eurocup game was close to starting and I didn't want to miss any of it. Germany was playing Spain and it was sure to be a good match. Plus, I'd seen almost all of the games over the last month and felt like I just had to watch this one.

I picked a bar close to my hostel and managed to meet Lauren, from Germany, the only other person in the bar supporting Germany.

Germany started out strong, but once Spain scored about 30 minutes in they kinda gave up, losing 0-1. It was sad. Lauren and I left right away, but planned to meet up the next day to go swimming.

I headed back to the hostel and called it a night.

Trains, Trains and Trains

Day 109
I was up early, I had to be. It was going to take me all day to get to Nice, France. I would have liked to spend more time in Switzerland but it was really expensive and my budget had already taken enough of a hit. Switzerland was just about my favorite place so far and I know that I will return some day.

To get to Nice I needed to spend about 10 hours on five different trains. All the quick connections were booked up so I was stuck with local trains. I spent the rides to Bern and Geneva writing in my journal.

When I got to Geneva I had about 6 minutes to connect to my train to France. I was really sore from the day before and just not able to move quickly with all of my bags weighing me down and I missed it. I figured that it wouldn't be a big deal, there is always a later train. After checking with the reservations people I found out that I might not be able to get to Nice because everything was booked up. I was told to check in Marseilles.

I wasn't really nervous, I had begged my way on trains before and I was pretty sure that this would work out too. Still, it was in the back of my mind as I waited for immigration to open up. While I was waiting I met an American guy who was obviously very hungover and still drinking. He had lost his passport and was hoping that they would let him in with just a copy. In the end, they told him to get lost or show them him passport. My scheduling issue didn't seem so bad.

In Lyon I went ahead and checked to see if there was anything that had opened up. Fortunately a train was about 10 minutes late and I could get on it to Marseilles and then pick up the local train I was meant to get from the beginning. It's a miracle in France.

When I got to Nice it was still light out and I had no problems finding my hostel. Well, that is the restaurant that I was told to ask for the pink lady at. The pink lady (who always wore pink dresses better suited for a night club) and her friend (the blue lady?) were first hand witnesses to the French revolution. Coincidentally, that was the same time that the hostel was last cleaned. This place was gross, the dirtiest I'd been at yet. I was too tired to try and find a solution though and knew that I would rather pay the smaller price anyway. It was only 7 nights, how bad could that be?