Easter Weekend in Nice

During my time studying in Torino on Erasmus my friend, Maya, and I decided to take a weekend trip away to the Côte d’Azur, or The French Riviera, to see some friends. It was the Easter holidays and everyone that we knew in Turin was with going back home or travelling – no one was staying in the city. The Easter weekend was getting closer and closer and we had no idea what to do or where to go.

One of my friends from Glasgow was spending her term abroad in the beautiful city of Nice in the South of France. She had suggested that we come and visit her over the Easter break as she was going to be off work. It was an amazing opportunity as I had never been before and as we were in the North West of Italy, Nice was actually quite close!

Getting there

After looking at different travel possibilities, we discovered that BlaBlaCar was the best option. It’s a car-share company that allows people to offer places in their car when driving to different cities. Luckily, we found a guy who was doing a return journey for the same days that we wanted to go. He was a French man living in Italy, so it was a great opportunity for us to practice our French and Italian as we spent three hours in the car together each way.

We got there in the early afternoon on the Thursday. My friend, Paula, came to meet us and showed us around her part of town. We headed up to the apartment, dumped our stuff, freshened up then headed out. She took us to the bar area in the Old Town of Nice. Perhaps a bit touristic but it was amazing. We stopped for some dinner of ‘Moules et Frites’ (Mussels and Chips) before hitting the pub scene.

We headed to Rue de la Préfecture where we met some of Paula’s friend. We ended up in a pub called ‘Wayne’s Bar’ – it was mental. It has live music every night, with a long list of cocktails and pub grub. As the night went on, everybody was dancing on the tables singing along to the band that was playing covers of famous songs. We ended up spending the next three nights in Wayne’s Bar as it was that good. We went to a few others such as King’s Bar and Le Bulldog but Wayne’s was always the best.

Day 1

Our first full day in Nice was a day of exploring. We walked along the beautiful Promenade des Anglais watching the crystal clear blue water hitting the rocky beach. Everybody was so active, skateboarding, cycling, running, rollerblading, you name it, along the famous beach front. It really is stunning!

After we had a little hike up to the Castle Hill to see the Panorama de la Baie des Anges. The view point is breath-taking. It was so sunny and so hot that we stopped off for a drink in one of the park cafes before heading back down towards the old town looking into old antique shops and watching the hustle and bustle of the town.

Day 2

The next day, we checked out the vibrant flower market in the old town. It was gorgeous and the smell in the air was amazing! We spent the afternoon chilling on the stony beach, taking in the hot sun.

That was one thing I didn’t like about Nice; the beaches were rocky and pebbly making sunbathing quite a painful activity. We decided to take a stroll along the promenade, past the end of the beach. We came across a massive monument carved in to the rock of the Castle Hill. It was the ‘Monument aux Morts’, commemorating the Nice citizens killed during World War Two. It was fascinating as Paula and I were both writing our dissertations on the French Resistance during WWII.

After another meal of Moules et Frites in the Old Town, we had to end our last night on a high, so we went back to good old Wayne’s Bar. It was crazy as always but I wasn’t so happy the day after during our three-hour journey back to Turin as our driver was insisting that we chat to him the whole way.

It was an amazing weekend! The South of France is gorgeous and I now understand why everyone makes such a fuss. Thankfully I knew someone staying there as it’s not the cheapest of cities and accommodation would have been extortionate.

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