French Riviera Weekend

My girls weekend getaway to the French Riviera seemed like it was going to take forever to get here and now it's gone, whoosh. What a good time it was though to be in France with a girlfriend. I've never had the huge desire to go to France, although I took two years of French in HS. No, I don't really recall much of it, sad. Well I mean, I did want to see France but it wasn't high on my list while living here. It's just so easily accessible so we wanted to see more Eastern Block countries because we know we'll probably never pinpoint them out for a specific vacation in the future. You know what I mean?

The adventure began last Friday with me pacing in the house waiting for my taxi to pick me up at 2pm. Erik was just watching me pace and listening to me babble nonsense, or just continue to say the same thing over and over in different ways. I get wired out before flying, nerves I guess. Anyhow, taxi was waiting for me when I got downstairs and he spoke English, always a bonus. We drove about 25min and I paid him about $6-7 dollars for the ride. Our airport isn't big so it's super easy to navigate and figure out. I chose to check a bag (costs extra with RyanAir) because I didn't want the hassle of a larger roller carry-on. I like to just have a hand sized bag at my feet on the plane with a book, snack, electronics etc.

The flight itself from Poznan to London-Stansted was 2hrs and went by quickly since I was absorbed in a WWI book, City of Thieves. Weird to be reading about the Russians and Germans fighting as I'm flying out of Poland across Germany. Anyhow, the landing was horrid. It was like we got dropped out of the sky and shaken side to side like a snow globe. Then everyone starts cheering and clapping. I sat there a little stunned and thought to myself "What the hell just happened?" because I was deep into my book. It was the worst landing I've ever experienced, EVER. Anyhow, the weather was cold and rainy but I didn't have to go outside because I was meeting Heidi at the RyanAir counter. She lives in England so she drove about 45min to get to the Stansted airport in the cold rain, yuck. It was less expensive for me to buy two tickets from Poland on RyanAir rather than flying directly down to Marseille from where I live, just in case you were wondering about my routing.

Anyhow, we met up and rechecked my bag, she checked one as well. I opted to buy priority boarding because the cattle call I experienced in Poznan was awful. It only cost 4 pounds each, and it's so worth it. It's better to buy priority boarding at the airport than to purchase it online with your ticket. We chose to sit near the back and we were able to leave the middle seat open between us. I really don't know how long the flight from London down to Marseille (pronouned Mar-Say) took. We left at 710pm and arrived just after 10. I think different time zones, not sure, don't care really. Anyhow, that ride went quick.

We picked up our rental car from Hertz booked via Expedia and drove to our hotel which really was across the street from the airport, the Pullman. Fancy place and really quiet by the time we got there at 1130pm. It took us an hour to clear customs/immigration, awful. They only had two people processing two flights that landed at the same time, arrghh.

The next morning we jumped into the car, set our handy gps that I brought and off to Cassis, France it was. It's a coastal village/town nestled within the Calanques (cliffs). The terrain in the entire southern France region is very mountainous, just wasn't expecting that. At times it looked just like the deserts of Arizona. Anyhow, Cassis (pronouned Ca -see) was perfect, small and quaint, loved it. We took a boat tour out to the Calanques (we opted just to see three) and it was gorgeous. I wish I could have done some diving.

After messing around there for a bit and having lunch we opted to take the coastal road to Saint Tropez. This was about a 2-2.5hr drive. It was a pretty drive and I'm glad we did it, once is enough though. I can't imagine how backed up and slow that can get in the touristy time of year. Saint Tropez was our destination for dinner but it was waaaay busy and crowded with a car show. Parking was completely insane and we decided it might be better to continue to find our hotel before sunset. We didn't make it before sunset but close enough. Our hotel, Tiara Miramar Beach Hotel, is a spa type place carved out of the cliff and runs down to the water. You'll see it from pictures when I get them posted. We got a 50% deal that allowed us to afford to stay there for two nights in a Jr Suite facing the sea, perfect it was.

Our hotel restaurant was fully booked so they suggested another place up the road about 1km. Oh my gosh, a little slice of heaven this place was. Warm, friendly, quaint, incredible food and a great bottle of wine from the Cote de Rhone region. I have it written down so we can look for it again. Yummers!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact the restaurant was so good we drove all the way back there for dinner the second night after spending the day in Monaco with a detour on the way home through Cannes.

Okay, the second day as I just stated we drove to Monaco so we can hit the famous Monte Carlo Casino. What a crazy land of the wealthy that place is. You should have seen the size of the yachts in the harbor! There was an outfit on a mannequin in one of the shops we walked by the the t-shirt alone was $600 and the jeans were $1000. We ate lunch out front of the Casino and had one of the best drinks I've ever had. They called it the Grand Prix, go figure. It had Champagne, Cognac and some other stuff. The drinks alone cost more than our food but it was well worth it and the people watching was fun. We wished we could have seen the place during the evening hours when the "action" takes place but watching all the tourists have their photos taken with all the fancy cars was entertaining enough. We paid 10Euro just to go inside the Casino and we lost some money in the slots, no big deal. They tables were too expensive to play, imagine that.

After the Monte Carlo we drove up to the Royal Palace and Jacque Cousteau Aquarium area. We didn't have time for the Aquarium, big bummer. Had we done that then we would have had to cut out Cannes and drive home in the dark, not a good idea. The parking garage alone was fascinating, carved right into the cliff, several levels too, very cool. The area where the Palace is was quite charming and the gardens were beautiful and peaceful (well, if there weren't tourists everywhere, like ourselves).

From Monaco we drove back to Cannes and strolled the waterfront on the famous Street, La Croisette. Nothing looked appealing for dinner and a lot of places were closed, must have been a Sunday thing. So we drove back to our little restaurant by our hotel, again it was so good.

The final morning we again chilled out with our coffee on the balcony and watched the water. We had until 1030pm before our flight left, so no hurry. We drove back towards Marseille for a couple of hours and went to a town called Arles. It's where they have some Roman ruins and Van Gogh painted Starry Nights and Cafe Terrace at Night. It was neat to stand at the exact spot he did when he painted them. The Mistrel winds were whipping through the entire region all day and it made it kind of cold out, wasn't wearing a coat. We ordered up some Latte's and Crepes, yummy. Everything else was closed because it was between lunch and dinner time. We took some backroads back to the airport for the heck of it hoping to find a charming little restaurant for dinner. NOPE, nothing. So we ate dinner at the airport, salmon ravioli is what I had, not bad.

We flew back into London-Stansted and waited yet another hour to get processed through immigration, so frustrating. By the time we got through that, got Heidi's car out of parking and drove to her house it was nearly 2am. The morning came quickly and we rallied with some coffee. Her kids are sooo adorable, ages 5 and 2+. She got them off to school and then we drove to Lakenheath AFB for a few mintues to check out the BX and get gas. She then drove me back to the airport and off I went back to Poland.