French Riviera Vacation

My train left at 8:49 am on Thursday. I set my alarm for 7:20 to allow myself enough time to get ready and be out the door by 8, since it takes me about half an hour to travel to the train station. Of course, Thursday was the first day since arriving that I forgot to check the volume of my alarm clock, which just so happened to be on silent. Fortunately, I have a freaky inner-clock. No matter what time my alarm is set for, I almost always wake up a couple of minutes before. While this wasn't exactly the case today, I still miraculously woke up naturally at 7:50am, which was impressive considering my bed time. At 7:55, Madame knocked on my door. When I said "un moment!" since I was changing, Madame said "Kah-tee? I don't need to come in, I just wanted to make sure you were awake. Your train leaves in less than an hour, no? You might want to leave soon!" I thought it was really sweet of her to be concerned, and she even offered me a big slice of baguette on my way out the door. Thank heavens I packed everything up the night before I would've been in serious trouble.

Luckily, I made it to the train station with time to spare. I hopped on the train, which was a high-speed TGV. The journey took about five hours, which is impressive, considering that the length of Paris to Nice is longer than Detroit to Nashville. I started reading Fifty Shades of Grey on the train... I had absolutely no idea what it was about, so you can imagine how shocked I was to find out that it's pretty much a porn novel. After a few chapters of feeling violated, I decided that listening to music would be a better pastime. The last 45 minutes of the ride were absolutely spectacular. It was along the Mediterranean coast, and the ride was filled with magnificent scenery.

The beach in Nice!

I arrived at the apartment we rented around 3pm and it is awesome! The woman who we rented it from is American- she lives in this apartment half of the year then rents it out and lives with a friend the other half. She provided us with beach towels, tote bags, and beach chairs to borrow for our stay here, which have proved to be very convenient. We decided to get our swimsuits on and go to the beach for a couple of hours. The beach chairs definitely came in handy, since the beaches in Nice aren't sandy- the ground is just covered in stones. We made a game out of this by placing someone's shoe about ten yards away and throwing rocks at it... whoever made it in the shoe got a point. I don't know who won, but I definitely know it wasn't me.

Plage Mala!

Sad about missing the train :(

The next day, Missy, Kristin, Patrick, Chris, and I decided to take the train 20 minutes to Cap D'Ail, since we had read that there was a gorgeous secluded beach there. After an extremely packed train ride, we walked for about 15 minutes up and down a winding path of stairs along the coast. We finally arrived to Plage Mala and instantly  understood why it's a favorite vacation spot of Brad and Angelina. The water was electric blue and the whole beach was at the bottom of a huge cliff area. We decided to splurge on ourselves and buy a "spot" at the private part of the small beach, which entitled us each to an extremely comfy chaise lounge. We all ordered a drink off of their fancy menu and felt like superstars when they were delivered straight to our chairs. We spent the majority of the day just laying out in the sun and swimming in the Mediterranean. We had lunch at the restaurant-thing on the beach; all I got was a giant plate of french fries since I'd been snacking earlier, but they were fantastic (very similar to the french fries that I had at Le Grand Pan when my family was here). Around 3:30, storm clouds rolled in, so we decided to call it a day and head back to Nice. Unfortunately, the train back was even more packed than the train there, and Missy and I didn't get on the same train as the others. We didn't have our phones with us, either, so they had no way of knowing that we weren't on the car behind them, as planned. Things worked out, though, and we got on the next train and met the others back at the apartment. The day at Plage Mala was probably one of the best days I've had since arriving in France :)

Affectueusement,

Katie