No.
One does not start working and give up the world of travelling.
But, the problem is, when one starts working, holidays are too short.
No more 14-days trip to Greece and Turkey in 1 package. Gone were the 10-day trips to Germany or Italy.
What we get is hardly a week, and even if you get more than a week, your travel mates gets 5 days or some nonsensical time like that. So even if you could take a whole week holiday, you'd have to go alone.
Or settle somewhere in between with a 5 day holiday.
So after much deliberation and deciding WHERE to go for our first holiday since the start of work, the French Riviera was decided on.
Not really because we wanted to go there, but because its relatively cheap and neighboring cities are near each other.
We met at Nice Côte d'Azur airport £130 poorer.
Being doctors and employed now, we decided to ditch the poor student days of travelling by public transport and rent a car instead.
Thank goodness we had our 28 year old friend with us who qualifies for the cheapest rate available.
Our first city: Nice (pronounced Knees)
Villa St Exupery. Our hostel for the first 3 nights.
You know how I sang the praises of the Living Lounge Hostel in Lisbon? This comes as second. Although not as tastefully nor artistically decorated as Living Lounge, Villa St Exupery does the rest as well, including free internet access and wifi, a cheap cheap bar, 1euro per beer - honestly?? and the best bit, dinner at only 6.50euro for a main course, 5.50euro for pizzas with your choice of topping and 2euro per humongous brownie.
I recall that Living Lounge was 10bucks for a 3 course meal.
Anyway. 6.50 is pretty darned good for a proper big plate of meat-with-sides dinner in France. So good that we ate 2 dinners out of our 3 nights in that place. Breakfast was included too, in the 20+euro we paid for 1 night, although it was a basic meal of bread, 10 types of cereal, coffee, tea and hot chocoloate.
Loved it.
The exciting stuff to do in Nice includes strolling down the Promenade des Anglais which Kai Lin blandly states, 'This is like Tanjung Muar.'
.....
So much for the French Riviera.
France's Tanjung Muar
We also did not miss the fruit and flower market at Cours Saleya.
At to which Kai Lin once again quips,
'Like pasar malam.'.....
So much for France's marketplace.
Some people right, so difficult to please.
France's pasar malam.
A dive into the travel books told us not to miss Le Chateau. A hill by the promenade that gives you a bird's eyeview of the city.
We drove right up.
You know, when you have the luxury of a car. Beats the walking which would be what I'd have to do if I was still a student.
The hill was an entire garden, with a playground at one side and lots of small lanes winding up and down it. There was even this random archaeological site - cordoned off obviously that is very similar to... an archaeological site.
We chanced upon this large waterfall on the other side of the hill.
Pure randomness, with water cascading down into a man made pool below.
At 7pm we got chased off by the park guards which rode about in a scooter blowing their horn AND whistle at every other living thing.
Even a couple who wanted to take a quick picture got booted out double quick.
We then explored the Old Town of windy streets and narrow lanes, not unalike Venice or Lisbon's Alfama.
Honestly.After travelling around Europe for 5 years, every other place seems to resemble every other place. Every church resembles every other church and nothing seem to be too exciting anymore.
Like I said.
Some people right, so hard to please.
In search of this highly recommended restaurant that serves Socca, a local delicacy, we found it and had to Q for 30 mins before getting our hands on this pancake-thing made of a flour+eggs batter - poured into a pizza pan - drowned with olive oil and baked in a stone oven. After it's done, you douse it with liberal amounts of pepper.
A worker mixing the batter with oil in the flat pizza pan with a whisk
Tastes like peppery oily thin pancakes. Literally.
Dirt cheap.
We went home that night with oil sloshing in our tummies and deliberating if we should prescribe ourselves some statins to cholesterol levels.
Intravenous of course.
City No 2 - MonacoA drive along the coast brings us to Monaco, City of Casinos!
Of course halfway my camera battery had to die so no pictures of it - yet.
We spent a good part of the morning exploring the Oceanographic Museum, Princely Palace and Saint Charles Church. Managed to cheat our way as students with our biometric cards and student visas into the palace(only 3.50euros!) but was solidly refused the student price into the Oceanographic Museum although we approached them
TWICE (ended up paying 13.50euros as adults. Students get 50% discount). Wankers. Bah. We are under the Tier 4 UK visa status ok, and that makes us STUDENTS!
Lots of underwater animals in the oceanographic musuem, live and dead. Live wise is quite impressive but I believe Hong Kong's Ocean Park beats them hands down. Dead wise - quite disappointing. Of course, once again, the best is the Smithsonian museums in Washington. However, the view from the top of the museum is good, and its location just at the cliffs overlooking the sea gives it a very 'oceanographic' feel.
Whatever that means.
The Princely Palace was ok-ish and the Napolean Museum whose ticket price is included in the palace ticket was er... boring.
We collected our car 3 hours later and had to pay a freaking 7.50euros for parking.
Babi.
Then we drove up to Monte Carlo - the father of all casinos and sure enough, you see Porsches, Lotuses and a Ferrarri parked outside and .... with no surprise at all.... lots of chinese tourist everywhere. We blended in quite well without anyone giving us a second glance.
10 bucks to enter the casino. No credit to gamble even. Just to enter - ENTER.
Whats this. Haven't even start gambling also lose 10 bucks liao.
But since we were already here, we decided to heck it and enter..... into a casino albeit as grand as Paris's Opera House, is 1/10 the size of Genting's Casino.
Maybe an exaggeration, but with only 3 rooms and one bar, (1 room has about 5 tables for roulette, another room 2 for black jack and the 3rd jackpot machines) if this is not small, what do I call it? Minuscule?
Yep, miniscule.
To top it off, we had to pay another 7.50 for parking.
Truly, only the rich can afford this place.
3rd day - Antibe
Was having breakfast when the boss of Villa St Exupery chanced upon our table to nick our butter. This then led to the conversation of where we were headed to and the recommendation of stopping by Antibe on our way to Cannes. He was brilliant - told us that the parking by the roads were free from 12-2pm and that food in Antibe is as good as Cannes but 1/2 the price. He also gave us a total tourist update of how to get the best out of the area - which we followed to the T.
So started off by trying to search his recommended Antique Market - which we failed to locate.
We however found the slip road he was talking about that cruised along the coastline. Walked down it, found a few beaches and got back to the car to drive along the coastline, down the peninsula before cutting across to Cannes.
No you don't enjoy life much more than we do.
Cannes. The Film Festival.
No, the Film Festival was not going on when we were there. But, there was this other festival.
To enter this festival Plaisance which is about selling speed boats, yachts and luxury cars, one has to pay. How much I cannot remember, but... c
hotto matte kudasai... you are trying to
sell their products, but I gotta pay to enter to
view your products and then
pay again if I wanted to buy them?
Wah, so lose-lose situation.
So of course we don't enter.
Learnt our lesson through Monte Carlo casino.
After that we found this tourist hill to climb up to view the city and our overtly cool friend Alex who walks around with his uber cool sunnies takes a photo for us, peers into the camera screen and exclaims, 'It is very dark!'
At to which PT immediately retorts, 'Take of your glasses (you twerp!)'
Hence, the laughter.
I looks ugly hor.
Alex is so cool.
Then a stroll down Rue de Antibe (so boring, same name as the nearby town) led us back to our car because we obviously cannot afford anything.
Despite being doctors and all.
ToulonWhy did we go to Toulon?
For the islands off its coast.
Only to arrive there and find out that the islands are off the coast of the
next town.
Thank God for cars.
The Island of PorquerollesMaybe one of the most fun days ever because we got to the port, and lo and behold - an abandoned fortress complete with its own private bridge.
Randomness.
A good deal poorer from the ferry crossing and bike renting (of course, we abused our student rights again), the team made our way to the famous Notre Dame Beach.
Which is scarcely as interesting as it sounds.
Pebbles, and slightly green-blue water awaited us with seaweed and bits of driftwood clinging along the coast.
Some laid towels down and sun bathed and just behind us was the forest, where you'd have to find a good hiding place to change.
The water was cool, and in the horizon, a few yachts bobbed up and down probably adding a hint of elegance to the place. We floundered around for a while before deciding that it was probably enough.
A splash always makes one feel better.
We had a map denoting the biking tracks and we tried to tackle them only to find out that indeed, we are an unfit bunch.
Even Alex who is so cool with his cool muscles gave up the ride halfway through on the Le Levant Circuit with a difficulty level of average to athletic. Still, we managed some of the easier routes, like the Le Midi Circuit that brought us to a lighthouse towards the south of the island. I suppose the memories of cycling through earthen tracks and navigating around slippery tree roots and large pebbles can only be cherished as it's wholly difficult to put them into words. These reminded me vividly of my youthful days when I donned bicycles bigger than my then small self while trying to keep up with my cousins and siblings when as raced through the rubber trees and palm oil estates in Sitiawan.
Of course, I am as big as a buffalo now.
We left the island at 5pm and made our way up Mont Faron for yet again a bird's eyes' view of the city (all of this French Riviera cities have some hill to look down over the city) and was not disappointed. The narrow and windy road up would make you queasy, it was all we could do to repeatedly remind Alex to continuously keep his eyes on the road and to NOT DRIVE SO FAST!
Happy days.
A mini celebration of my upcoming birthday (at which I will be celebrating it by working nights and doing what I do best, ahem) in the form of a sparkler atop my chocolate melting pot dessert on our last dinner together was probably the icing on the cake.
Another year older, another wrinkle to add on onto my already wrinkly face....
I hereby await the year 2010 to arrive.
You get served in a place that looks like this.
