Clean, bright, warm and sunny - gives you an idea of Nice, a small city located along the Mediterranean in the French Riviera. Known for its bright orange buildings, pleasant climate and a grossly overrated beach, Nice was more like an obligatory ritual-like addition to our itinerary.
Since lots of work was awaiting me back in Paris, and one very interesting (and in some sense shocking) destination (more in the next post!) was yet to be covered the next day, we decided to pay a short, day-long visit to Nice and the neighbouring tiny country of Monaco.
The French train from Ventimiglia landed us in Nice after an uneventful 30 minute journey; and with a full day at our disposal, we headed straight to the beach!
The beach was a disappointment though. Hard and full of pebbles with no sand; so that we had to make a lot of effort to find a comfortable place to lie down.
The high point however, was the sparkling and REALLY blue ocean, and I do not know why is it so distinctively magnificent in this part of the World (C.V. Raman incidentally got a Nobel prize for finding that out, I was neither that talented nor motivated I guess, at least on that idyllic day). Some vibes of a new "cultural-experience" soon started reaching out to us; and as the sun rose up, the clothes seemed to drop down. Although it was a public beach, it wasn't too difficult to spot a few oblivious souls enjoying the sun in their birthday suits. We, however, decided to stay conventional by French standards and after spending some quality time in the blue sea, got off to take a quick nap - trying to compensate for the sleep deprivation of the last 3 nights. Later, some time was spent
on exploring the town through its landmarks and the chique boutiques along the main street (budget travel :P).
At about 2 pm, we went to Monaco, which was about 30 minutes away by train - a very
picturesque journey through the cliffs along the Sea. Nothing very special about the place itself though - except that it looked filthy rich with all those luxury yachts lining the harbour, the Monte Carlo Casino, circuit of the Monaco Grand Prix etc. What I personally found the most interesting was the impressive rugged terrain of the town, plus the beautiful cream-
coloured post-modern buildings atop those tall limestone cliffs lining the Mediterranean. And yes, the view of the town from the Prince's Palace was indeed awe-inspiring.
Strictly speaking, La Condamine and the areas around it are the best and the only areas of interest in Monaco from a Tourist's perspective (yes Tourist, because today our trips were dictated by the rituals of Tourism, and not by Exploration unlike the earlier ones). Largely unimpressed, we returned back to Nice in a few hours.
It started raining at about 7pm while the sun was still quite high. Strong winds somehow damaged both our umbrellas,
and in order to take some shelter-cum-rest, we decided to get inside a local train which was technically a free ride for us pass-holders. The idea was to come back to Nice after a few hours so as to spend the night at a hotel in the city. Could one have overemphasized Murphy's
law?
A ticket checker, as usual, wakes me up and I wake up Jatin. I don't know what that crazy fella was blabbering in French, neither was I interested. But when I did realize our status quo, I was stunned! We were being asked to get out of the train as it was already empty and had to go back to the yard. Our current location, as I could see, was a tiny single-platform station - a line terminating point. It was 1 am in the morning. Clearly, the two tired souls had overslept while in the train, oblivious to the fact that it had taken them about 100km north-west of Nice, in a much longer 5 hour journey through don't-know-where, from Nice to a place from which the next train was to leave in the morning at 6:30. Also, the station was closed from outside and we could not see any other human-being nearby (see picture). To add that extra spice, the night had gone chilly and we had neither food nor water or warm clothes at our disposal.
BUT we did have something Russian in our bags which took motherly care of us throughout that long creepy night in an obscure French village. So, with a proud "ownership" of that little railway station, we huddled in a cozy corner and tried to gain some comfort under the blessings of Dionysus.
Say what you want to about Murphy, but you cannot deny the fact that his musings often turn up the most uncomfortable but most memorable moments in your life. Also perhaps, he sends his apostles in the guise of ticket-checkers, to make you realize your follies before it is too late.
Punctuality can be so comforting. We were woken up once again, this time by the guy who opened the railway station at 6am, and the train arrived soon after. It took us to Cannes, further down South, just in time so that we could catch our pre-booked Marseille-bound train. This train was coming from Nice, and we were actually supposed to board it at Nice itself. But well, synchronization rescued us once again, and we headed steadily towards what was to be the most "prized" destination of the trip ...
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