the south

zoe and i decided to see both monaco and cannes in the same day.. which meant we only got a couple hours in each, but at least we got to see both! :)

monaco:
after a short train ride from nice, we arrived at our first destination. from just outside the gare we could already see the water.. though it was pretty far down. we knew we wanted to see the changing of the guard at the palais princier at 11h55, so we had a little over an hour to see whatever we wanted and get ourselves over there.
with our spare time we decide to check out the outside of the famous casino.. we wanted to go inside, but it just didnt seem worth it to have to pay to not do anything but walk in.

as we passed the marina on our left on the way to the palais, we noticed there was not a single dingy looking boat. man this town was rich.

we made our way up a bunch of steps to the palais and found a beautiful view as we waited a bit before getting in position to watch the changing of the guard.

and then the main event. it was kind of hard to see because of so many people, and not quite as exciting as i had anticipated, but im still glad i went and had a good time. but how they werent dying of heat stroke in their uniforms, i will never understand.

i wanted to see one more thing before we left. so i took a look at the map and decided that a jardin exotique sounded interesting. we had no idea what it was so figured, hey, why not go investigate?
turns out, the particular jardin exotique was home to a million different kinds of cacti. ok, thats probably an exaggeration.. but there were a lot.

my favorites being one that looked wierd.

and one that i decided was a grandpa cactus because it was so wrinkly.

and of course there was a cool view since it was super high up.

and then we made our way back to the train station where we had the bad luck of missing a train by mere minutes and getting stuck waiting another hour to get to cannes. it was only once we were on the train that i had realized we'd missed seeing cathédrale de monaco and prince rainier and princess grace's graves.. but you can only do so much when you only give yourselves a few hours in a city!

next up:
cannes:
we happened to visit cannes the second to last day of the annual cannes films festival. seeing as it has been going on for about sixty-four years now i believe, its a pretty big deal, which meant, there were about a million extra people crowding the streets (again, probably exaggerating), but it was super crowded.

upon arriving, of course we immediately beelined toward the beach. some fair was going on, and we also realized it would not really be possible to get very close to the sand since there were so many private beach properties and restaurants. oh well.

we wandered up and down taking it all in. at one point we even saw a big crowd of people honing in on a car. i guess we got to see some famous french celebrity? i dont know who she was though.
eventually of course we also had to get ice cream.. in part because it was super hot out. in part for tradition. so we took a break and sat down. sure is fun people watching. there was a guy with this group who was dressed up like a condom.. the back of which said futur marié or something. bachelor party i guess!

as we continued walking and started investigating the main shopping street.. not to shop of course. i saw a bnp atm and decided to see if money from velo'vs was back in my account.. oh yea, and to get some cash out since i didnt have any. bad idea. the stupid machine ate my card! and of course the actual bnp was already closed. so i called and the guy basically told me he could turn off my card, but thats it for me right now. awesome. i guess im out of a card for a few days.. always hoped id have to get a brand new card just a couple weeks before id be closing my account for good. fail. i decided to do others a favor though and put up my own 'hors service' sign. i hope people actually paid attention to it!

soon after we found the red carpet and decided to stay and watch. it was funny, there were lots of people holding signs hoping for an invitation in! i wonder if that ever works. we were able to watch everyone walk up the red carpet.. on the screen behind us. this was our actual view:

that woman with the short blonde hair with her back to me is a pretty big deal. they kept focusing in on her on the big screen. but see? i got to see a famous person in person! ... even if i was kinda far away, and at a really bad angle.
we stayed there until everyone had gone into the theater, and then made our way to vieux cannes to investigate dinner possibilities as well as wander through the old city. i really do love the old parts of every city. they are so cute.

before actually picking a place to eat though, we found our way to the musée de la castre.. ok actually im not exactly sure what the museum was, but the whole point was to find the view of baie de cannes.. anyone surprised at this point that i was looking for the view? didnt think so.

finally we got some food. i felt like the waiter wasn't as attentive to us as other customers once he realized we werent french.. but maybe i was just tired. he never did bring us a bread basket though even though every other table had one.. hm. i dunno.
and finally, we were on our way back to the gare to return to our hostel in nice for the night before our early train ride back to lyon the following morning.

what a good weekend. sun. sea. views.

i just can't believe that the next time i leave lyon i will be stepping on a plane to head stateside. its mind boggling.