We made it to France!

I can't believe it took us 55 years to make it to France! Country #32 for us. Now, we're only going to see a tiny corner of the country so we'll have to make it back for more at some point. But at least we're here!

The day started off in Savona, Italy. Our train didn't leave until 1:30pm, so we did some computer time and then went for a walk along the waterfront in Savona.

Lots of blue sky and sunshine, with a high of about 18C (65F). Beautiful.

Savona waterfront.

There were workers out cleaning the beach. Winter is definitely over in Savona, and it looked like beachfront businesses are getting ready, with some signs saying they reopen next week.

This section looked like the doggy beach, with a lot of pups out playing.

Ruth, and Savona waterfront.

We then went back to our AirBnb apartment and picked up our bags. It was a 1.5 km (less than a mile) walk to the train station, where we waited for the train headed for Nice.

It was a coulple of minutes late arriving, and then we were on our way. Paid €20 ($29.80 CAD, $23 USD) each for the two and a half hour journey.

Ruth on the train. 

Tough to get decent photos from the train!

The journey followed the coast, but a lot of it was through tunnels.

Arrived in Nice at 4:30pm, almost half an hour late. At one point, someone had pulled the emergency cord an the train came to a stop. They never explained why. Then, at the France border, police came on board looking for illegal immigrants trying to get into France. From what we understand, there are a lot of refugees set up at camps in Italy at the French border. Don't know why they aren't happy staying in Italy...maybe France has better social programs? Maybe the language? Not sure.

Anyhow, the late arrival meant nothing to  us because we couldn't access our AirBnb apartment until 7:30pm when our host arrived home from work.

We looked into checking our bags at the train station, but they wanted €5 ($7.45 CAD, $5.60 USD) each for two hours. No thanks. They're on wheels, so it's easy enough to just drag them behind us.

We walked down the main drag from the train station to the waterfront.

Nice is the 5th largest city in France (pop 350,000, but over 1 million in the greater area) so it's a big busy city.

Statue of Apollo.

Funny story that I read about this statue. It was unveiled in 1956, and apparently there were gasps from the crowd. Apollo's manly bits were a little, shall we say, out of proportion! It was a scandal back then, and the sculptor was made to chisel things down to size.

Even then, by 1979 a local Catholic women's group succeeded in having him removed from display and put in a city storage yard. But in 2005, a newspaper reporter did a "where are they now" type of story, and there was huge support to have Apollo put back in his rightful place...where he still stands today, in all of his glory.

Neat water fountain display.

These two girls were having fun trying not to get too wet as the fountains went on and off.

Eventually they got out of the maze.

We sat and people watched at the fountain for a while, and then made our way to the waterfront.

The side of this building is entirely painted! There are no windows or balconies on this side.

We sat at the seafront and just watched the world go by for an hour or so.

And, then we started making our way back north and to our AirBnb flat. Our host Will was there to greet us. Interesting guy. He's originally from Senegal, but lived in London for quite a while. He owns a security company here in Nice. Speaks fluent English, French, German, and his local language from Senegal, Wolof.

Nice modern apartment, and we're happy here for two nights. The city of Nice in general seems fairly costly, and this is the most we have paid all winter for somewhere to stay, at €35 ($51 CAD, $39 USD) per night. But it's cheaper than Monte Carlo, where the best price I could find was €50 per night!

And speaking of Monaco, that's where we're headed today. The second smallest country in the world!

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