The French Riviera

We spent the past week exploring the gorgeous Côte d'Azur. It's hard to imagine a more perfect place-lovely picturesque villages, fishing ports, and castles along the Mediterranean's clear turquoise blue water. We had an incredible time.

Cassis

We spent two days in this beautiful little coastal town. It is another ancient place, founded by the Greeks, home to a castle, etc. You know the story by now. Cassis is famous today for it's wine and it's rocky cliffs, known as the clanques. Driving in to town offers a beautiful view of the sea, surrounded by cliffs and vineyards. The port is really lovely. Postcard worthy, for sure. The town is laid back and unhurried, the perfect place to just hang out in the sun, eat at an outdoor cafe, watch a game of boule in the park and play in the ocean. It reminded us a lot of California. It's like a smaller French version of Monterrey or Carmel by the Sea. We loved it.

Fragrant jasmine and salty ocean air make the town smell delicious!

This could be California, right?

The sweet little town port.

Some castle on the hill.

Looking for some lunch. We settled on a great place right here on the port. Madame Salade got moules et frites (mussels and fries), of course!

Most beaches are very rocky, although we did find sandy ones later. The water is so clear, we saw a few fish, some sea urchins, and lots of underwater rocks.

"Let's throw rocks!"

"Let's climb rocks!"

A highlight of our trip to Cassis, was a boat ride into the clanques. We sat up front and  in one especially bumpy part of the sea, we got very wet. 3/5 in our family loved the experience. 

The next boat ride on the Mediterranean I want to take this boat!

This is a secluded beach in the clanques. We thought maybe we'd try this one out, but with no road in, it's either a long hike through the mountains or your own boat.  Maybe when the kids are older.

People sunbathe on these rocky slabs on the coastline.

Another beach in Cassis, this one is a bit sandier. The kids soaked up the last bit of daylight.

Mom and Dad enjoyed an evening apertif while the kids played on the beach.

Nice

Alright, so everything we've read and heard says Nice is the Queen of the Riviera and a city you can't miss. It's where you go when you go to the Côte d'Azur. We considered making it a day trip, but when we found an awesome hotel near the beach at a steal, we decided to book it and spend the night. Once in Nice, we inched through traffic, found parking, and tried to check into our hotel. Tried. Due to a mix up (hotel's fault) they could not give us a room. Oh, well. We eventually found another hotel, a Best Western in the shopping district of town, about a 20 minute walk to the beach. The hotel staff was super friendly and helpful and we were glad to finally have a place settled.

Nice is incredibly beautiful. The beaches and water are gorgeous, the many streets and squares are lovely, the buildings are pretty and interesting, the restaurants top notch, the museums renowned (including the Matisse Museum, who lived here next to the Flower Market), and aside from a couple sketchy looking groups, the people were very friendly. It's all around, great. However, it's not really our style. We value tranquility, Nice was exhausting. Too big, too crowded, too many cars, too expensive. There was construction everywhere. It wasn't easy navigating around with three small children. It seems that in Nice, people shop, go clubbing, and pay through the nose to sit on a beach lounge chair under an umbrella and have overpriced drinks brought to them. That's all well, but not for us. We felt hurried and tired the whole time we were there. We enjoyed seeing some of the sites and also enjoyed having a coffee next to the town's cathedral on the sunny, breezy morning we were there. We were happy to visit Nice, but it's not on our list to do again.

On the Promenade des Anglais, named after the 18th century English who spent winters in Nice.

The Place du Palais, the square with Nice's Palais de Justice (courthouse).

The city clock, located in the Place du Palais.

The beautiful Opéra de Nice. There was a lady busking operas on the street in front accompanied by a boombox. Never seen that before, it was a first.

Mussels again for Madame Salade.

The town's main square, the Place Masséna.

A fountain near the Place Masséna.

Lots of colorful, lively streets.

The Notre Dame de Nice, near our hotel.

We had to go in, of course...

The boys on the hotel balcony.

Evening walk on the Promenade.

Another view of the Place Masséna, this time at night. We loved those colorful lit statues.

The beautiful St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Russian nobility had been vacationing in Nice since the railway line reached town in the 19th century (Russian snowbirds!). When Tsar Alexander II began vacationing in Nice in 1864, he decided he needed a proper place to worship and funded the construction of the Cathedral. After the Russian revolution, many Russian nobles decided to stay. It is still a popular Russian vacation spot and we heard a lot of Russian being spoke on the street.

The Cathedral is amazing. We walked all around it and enjoyed it from all angles. You can go inside for a small fee, but since 3/5 of our party were wearing shorts, we were not allowed to enter. The outside was worth the trip alone, however, so we were not upset.

Antibes

"It's so beautiful here, so clear, so bright! You swim in the blue air, it's terrifying. I'm fighting and struggling with the sun. And what amazing sun here! You need to paint here with gold and precious stones. What I will bring back from here is softness itself, with pink, blue, all wrapped in this magical air."  -Claude Monet

We had no set plan for our Riviera trip, but we originally thought we'd hit Monaco or St. Tropez next. However, after our time in Nice, we had no desire to deal with traffic, crowds, resorts and fees. We headed down the coast towards Cannes, hoping to hit a relaxed beach town. What we found is a little piece of heaven, called Antibes. Antibes is, again, an ancient town founded by the Greeks and the home of a big castle. The castle was actually home to Picasso for a time, who lived and worked there. Today, the castle is the Picasso Museum, displaying over 300 works by the artist. The town was also home to Monet for a time. Monet arrived in Antibes expecting to stay only a few days and couldn't bring himself to leave. In just three months, he shipped off 39 canvases from Antibes to Vincent van Gogh's brother in Paris for an exhibit.

It's easy to see why Monet loved Antibes. We love it too. First of all, it's stunning. There is no end to it's beauty. Like Monet said, you could only paint this place with gold and precious stones. The water is gorgeous, the beaches are sandy, and the Alps in the distance are snow capped. The town is filled with the most charming streets and elegant squares. There were lots of tourists, but the town still feels peaceful and calm.

We found free parking easily, right next to the beach. We ate at a delicious, reasonably priced pizza place where all the waiters spoke Italian to each other. We swam in the sea and dug moats in the sand. Our boys thought they heard a couple of little girls speaking English and ran over to play with them. Turns out, they were from Denmark and did not speak English, but the kids still all had a great time playing with each other. We walked along a coastline path and explored an old shipwreck (it was a modern fishing boat, but the boys thought it could be from pirates). We strolled the adorable town streets. We ended up forgoing the busier beach towns and spending two days in Antibes. On our second day there, we went to a public beach next to a string of restaurants and private beaches. A wedding reception was going on at the beach right next to us and who do you think the band was? The Gipsy Kings. We pretty much got our own private concert while we played on the beach. Here are a couple of our favorites that they played: here and here.  It was a great day, the kind of day you couldn't plan if you tried!

Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Platea d'Antibes

The Château Grimaldi