I'm An American, Get Me Out Of Here!!!

Montpellier was a pretty nice city. This post, however, is not about Montpellier. That probably will be the next post. This post is about why I was in Montpellier. If you had seen my itinerary at any point during my journey (since my itinerary changed often while I was on my journey), the only reference that you would have seen to Montpellier is that this is the city in which you need to switch trains from any point in France to Barcelona. I figured that I was going through it at some point, but I had hoped for a much shorter period.

I knew that many trains in the south of France had been cancelled due to the train strike. A few days before I was scheduled to go to Barcelona, the train people in Nice told me that my train to Montpellier from Nice had been cancelled, but that I could catch a train from Nice to Marseille and then catch another train from Marseille to Montpellier and head to Barcelona. Fair enough. I arrived at the train station an hour earlier than I needed to, just in case something went wrong. Something went wrong. I saw that my train to Marseille wasn’t on the board. I went to the ticket counter and found out that my train had been cancelled, but there was a train to Marseille that was boarding now. He told me that if I ran, I could make it. I ran. I made it.

I arrived in Marseille, and having been there before, went straight to the ticket counter to see what I could find out. The person at the counter told me that there was no way I could get to Barcelona today. Another person at the booth suggested that the best way to get to Barcelona would be by bus and pointed me (sort of) to the bus station, which is located in the same building. After I finally found the right line in which to stand and making it to the front of said line, the bus dude told me that the next train going to Barcelona that wasn’t sold out would be departing Saturday morning. It was still Thursday morning and I was only going to be in Barcelona for one day, on my way to Valencia. That wouldn’t work. I went back to the train counter and spoke with another ticket agent. She told me that she could get me to Montpellier, but that she had no idea if there would be a train to Barcelona waiting for me. She told me that they had run some busses a few days before from Montpellier to Barcelona, but she didn’t know if they were doing that today. I had already spent some time in Marseille, so I bought a ticket to Montpellier and decided that I would try my luck once I got there.

My luck wasn’t in the mood to be tried. I arrived in Montpellier, got off the train and looked at the big board. There was no reference to Barcelona or anything else in Spain. I went downstairs in the station where the information booth was located. Rather than a “booth” they had a few people at a few tables telling lots of angry people that they weren’t going anywhere because of the strike. I was informed that there were no trains going to Spain that day or the next, but I was directed to a travel agency a few blocks away. The travel agency was useless, but when I left the agency, I saw a sign down the block for the European bus lines Eurolines.

I went in and inquired if there were any buses taking off anytime soon for Barcelona. The answer was no, not until the next night. How about Valencia? Madrid? Zaragoza? Bilbao? Anywhere in Spain? Nope. Vive la France!!! Well, if I couldn’t get to Barcelona tonight, I was going to Valencia. When was the next train to Valencia? It was the same train as the one to Barcelona, leaving Friday night at 9 pm and arriving in Valencia at 7 am on Saturday morning. Okay, that would have to do.

The guy’s directions to the bus station were horrible. I took a tram to a station in Montpellier where the guy told me I would see signs for Eurolines. (Getting off the tram, I fell and my backpack got wedged between two empty seats. I had to squirm out of the backpack – it’s huge – and then pull the backpack out from the seats to exit. Nobody even bothered to see if I was okay. Thus France.) I didn’t see any signs for Eurolines. I walked around in full gear for an hour, following useless directions located on my ticket. Arriving back at the tram station at the last possible minute, I finally saw a Eurolines bus and learned that I only needed to walk around 200 feet to the bus stop. A sign would have helped.

Whatever. I got on the bus and headed towards Valencia. From here on out, the story gets mundane. The bus was pretty full, but not packed. The trip was rather uneventful and painless, except for the French dude who was pulled off the bus at the Spanish border because he didn’t realize that he needed a passport in order to get into Spain. (I’m not sure I would have realized that either. I’ve crossed many an EU border and have never had my passport examined before unless I was entering or exiting the U.K.) I arrived in Valencia and another post will pick it up from there, after an earlier one talks about my time in Montpellier. I’m being productive on the train from Valencia to Madrid.

Nice - The Name Says It All

While I’m stuck in Montpellier, I might as well accomplish something, huh? Yeah, I agree. I’ll write more later about being trapped here in southern France, but first I’ll do this entry about my one full day in Nice.

Actually, I stayed for three nights in Nice, but only really spent one full day there. The first day was a mix of travel and exploring the neighborhood and the final full day was spent in Monte Carlo, so Nice didn’t get my full attention.

When I think of Nice, I always think of the beach. So, I picked up a map at my hotel and got myself oriented with respect to which direction I needed to go to see some water. I could tell from the map that if I headed south, I could pick up the Promenade d’Anglais and the Promenade des Etats-Unis and could walk along the beach from there. Also, the promenades led to Nice’s Old Town, so I figured that if I was diligent, I could get much of my Nice sightseeing done at once.

I headed towards the Mediterranean and the walk was very nice. Nice is a very clean city. It only took me around fifteen minutes to get from midtown to the shore. On the way, there were numerous fountains and hotels and restaurants. There was no question that I was in a big tourist town, slightly off-season.

I got down to the shore and looked at the beach. Unlike Monte Carlo and Cannes, which I saw at other points, the beaches of Nice aren’t the most picturesque. Rather than being sand beaches, they would be better described as rock beaches. I don’t think a beach towel would have been enough to make one feel comfortable. At a minimum, a chair would be necessary. And forget about sand castles. Real castles, maybe. Sand castles, no.

Even though there was a little nip in the air, some people were out in the water. I suppose it is difficult to go to the Cote d’Azur and not get into the water, though I managed. Perhaps if it was a little warmer and I was at a sandier beach. But anyway.

I walked along the Promenade des Etas-Unis and it led me to the harbor. Here, the harbor was full of sailboats and huge yachts. It was cool to see, but not very interesting, so I moved on to Old Town. What’s in Old Town, you ask? Old buildings and stuff. There really wasn’t anything too interesting, as far as I could see. I know that there are some nice art museums in Nice, but I wasn’t in the right area for that. I took some pictures and moved on.

One of the nicer landmarks in Nice probably was Cathedral of Notre Dame. No, not that one. A different one. I say probably, though, because I couldn’t see it because it was covered for renovations. The most prominent landmarks, however, appeared to be the nice, expensive, and older hotels along the beach on the Promenade d’Anglais. At least they featured prominently on a lot of the souvenirs that were sold here and there.

I was a little confused about how to find landmarks in Nice. In Old Town, I kept seeing signs pointing to the Acropolis. Since this was old town, I figured maybe there were some old buildings or at least something of interest. Nope. It was a modern sports complex or convention center or something like that. Similarly, I followed signs downtown pointing to a building that ended up being a shopping mall. Well, fine. I guess I needed socks.

That’s really all I have for Nice. It’s an expensive (though not as expensive) spot on the Cote d’Azur between Monte Carlo and Cannes that has some of the charm and some of the fame as its neighbors, but really is the least attractive of the sibling cities. I spent most of the next day in Monte Carlo and I’ll write about that visit next.