Train Ride To Nice

Monday, March 23, 2009 Leaving Provence
Am posting a picture of our little blue car as it sat out in the parking lot in front of a regular size car...see how tiny it is... no wonder we were able to zip around those little winding roads.
Up by 6:30 … instant (hot tap water) coffee and the last of our bread with the basil & olive oil spread in our room for a quick breakfast. Read our books for a while then checked out of our rooms and took off in the car to find the car rental return place at the train station in Avignon. Thought that we had lots of time to get it back by the 10 AM return time but….. we took several unplanned side trips before we found our way to the Train Station and the car rental office. Neat thing was that we ended up with exactly 700 km on our travels with the little blue Panda Fiat.
Checked on our train to Nice and found that we had almost 2 hours before it would leave. Martha took advantage of the time and purchased our tickets for Rome later in the week. Talked with a nice lady who, with her son and husband, had just spent a couple of weeks in a home that they had rented over the internet from which they also toured the area of Provence.
They were on their way today to Paris and then back to New Jersey. It’s a lot of fun to exchange stories with other travelers… we have missed doing that this past 9 days and we look forward to again being in a hostel tonight.
Our train left right on time… and it’s a full train. We have seats together but had to leave our 2 big bags way up in the front of the car where they have a luggage room. For the first time we have used the suitcase lock that I have been carrying to secure our bags together for the three hour journey to Nice. We have just enjoyed sharing a sandwich and Twix bar purchased in the train station and are now busy typing on our laptops.
Train ride went smooth except for when we went to the front of the car to get ready for our departure. Martha was in the luggage room unlocking the suitcases when this really weird person got on and went into the baggage car…. We wondered why the train did not leave the station when on came four policemen and the arrested him… he just dropped flat on the floor and they carried him out. One of the policeman asked Martha if she was okay and if he had tried to take any of her luggage. Guess we were lucky that someone called the authorities on him… this was at Canes … a town close to Nice.
Must say that the trip here along the Mediterranean Sea has been very beautiful. Our hostel is close enough to the train station that we were able to walk to it with our luggage. They had reserved us beds in a 12 person dorm but he gave us a 4 person room and said that we would most probably have it all to ourselves. After settling in we took off with our trusty city map and started to explore Nice. On the main street we found close by a church, a large Walmart like department store and many places to pick up a sandwich for a light supper. We ended up walking all the way down to the beach front to stick our fingers in the Mediterranean Sea… too cold to wade… but lots of people were on the beach enjoying the ocean breeze and late afternoon sunshine. We slowly made our way back to the hostel stopping for a sandwich and then to the store to buy food for our trip tomorrow to Monaco.