days 46-51: nice, france
august 19-23, 2023
we have reached the final part of our france trip in nice. after driving from arles to marseille, we took the train from marseille to nice. it’s a beachy town with a long, lively promenade along the water. i hear more english spoken around me here than i have in other places we’ve visited in france. i also notice more apartments with balconies, and it reminds me of apartments i’ve seen in waikiki.
we spend most of our time walking around town and hanging out at beaches. one day, we took a <10 minute train ride to villefranche-sur-mer, although the whole trip ended up taking nearly an hour because we missed our train and waited at the station for the next one. marcus forgot his towel and ran back to the apartment and then to the train station, sparing barely a minute for us to get through the gates and to find our platform. yeah right, of course we didn’t make it, but there wasn’t really a rush to get there anyway.
nothing new - it’s hot but especially in this city and in our airbnb because for some reason, it’s incredibly challenging to get the air flowing. i haven’t been this uncomfortable in the heat in a while and it made it hard to sleep at night. there’s a small portable AC in the living room that has a minor effect in cooling the place down. our rooms are next to each other, so one night, we set the AC in between our doorways, experimenting with splitting the air to both rooms. it was a good and funny idea, but unfortunately it didn’t work. maybe the wall between our doors got really cold?
on our last night, we had an early birthday celebration for tilly at a beachside restaurant. the sky was a light, faint powder blue that occasionally blended into the horizon line dividing it from the ocean. further on the right, the gradient darkened and the separation was more clear. i haven’t seen anything like it, like a painting.
