South of France.

I'd always associated the area of Southern France to be the holiday spot for well to do people from England and alike. I had imagined it to have high rise buildings and large hotels overlooking the long white sandy beaches packed full of people trying to burn away any winter left in their skin.

I perhaps should have read my Lonely Planet guide more closely. Everytime we saw water while we were on the train we would get excited, try and take photos and take about how the first thing were going to do as soon as we get to our hostel room is get into our swimming costumes and hit the beach. Upon arriving by the train in Nice (and being careful to scurry (with a broken suitcase) as quickly as possible into a Tourist office to get a map so that we didn't get lost around the streets around the train station (never the best parts of town but the area around Nice's Gare-du-Nord is particularly notorious for tourists being pick-pocketed.

So, did Nice live up to my expectations? High rise buildings, not really, the occasional one but nothing like any of the other cities we visited, a pleasant surprise. Large hotels, yes, barriers off surrounding the pieces of beach that they owed with carpet going over the small pebbled beach so that the guests wealthy enough to stay in these places didn't get sore feet walking back up the beach. White sandy beaches, no. People burning away their winter skin? I don't know if it was because maybe we got there late in the season (August) or maybe because we are just so extremely fair skinned but I definitely felt like there were a hell of a lot of tanned bodies scattered over beach towels and pebbles.

That all said, I did really enjoy Nice, I got a little bit of colour, had some relaxing days shopping (after all it is a holiday right) enjoyed some nice seafood and explored the south going to the Celebrity hang out of St Tropez (Lady Gaga had been seen there only days before we got there) and just generally enjoying our time there (that is except for the broken suitcase).

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