I think we were at the Louvre from 10 til 5. Most of that time on our feet except for a late lunch at a cafe in the museum.

When we got back to the hotel, we didn’t emerge until about 9. Stephanie’s wanted to stop by a FNAC, France’s version of Best Buy, to scope out the latest tunes—if they were still open. Turns out their Champs-Élysées location closed at midnight, giving us a reason (and enough time) to go check out the Arc de Triomphe.

It cost something like 8€ a person to climb the 284 steps to the top. We debated the cost for a moment. Oh what the heck, we’re on vacation.

The view at the top of course was stunning, the Eiffel Tour was all lit up, with a lighthouse like spotlight cycling around the top. Here’s my best attempt, sans tripod.

Afterwards we took a break from our high culinary pursuits for something a little more pedestrian: French fast food at Quick.

After seeing an advertisement in Cannes for a sandwich that looked like two burgers fused together, I knew I HAD to have it. Thankfully Stephanie was game. I got the Double Effect! Beef, she had the Double Effect! Chicken, and we both tried their version of fried cheese—which happened to be fried chevre. Only in France.

The Louvre is big. Really big. And it has some really big paintings. It’s not cluttered, but I kind of wish I could have taken the Segway tour of the Louvre. For my feet’s sake. There were also a lot of people there. We got there Friday morning after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, and the place was packed.

Not only does the Louvre contain a lot of art, but the building(s) and the gallery rooms themselves were often ornate works of art, complete with vast ceiling paintings a la the Sistine Chapel. Upskirt photography fodder for sure. We started at the ground level, where you can walk around the foundations of a recently discovered (1990s) old castle that once stood centuries ago in the center courtyard of the Louvre.

This is one of the funniest things I found about Europe. They seem to be constantly discovering the remains of old forgotten buildings under courtyards, cemeteries, and other structures. It’s not history sometimes until its forgotten and rediscovered, I guess. Given how hyper-recorded the current age is, I wonder whether any present day thing could ever be forgotten enough in order to become a subject for historical research.

So at the Louvre I ended up taking a lot of photos of ceilings by placing my camera on the floor. This became almost a sport for the both of us, sometimes Stephanie pointing out good shots before I even had a chance to look up. With all the people around, we often had an audience, at first wondering what the heck we were doing, and then getting that flash of understanding.

Here’s the inside of one of the glass pyramids.

The ceilings had a lot of gold going on, this one with an epic painting at the center, with bold colors.

They seemed to be fond of painting people floating, maybe because they were on a ceiling?

This painting, part of a much longer multi-painting ceiling, struck me as fairly modern in style, resembling the art I might see in a comic book or graphic novel.

This was at the top of a large staircase.

This does a good job of showing how a ceiling might have multiple paintings and sculptures integrated into it.

And finally one more, not a ceiling shot, but one of the glass pyramid set against the older building as seen through a window, with a few people taking a moment’s rest from the art around them.

I’ve always wanted to sleep on a train. It seemed like just the most romantic and soothing thing in the world. Who hasn’t seen one of those scenic, cross-Canada train trip ads in the Sunday news magazine and thought, “If only.”

Well, Thursday night I got my chance. Chris and Aurelie drove us to the Nice train station. Our train arrived pretty much on schedule. We found our car and got ourselves and our bags aboard. Stephanie and I had the top bunks in a compartment that slept four. Somehow I neglected to take any pictures. We said our too-quick goodbyes on the platform and spent a few minutes pantomiming through the window before the train began to crawl westward.

No one else came into our compartment, so Stephanie and I sat on one of the lower beds reflecting on the trip so far. A half hour later we were in Cannes, which was funny because it took longer to get there by train than by car.

Around then two woman, presumably a mother and her adult daughter came in. Turns out they’d been given beds in two different compartments and were hoping they could stay together. When the controller came to check our tickets, they were able to find another compartment with two available beds. So we had the “room” to ourselves until Toulon, the last stop, when a guy came on and promptly went to sleep. It was around 11, so we did likewise. I typed a little, and eventually dozed off

The thing about sleeping on a train is that the train is not always traveling in a straight line at a constant velocity. Which means the body experiences all sorts of subtle g-forces as the train goes around long turns and speeds up or slows down. Overall I slept pretty soundly, so much so that I was surprised then the conductor announced in French that we were minutes away from Gare Austerlitz, but on 2 or 3 occasions during the night I was roused by the effect of the train’s movement on my body.

We arrived to a cold, gray, drizzling Paris, and caught a cab to our hotel, the same one we’d stayed at when we arrived in France just west of the Jardins du Luxembourg.

One thing we hadn’t planned in advance was how and when we were going to get back to Paris from Nice for our flight home Sunday morning. The options we’d considered were a 5+ hour long TGV ride on Friday or Saturday, or a one way flight (aller simple) from Nice to Paris.

Since we’d only spent an abbreviated day and a half in Paris, we both wanted to spend as much of the weekend there as possible, which meant leaving Nice either Thursday afternoon/night or Friday morning. Comparing the TGV to the plane time-wise (getting to/from airport and city, going through security), it seemed as though they’d be almost equivalent, and both would use up a significant chunk of a day.

So we decided to investigate a third option: the night train. Rather than take a high speed TGV from Nice to Paris, there was a sleeper train called the Corail Lunea that took 10 hours to make the journey, departing at 9:45pm. It picked people up along the coast from Nice to Toulon, and then sauntered nonstop all the way up to Paris, arriving at the centrally located Gare Austerlitz at 8 in the morning.

Even though it seems crazy to spend 10 hours on a train, it would essentially compress one night at a hotel and getting to Paris (well rested, sort of) in the same chunk of time. The bonus: we got a 50% discount thanks to Stephanie’s sister—who works as a travel agent. So two beds in a first class compartment of 4 beds only cost 160€.

Which meant squeezing as much as we could into Thursday, our last day in Nice. So we woke and packed up all our things, which was becoming a difficult proposition as we were acquiring lots to bring back.

Stephanie’s mom picked us up and brought our bags to Aurelie’s apartment. After a little food, the four of us drove to Chateau de Nice, which are the ruins of an old fortress on a coastal hill above Nice. On the way I jumped out of the car to get a picture of the incredible translucent blue water. The Chateau, or what’s left of it, is on top of the hill in the foreground on the left.

Amazingly enough, the whole time we were there, we never really got to the beach or even touched the Mediterranean. Next time :)

Here’s the view of Nice from the Chateau de Nice.

Stephanie finally took the camera out of my hands and got a nice shot of her sister and mom.

Look at me, overlooking the marina

Stephanie touching Aurelie’s belly

After that we went to old Nice, which is the older center of the city with narrow pedestrian streets and shops and restaurants. Stephanie and Aurelie tried on clothes, I ate a socca, which is like a crepe made with chickpeas. We bought a rotisserie chicken to bring back for a simple dinner before heading to the train station.

Before dinner I made guacamole with some avocados and limes we bought earlier in the week. Mexican food is not readily available in France, and I wanted to make something special and unique as a small thank you.

Things slowed down considerably once we got to Nice, which was good because we were pretty tired after our adventure in getting there.

This was the family reunion part of the trip, a week to spend with Stephanie’s mom Chris, her younger sister Aurelie, and Aurelie’s partner Michel. This was kind of a big deal since it had been over three years since Stephanie had been to France/Nice and over a year since she’d last seen her mom and sister.

We spent the first two nights (Saturday and Sunday) with Aurelie and Michel, sleeping on a sleeper-sofa, but given its tendency to sink into a U-shape, we decided everyone would be more comfortable (personal space-wise as well) if we spent the rest of the week in a small hotel within walking distance. Plus they had wireless internet!

Aurelie played mom to us, which seemed appropriate as she’s expecting a baby girl in July. One night she made a potato gratin (hachis parmentier), another night sausages with lentils and vegetables. This was Provence comfort food, and it made us feel very much at home. Bread accompanied every meal and cheese followed. Every night there was some kind of dessert, frequently fresh strawberries and sugar.

The trip was also notable as Chris had just moved into her own studio apartment in Cannes 10 days before we arrived. Previously she’d lived about 45 minutes northwest in a small town called Fayence where Stephanie’s grandmother lives, in fact in a house right next door. Her new apartment is very cute, brightly painted, looks recently built, and has a separate kitchen and an enclosed patio that I think is bigger than the apartment itself. She seemed very happy.

We went to the big mall in Nice, CAP 3000, on Saturday because the weather was unusually gray and rainy, but after that, contrary to the Météo, the weather was cool, sunny, and the sky was blue for the rest of the week. The other major shopping excursion during the week was a trip to Carrefour, France’s version of Target with groceries, to take care of Stephanie’s list.

On Sunday Chris hosted a lunch party for Stephanie and invited all of Stephanie’s old dance friends, many of whom are still dancing, as well as her old dance instructor, Angelo.

On Monday the weather was stunning, so Aurelie, Michel, Stephanie and I went to Antibes for a walk on the coast where we got some amazing views of Nice. Here was my first real view of the water, taken from the car.

And here’s a shot looking back towards Nice from just past the crazy building you see in the previous picture.

Beach view from Antibes

For lunch I had sole meuniere. It was good.

Here is everyone together at the end of our little coastal hike.

On Tuesday Stephanie, Aurelie and I drove to Fayance to visit with their maternal grandmother and Tante Dodou (aunt). This is a place where Stephanie spent some time growing up, so coming back was sort of like returning to her childhood home. We didn’t have much time to explore the area, but we did go into the town and hike up to the highest point.

On Wednesday Chris, Stephanie, and I drove along the coast from Frejus to Cannes, stopping along the way to take in the incredible views. The rocks were so red it reminded me of Arizona and Utah.

Who knew this is what France looked like?

Cote d’Azur Panorama

That night there was another dance reunion of sorts. Stephanie dropped in to an adult jazz class taught by her old teacher Angelo, and still attended by several of her friends. Her mom and I sat on the sidelines and watched. Afterwards we went out for Thai with Angelo and a few friends. Much of the conversation (all in French) centered around Stephanie’s current break from teaching dance and Angelo’s future desires as a choreographer and teacher.

Note: in real life, we just got home tonight around 9pm pacific time. I think that means we were traveling for about 24 hours. Exhausted.