Nice / Monte-Carlo

Side note: This blog post comes a little bit late because it has been significantly trickier to track down free WiFi (often pronounced weefee in many of these European countries) in France than it was in Estonia. Though only free from communism for the past 17 years, Estonia has one of the highest internet penetration rates in Europe and free WiFi (the Estonians use the North American pronunciation) can be found virtually anywhere in the country.

Since we were looking to warm up after two weeks in a still somewhat chilly Estonia, we headed to Nice (that’s niece, not nice), France on April 15th. We were greeted with warm sunshine on day one and took advantage the much needed vitamin D boost.

The Monte-Carlo Masters Series tennis tournament was taking place while we were in Nice and with Monte-Carlo being only 20 minutes away by train, we decided to take the opportunity to see some of the tour’s best players in action. Very sadly, it was pouring rain on the day we had tickets. As avid tennis fans and eternal optimists, we set out from Nice to the Monte-Carlo Country Club anyway, with umbrellas in hand. We quickly learned that Monte-Carlo does not get a lot of rain, since there was only one covered area at the whole tournament. Luckily we had arrived early and were able to secure two seats in the covered section, where there were approximately 1,000 seats at a tournament that hosts over 10,000 fans daily. After what seemed like ages of waiting for disorganized ushers to seat soggy fans, Jon finally remarked that they would be better off using the more experienced ushers who seat people in synagogue during the high holidays. Though we were excited to watch some of our favourite players, including Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, warm up, we quickly realized that the relatively low canopy providing shelter from the rain was too low to accommodate an actual match. We finally decided to head into Monte-Carlo for a look around, since there would clearly be no matches played in the ongoing pouring rain.



Monte-Carlo is a surrealistic experience. Virtually everyone in the city is at least a millionaire (literally) and every car on the road is incredible (other than those with an F or I designation on their license plates, which single out the French / Italians just passing through). The architecture is beautiful and the setting of the city overlooking the water is spectacular; however, beyond casinos and very expensive shops, there is not a whole lot to do in Monte Carlo on a very rainy day. Fortunately for us, by the time we had eaten a sandwich for lunch, the sun finally started to peek through the clouds and we decided to make our way back to the tennis tournament, hoping to see the first match of the day.



Back at the tournament, we were excited to find that the sun was out, the weather had warmed up and Federer was getting ready to step out onto centre court. Being a Masters Series tournament, the men only had to win two sets to take the match (as opposed to winning three sets in a Grand Slam tournament). Federer’s performance was surprisingly weak and he just managed to lose (6-4, 7-5) to his fellow Swiss countryman, Wawrinka, before it started pouring rain again. Unfortunately that was the only match we wound up seeing that day, as it continued to rain after the Federer match, and they wrapped up the tournament for the day at that point.


Inspired by the athletics and muscle we had seen in Monte Carlo, we decided to take on a little physical activity ourselves and on April 19th we joined approximately 10,000 other joggers in running the Nice Semi-Marathon (as previously noted). The Semi-Marathon is a pretty bid deal in Nice and most people in town know that it is going on. Luckily, for this event we got clear sunny weather and we both had a great time running 21.2 kilometres, most of which was along the waterfront. The support throughout the city, including all the people that hung out their apartment windows to cheer the runners on, was much appreciated and made for a fun event. Though still a little bit sore from the run, we pulled ourselves together and were back out hiking in the French countryside a few days later.


We will be back in Nice briefly on April 30th, which is lucky, because there is one restaurant that we didn’t make it to on our first trip through, Chez Palmyre. The menu changes daily, and the old woman who does the cooking runs the restaurant as though you are eating in her home - can’t wait!