Wanderlust: The One Where I'm in Lyon

Bonjour, mes amis! I know you haven’t heard from me for the longest time.  I promised myself that I would blog for every place I have visited to while I’m on exchange, but as you can obviously see, I failed terribly. The last trip I blogged about was my trip to Marseille. I was in the process of writing my trip to Torino, but then I just got lazy. So yeah, my apologies. However, I have managed to blog about me losing my phone in Brussels (if that helps)…LOL.

Anyway, I thought Barcelona would be my last trip before heading back to Paris, but then I had a YOLO moment the day after I got from Barca. I felt that I haven’t explored France as much as I wanted and I’ve been dying to go to Nice since the start of the term. So, I quickly looked up train tickets on SNCF and voila! The next thing I know, I have booked myself a 2-day trip to Nice. Now or never, right? I want to make the most out of my time here in France as much as I can. Also, this is the FIRST time I have traveled by myself here on exchange. I definitely knew that it would be a great experience for me, especially in terms of being independent.

As promised, here’s the first part of my trip in Nice. Stay tuned for more! (Note: Click on the photos to enlarge them!)

On my first day in Nice, the weather wasn’t looking up for me. It was raining in a city where they are mainly known for their beaches, so you can see my dilemma here. I decided to settle in my hostel first then talked to the girl in the reception to ask for things to do and see around the city, as usual. She gave me a bunch of options so that got me pretty excited. Also, it was then that I decided to take a half day trip to Monaco the next day as she made it sound very doable with my late afternoon train ride back to Lyon.

So off I go to venture out on the beautiful city of Nice. I stopped by the famous Promenade des Anglais first despite the rainy weather just so I can see what all the hype was about AND simply because my hostel is two minutes away from the beach. They definitely didn’t have sandy beaches (as warned by Wikitravel). I guess that beach area is mainly famous for the walkway by the water and stuff. It doesn’t look as impressive as compared to other brighter and better days. I have proof, so again, stay tuned for them! 😛

Promenade des Anglais (cloudy and rainy version)

I decided to head over to Place Massena and Garibaldi Square which are along Avenue Jean Médecin and Boulevard Jean Jaures (respectively). The lady from the hostel told me those areas were nice and had a bunch of shops. I also decided to look for the bus I was going to take for Monaco just so I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for it the next day. It was in factin the same area as the places I wanted to hit.

After doing that, I decided to go shopping just to kill time before dinner. I have been shopping a lot since my trip to London…… Not good. It just feels that I’ve been buying too much food (ahem, chocolate) in my trips. I finally bought those “commando boots” that I’ve been finding for months! Yipee!

Place Massena

As it got darker, I headed back to Place Massena and to my surprise, their Christmas market was already open. I was so excited to see what they were selling. Not only that, the whole area was lit up with different colours of Christmas lights. It was like a mini-light show and they also played music and had a massive ferris wheel as you walk further down. It was definitely a beautiful sight and I just couldn’t stop taking photos. It was the perfect time to play with the “bokeh” effect with my camera too. Speaking of which, one downside of traveling alone is that you would have to ask random people to take your photos for you. And in case they don’t do a great job at it (which what usually happens), you’d have to tell them that it’s good enough when you know for a fact it doesn’t match your standards at all (simply becauseyou don’t want to sound too demanding).

Noël à Nice <3

I paid a visit to Vieux Nice (Old Town) along Cours Saleya as the lady from the hostel recommended some restaurants for me to try there. And mind you, it’s always a must to check out the old town part of a city. After all the trips I’ve been on exchange, I think I can now safely tell if a restaurant is a tourist trap or not. I knew the first few ones I passed by were tourist traps simply because the staff kept bugging me to eat at their place and their menus had been translated into a number of languages. I finally found one of the restaurants she suggested called Le Safari. The vibe was definitely different as they didn’t have their menus right outside the restaurant and you won’t see anyone from the staff begging you to eat at their restaurant.

Couldn’t get enough of the Christmas lights!

So I took my chances and just went in to try the place. I was greeted by one of the heads of the restaurant, I assume. He was very nice and made conversation with me. Very typical of people here, which I like. You can tell they are genuinely friendly unlike people back in North America who seem to only do that just because they want tip. The menu looked a bit pricey. I was banking on a set menu, but their only set menu cost €27euros, which was too expensive for my taste. The man told me about the daily specials and kindly explained everything to me, which was very nice of him. I ended up trying some authentic Niçoise Salad (half portion) and the Bouillon saveurs d’Asie et Raviolis au Saumon, which was part of their specials. It was sorta just like pho with salmon dumplings. The guy was hoping I would like it since I’m Asian so I would know how good Asian food should taste. It tasted pretty healthy and I definitely caught on the Asian flavours.

Niçoise Salad, cute Christmas ribbon lights, and the Bouillon

To end the night, I ate the macarons that I bought from the Christmas market. Don’t get me wrong, I am normally not a huge fan of macarons, but when one sells such exotic and uncommon flavours like amaretto, piña colada, bounty, and etc., I couldn’t resist. I bought myself four pieces: banana chocolate, chestnut, pear with hot wine, and pâte a tartiner. They were really good. I liked the banana chocolate and pâte a tartiner the most!

In no particular order: banana chocolate, pear with hot wine, chestnut, and pâte a tartiner.

And hmmm.. more Christmas lights to end this post! 🙂