The French Riviera

On the last week of my vacation in August, the weather in Switzerland was looking particularly dismal. So, we did something a bit crazy. We hopped on the flight search website skyscanner.ch on Monday morning, put our starting destination as "Geneva" for leaving Tuesday morning and our ending destination as "Everywhere" for returning Friday morning, and sorted destinations by lowest price. Low and behold the lowest price destination (only $80!) was Nice, France on the French Riviera. Neither of us had really been to the French Riviera before, so we clicked purchase and marveled at our new found spontaneity.  Booking a trip less than 24 hours in advance is definitely something I've never done before!

The next EARLY morning we flew to Nice and spent the day meandering Nice's streets and rocky town beach. I neglected to take many photos with my camera on this day, which might have been due to my lack of sleep because of the early morning flight or maybe it was my general lack of enthusiasm for the city of Nice. At the risk of sounding like a spoiled negative Nancy, I will say that the city of Nice wasn't my favorite - it was insanely crowded and quite dirty. But, on the bright side, NOTHING beats traveling in Europe with one of my favorite people in the whole wide world (my mom), the weather was nice (no pun intended), and exploring a new destination is always a good idea in my book, even if it doesn't make it onto my repeat wish list.

At least this early morning flight provided a beautiful sunrise view!

Sitting out on Nice's town beach. We forgot to bring our sunscreen and ended up accidentally buying blue kids' sunscreen, which made us look like aliens. NO idea how the random purple dot got into this photo?!

The following day, we decided to escape the city madness and head to a nearby quiet peninsula, Cap Ferrat, at the recommendation of my friend who had visited there a few months before. Cap Ferrat has 2 little villages, several rocky beaches tucked away into calm bays, massive private villas for the vacationing rich and famous, and one beautiful hiking trail that goes around the peninsula.

Cap Ferrat peninsula. The red line is the trail that circles the peninsula

We started the first day in Cap Ferrat by visiting a few beaches on the peninsula.

So many yachts in each of the harbors

In the afternoon, we decided to walk the entire trail around the peninsula. It was a long walk (approx 4-5 miles) but the scenery was breathtaking which passed the time quickly. I loved the jewel blue and green shades of the ocean coupled with the numerous secret rocky bays that would pop up around each corner of the walk. This trail and peninsula was a well needed oasis of calm and beauty in an otherwise jam packed French Riviera.

See the cruise ship and the city in the background?

Pardon my lack of a shirt .... it was hot and sweaty walk, which required some clothing adaptation at times 

Selfie with mom!

Throughout the trail there were numerous hidden staircases carved into the rocks that led down to private beaches 

Next up: our third day in the French Riviera!

LUNCH: We had lunch in the harbor of St Jean Cap Ferrat, a calm little habor with a multitude of seafood restaurants all lined up and ready to serve passerby
HOTEL: We stayed in Hotel Villa La Tour in Nice. The location was great (in the Old Town of Nice) and the hotel owners were very gracious and helpful, but the hotel itself was a bit oddly decorated and needed a little TLC