Villefranche, France – Apr 11
This is also our second time here. I used the same tour company which was great last time. Not so much this time around. I had kept in touch with Alain with each canceled WC due to Covid and at one point he said he didn't think his company would survive, but he said he personally would still do our tour if it didn't. He was doing airport runs just to keep things going.
Heather also
had a group here and their guide was about the same. It was with Dream Tours https://dream-tours.com/private-tours/ and we had the owner Alain. Super nice guy, but he nearly
lost his company during the pandemic, and I think he is more comfortable
managing and it’s been a long time since he has guided. Both guides were too
soft-spoken to be heard by anyone other than whoever was right next to him. He
also was not decisive. We never knew “what the plan” was.
We did visit Nice (which we missed last time) and we were so
early not much was open. We did a walk via the Promenade des Anglais for the
old city and of its famous fresh food and flowers market. Then we drove to St.
Paul de Vence which was amazing last time, but it’s early in the year and not
really tourist season, so many things were closed. We did see some areas that
we didn’t have time for last time.
We had asked to visit La Turbie. He scoffed but said he would take us. We wanted to see the Roman monument, ‘head of the dog’ outcropping and other interesting sites. He drove by the monument at a distance, and we stopped at an overlook of Monaco.
We were dropped in Monaco with no suggestions for where to have lunch other than they are all good, it just depends on what you want. Greg and I found a nice spot for some crepes after stopping at one place that was crowded outside so went inside and quite frankly it was dirty, so we left. We enjoyed our crepes and then went for some gelato. We wandered a bit and found Monaco’s Royal Palace the official residence of Prince Abert II.
We had been to the St. Nicholas Cathedral before (where
Princess Grace & Prince Rainier are buried), but for those that hadn’t it
was closed for school groups going through. We did not stop at Casino Square
for Casino de Monte Carlo and just did a quick drive through. We wanted to make
sure we had time for Eze since we missed it last time. We drove the Grand Prix
Circuit and we were out of Monaco.
Again, once we got to Eze Alain couldn’t seem to answer a yes or no question. Were we on our own in Eze or was he guiding us. When pressed he responded with “do you want me to run?” No, just wanted to know what the plan was. Like St. Paul de Vence, not much was open due to not being tourist season. We skipped the gardens which we were told were quite nice. Our tour description said there was a chocolate factory there and we wanted to visit that. When we asked about it, we were told it was actually in Nice. We popped into a church and wandered a bit before just giving up and heading down the hill to the vehicle. We stopped for a hot chocolate and Tom & Cathy stopped by. Others stayed at the bottom instead of making the climb up to the walled village. Part of the problem was the guiding and the rest I chalk up to just not being tourist season, so not much was open unlike the last time we visited this lovely part of France.
Tomorrow, we visit Marseille.
Nice, France https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tbk9AJc3pBuSFtrJ7
Birds seen:
Barn Swallow
European Turtle-Dove
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