Nice was the one city that everyone told you that you must visit whenever the topic of south France was brought up. I'm not entirely sure why Nice nor why no other city was ever mentioned, but in any case I figured I'd better check it out.

I spent 3 nights there in total I think it was. A couple of days to see Nice and one to use as a day trip to Monaco. I'm not really sure what to say about Nice. It was nice (heh), but kinda boring. Not a whole lot to do, I guess it's mostly known for its beach which might be good by European standards but still pales compared to beaches back home. One of those rocky pebble beaches rather than sand. I didn't bother going for a swim, but I did walk along it, and I must admit that it did look nice.

Up at one end was a tall hill which you could walk up which gave a really nice look over the city and beach. This was probably the highlight of the city when all is said and done. I can't really think of anything actually eventful happening here.

It was on the second day I decided to go to Monaco. I was quite looking forward to this. To see the famous Monte Carlo casino. Though I wasn't sure if I really had it in my budget to gamble. As it would turn out I got there entirely too early, something like 1pm. The train station is actually quite high up the mountain side so you can a quite awesome view down the city when you first walk out it, followed then by a long walk down there to actually get to anything of interest.

The first thing I did was go to the palace. The palace itself was rather boring, but the area did give an awesome view of the town and harbour, so I got some good photos. After this I went to the aquarium as a few people I had spoken to said it was worth it. I don't think it was, not for the price. I have been to better aquariums over the last few months. Then I decided to head to the casino.

To get there I walked along the port, which was pretty awesome, it was filled with theme park rides, sideshows and foods stalls etc. Though as I said I was here way too early and the place was kinda dead. Turns out that when I got the casino it too was pretty much completely dead. But even so it was only 3 small rooms. Two filled with pokies and the 3rd central room with about 10 table games, one craps, and the others roulette and blackjack. But they only had a couple of each open and the min bet on blackjack was 25euros which was a bit rich for my taste.

The room was nice, very ornately decorated, looked like the room of a palace or castle. But atmosphere wise the place was absolutely dead. There was a terrace area off to one side but you had to be wearing a suit to get in, and it looked even more boring anyway. There was one last back room which you had to pay 20euro to get into, but it didn't even look to be open. I figured I'd wander around a bit and come back later, maybe the place picks up at night.

I checked out the other 3 casinos, but they were even worse. 2 of them had nothing but pokies and the other actually had the most table games but most were closed and there couldn't have been more than 10 people in the place.

I decided to head back to the port and maybe go on a ride or 2. It was probably about 6 or 7 by the time I got there and now the place was quite bustling. I did going one ride which was pretty awesome. Had something to eat, watched people fail at side show games. Then at about 8 I thought maybe the casinos had picked up.

But nope, pretty much as they were before. I'm not sure if that was still considered to early here for people to hit the casino or what. It was a Saturday night. Maybe because it relies entirely on tourists (locals aren't allowed in) it only does really good business during the summer months. Either way I came away from this famous casino pretty damn disappointed.

The next day I found a flight to Naples for just 60euro which was pretty awesome. The problem was though, it was at 7am and it turns out that no public transport in Nice even runs that early other than taxis which the hostel guys told me would be like 50 euro. f*** that. So instead of staying an extra night at the hostel I just went to the airport that night and slept there.

Turned out to be the worst airport ever to do so. Everything closed at about 9pm. So I couldn't do anything at all. For a while I was scared that they were actually going to close the airport itself and kick me out, that would not have been fun. There were no flights coming or going between 10pm and 7am, so it was a possibility. Thankfully it didn't happen and I got a half decent sleep.

The flight to Naples was short and sweet, only an hour long. But the time we were done with takeoff we were already preparing for landing.