Monday, September 30
This is, without question, the best bed that i've had in a hostel on the whole trip. It's comfy, sure, but most importantly, it's quiet. I roll over multiple times during the night, every other hostel bed has responded to that with so much creaking and clattering, you'd think i was pulling aluminum foil off the roll and balling it up for free throws.
I'm on the bottom bunk, and when the guy above me moved around, i could barely feel the frame move at all. 10/10, solid construction.
Today was another one of those days with no real plans. I sat in the common room, sipping my electrolytes, for a while. "When You're Gone" by The Cranberries was playing when i sat down. Nice, that's a bit of a throwback. Most of what they've been playing has been modern dance tracks, i Shazamed a ton of stuff while i was writing last night.
I was trying to figure out my plans for tomorrow. I still don't know what's happening. There's a train to Cannes like every twenty minutes, so that's definitely where i'm starting, but how the hell to get to Barcelona from there? I still don't have a good answer.
This will get worse. Put a pin in that. Don't worry, it'll still resolve in Part One.
There came a time when i just had to stop staring at train schedules and get out and adventure, though. And that time was when "When You're Gone" started playing again.
I'm in France, so of course i started my day by visiting the local boulangerie. The clerk did not speak a word of English, so we muddled through with my broken Français, and i ended up with a piece of quiche sliced like a pizza and a segment of a large Nutella roll up. The boulangerie barely had enough room for the counter inside, so i exited with my goods. There was no outdoor seating either, so i found a spot on a curb, hidden between two potted trees, and enjoyed my quiche. When it came time to open the Nutella roll up, powdered sugar spilled out of the deli paper, all over my shirt, pants, and camera. I tried to control it, but that only ended up increasing the dusting.
I realized i had forgotten to fill my water bottle, which i could find ways around, but then i noticed i didn't have BOB the Big Orange Battery. I had to go back to the hostel. I don't think this actually affected anything, other than time, and probably could have been omitted from the story, except i wanted to note that "When You're Gone" was playing yet again. This is where i checked the weather forecast, though, because i was noticing that the gray clouds above were crowding out what little blue sky i'd seen on my first lap.
The weather app was showing that it would be cloudy until about noon, and after that, it should clear up. Wonderful. However, as i was about to close the app, it suddenly updated to show rain icons all the way up to 15:00. The percentages for chance of rain were all in the high 30s, and later, still cloudy.
Well, that sucks. Not the day i would have liked for Nice. But, what choice have i got? It's my only day here, possibly for my entire life. Gotta live my life as if i'm not gonna get wet.
You know i'm gonna be upset if i do, though.
Back on track, i headed toward Fontaine du Soleil, the Sun Fountain. It was not far from the hostel, and was one of only six Atlas Obscura items in Nice.
I turned the corner into the plaza featuring the statue, and was immediately confronted with a statue of a bald, yellow man, kneeling on a platform, 50 feet up in the air.
Uh. Okay then.
Oh, there are more of them.
Seven bald, yellow men, kneeling on platforms, fifty feet in the air, alternating sides of the railroad tracks running through the middle of the plaza. I took my pictures, and walked across the long, open plaza, crossing a street at the end to reach the fountain.
When it was originally unveiled in 1956, this 23-foot-tall statue of the Greek god Apollo was evidently pretty controversial. First of all, people seemed confused by the four horse figures on his head, which was meant as a reference to Apollo's daily task of hauling the sun across the sky. The locals began calling him "The Four Horsepower Statue," a reference to the Renault 4CV automobile.
More damning, however, was his penis. In true Greek fashion, the statue is completely nude, and the citizenry of Nice in 1956 was appalled at how big his dick was. So in response, the sculptor actually took to it with a chisel and shortened the penis. This was not enough, though, which surprises me; the number of statues i've seen around Paris and other parts of France with their dick outs is staggering, i don't understand how this was the (Moby) Dick-Length that broke the French.
Declared an obscenity, it was moved to an obscure spot behind a stadium in 1970, only returned to the public eye here, at the edge of Place Masséna, atop a fountain, in 2011.
Apollo brings with him his five friends, bronze statues representing Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Saturn, which are equally naked and anatomically correct, three men and two women. I don't know which is which, but personally i was a fan of the woman with the three ugly-as-hell dolphins surrounding her like attack dogs; i'm guessing this is Venus.
One stray observation; the bronze figures cut off where they are meant to reach the water level, supported by posts from that point downward. The water level was an inch or two below the intended mark, though, so these posts were obvious today. What's strange is that all of the male statues cut off somewhere above the ankles. Only the women have feet.
I also decided i couldn't leave the plaza without figuring out what the bald yellow men were all about. Google Maps tells me the piece is called "A Conversation in Nice," and these represent the Seven Buddhas of Creation, and are named after the Seven Continents. Okay then.
While i was circling the fountain, water started dripping on me. At first, i assumed, or hoped, that it was just loose spray off of the fountain. And it may have been some of that, sure, but as i walked away, the drops started getting more frequent.
No, i was definitely going to get rained on. Again.
I kept pressing on toward another monument, which led me out to the sea.
Once i reached the nearby boardwalk, i noted that the beach wasn't sand, it was very large, smooth rocks. I couldn't resist. There was a stairway leading down to the beach, i descended, angering my GPS. I walked out to the shore, and stood there, watching the currents bring waves up to crash onto the stones.
After a while, i started walking down the beach. I wasn't on the boardwalk, but at least i was moving in the correct direction. I took out the Insta360, and made a little "tiny planet" video of me walking along, as the waves crashed just inches from my still-shoed feet. This is the first "tiny planet" video i've made on the trip. I've used that camera quite a bit less than i thought i would, even though it's always in my inner vest pocket, with its thick selfie stick stabbing me in the armpit. All day, every day. The handle slides out the front of the vest sometimes, and i'm always afraid someone's going to think it's the barrel of a gun. I've been a little paranoid about this ever since i saw those armed guards at the castle in Copenhagen.
It wasn't long until i came to an area that was designated for a fancy beachside restaurant. I don't know if i could keep walking here, i don't know if the restaurant owns the beach at that point; i don't feel that they should be able to, but we live in capitalism. There was a staircase leading back up to street level right about there, so i headed up, and continued toward the monument.
L'Ange de la Baie is a memorial for the victims of the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice on July 14, 2016. As i approached the monument, an elderly man came up to me and started speaking French.
"Je suis desolée, je ne parle pas Français." Not exactly my practiced phrase, this one indicates i can't speak French at all, but that is what came out.
"Do you know why the monument is here?" he then asked, in perfect English.
"No, i don't, i just got here," i said, as if that explained anything.
"This is where the terror attack stopped, right here at this intersection," he said, indicating the street to our left. "It started back that way." He pointed.
On Bastille Day in 2016, a man drove a cargo truck into a crowd celebrating the occasion on this spot, firing a pistol from his open window as he went. Across a two kilometer stretch, 86 people were killed and more than 400 others were injured, including children as young as three, before police stopped the vehicle by killing the driver.
The monument, created by Nice artist Jean-Marie Fondacaro, represents a wave, with the names of the 86 murdered civilians engraved in a heart shape. Above is a statue of a figure with arms outstretched, morphing into wings, to take flight.
I headed back the direction i came. This boardwalk is called Prom des Anglais, the English Promenade, because it was built by wealthy English tourists who liked to walk close to the sea. I'm actually unclear what sea this is; i talked about that in the last entry, in bits that i'd written after this part of the story, but this is where i was getting confused at all of that. I'm running with Tyrrhenian until i can get some concrete evidence otherwise.
I walked along the Prom des Anglais for a ways, heading east. From a suggestion on one of those tourist web sites, i was heading toward Colline du Château, which is up in the hills, high above the city, and has spectacular views.
I passed a fading painting on the ground for the 200th Anniversary Celebration of the Prom des Anglais. From the decay, i assumed it was a few years old, but then i noticed the date in the corner: 30-08-2024. Oh shit. I barely missed that party. That was the day i got to Tallinn.
[Man these Long Islands are really good i'm gonna have another one]
From where i stood, by the Prom des Anglais ground display, i could see what looked a bit like a wide, round castle turret halfway up the bluff. "I bet that's where my GPS is leading me," i told the camera, pointing, as i filmed a quick scene. "I see many stairs in my future," i continued, indicating the many staircases i could already see leading up to the turret.
Once i got to the crosswalk leading to that staircase, however, i realized that Maps was actually asking me to go much further, and come around the back of the bluff, to a location which was quite a bit further inland. "Should i climb these stairs anyway, just for fun?" i asked my camera, fully accepting that i would probably have to come straight back down and then still go around the mountain to get to my actual destination. "I should climb these stairs for fun." So i did.
I counted 214 stairs to reach the observation deck on the top of that tower, Tourre Bellanda, and every single one of them was worth it for that view. Over the edge of that tower, you can see for miles out into that unidentified sea - and miles inland, across the city of Nice, rising up into the mountains around it. The drizzle had stopped and the gray clouds were gone, replaced by pleasantly fluffy white ones. I stared for a long, long time.
Effervescent.
While i stood there, a noise rang out across the city that sounded like someone had lit off a single firework. Like one of those extremely loud, not very colorful ones that professional firework displays always shoot to let you know they're five minutes away from starting the show. Several people around me shouted, "Shit!" or "Jesus Christ!" or other exclamations of surprise, but i was barely startled. After living in Los Angeles for five years, i was just like, yeah, people shoot fireworks at the slightest provocation. It's a thing. I thought nothing more of it.
In the middle of the platform at the top of the tower is a small, round bit of building, which might be a shack for a guard, or might be the exit to a staircase from within, i'm not sure. But it has some windows with iron bars across them, and a loop in the middle. On that loop in one window, i found several Love Locks. The one on the end was engraved, simply, with D + D. I took a picture and sent it to Drew and Deanna.
I was about to leave when i noticed some fuckin' hipster setting up his large road case next to the small building, and pulling out what looked like one of those very, very old cameras, with the accordion-style extender for the lens. I didn't know what those kind of cameras are actually called, so i tried duckduckgoing "old camera with an accordion extender," and i think they are literally called "accordion cameras."
His road case had a printed sign on it reading, "FREE PHOTO."
I watched him using the camera to take a few candid shots of various tourists at the edge, and i was curious what he was doing. I took a few of my own sneaky candids of him, because who does this fuckin' hipster think he is? He's like 20.
I went back to the edge of the tower, hoping to lure him in. I stood there for a few minutes, then turned back around, and caught him mid-photo. He had taken the bait. If i'd waited just a few seconds longer, i could've had him. He turned away from me, and went after someone else. Shit.
I started to walk away, but i couldn't stand it. I needed to know what this guy was up to.
He had returned to his road case, so i approached him directly.
"Hey, i just need to know, what's the deal with all this?"
"Free photo," he said. I do not think he knew very much English. I kept trying to find out WHY he was doing free photos, but he couldn't give me a satisfactory answer. He did show me his camera, though; the accordion is a facade, it's a Canon inside very much like my own.
"Do you want one?" he finally asked.
"Yes," i said. It's pretty rare for me to get photos taken by other people on this trip. In fact, i think the only other one is from when that random person got a shot of me with the bear statue in Tallinn, which was framed poorly and my selfies turned out better.
I went back to the edge, and he took a shot of me looking at the sea. I returned to him at his road case, which included a printer, and he handed me a sheet of yellowed paper made up to look like an old newspaper. The title, L'ÉCHO AZURÉEN, emblazoned the top, and it included articles written in French. And there was my picture, right under the title, as though i were the headline story. A beautiful gimmick.
He had a tray for tips sitting atop the case, and i dropped a few coins in. I'm just now realizing that this is where that €1 coin i had went, i had been looking for it later in the day and was concerned i couldn't find it, and worried about what else i may have lost during the day. I didn't lose anything, it was just already tipped to someone else, so it wasn't there when i wanted to tip later (In Part Two! Consider this a trailer! If i remember to follow up on this bit!).
I knew there was no possible way i was going to get that paper back home undamaged, so i bit the bullet and folded it up and stuck it in an interior vest pocket.
From here, i found there were more stairs i could take upward, and i did, not knowing where they would lead me.
After another 161 stairs, bringing us to a total of 375 stairs up from the ground, i found myself at a public park, with a road leading in either direction. So i was on top of the bluff, but it didn't lead to any more cool points of interest, just a higher portion of the city. I wasn't sure if i should go back down, to continue toward my destination, but i really needed to pee, so i thought i'd see if this park had a salle de bain.
There was a concession stand, so i thought maybe near that...but nope. A playground behind it had an old stone-and-mortar structure, but that turned out to be an electrical building. I kept walking.
I found some amazing stone mosaic artwork in the ground depicting Odysseus's journey, including key plot points from The Odyssey. The images continued down a long staircase, where each stair was about two meters long and covered in mosaics of characters from the story, which led me to another observation deck overlooking a harbor and more of the city, from the other side of the hill. Nice is quite a bit larger than i expected.
I tried putting directions to Colline du Château back into Maps, but from what it returned, i got the impression that the entire top of the hill here was Colline du Château. I managed to get it to give me walking directions again, though, which looked like it would lead me past public toilets. This was fortunate. I was in need.
They were pay toilets, though, so i forewent the relief.
Nearby, though, was an archaeological site, where some ruins were being excavated. There were several signs, although from them, i couldn't quite tell what it was that was being unearthed. Maybe an old church?
A family of people got in my way at one of the informational signs, so i took the path off to their right, to see where it would lead me.
It got me a closer look at the ruins, which was pretty nice.
There were some ancient-looking stone benches on this obscure path, where very few people seemed to be treading. I had a seat on one. I recorded a quick video log about how "Amanda always sat on the ruins, so i will sit on the ruins, too." I was thinking about how, in Rome, we saw several old Roman columns that had fallen over and shattered into many pieces, and how she would always have a seat on one of them.
Some of the ruins were up a hill from the walking path. There was a two-ish foot retaining wall around this small hill, but it looked like there were well-worn dirt paths leading up to the center of it, so i went ahead and jumped up that wall. I came to the middle of the ruins, standing next to a square pedestal surrounded by fragments of ancient walls.
It was an interesting feeling, standing here. I don't know for sure that this was a church, but it might have been, and this pedestal could have held a baptismal. There's an energy here that i can't quite describe.
Am i only saying that because i've had two Long Islands while writing this? Holy shit.
I finally came to the bit that Google Maps considers to be Colline du Château. It's definitely just a fragment of a ruin, a little taller than the rest, so it has a unique vantage over the city. It's nice up there. I grabbed several more selfies and various shots.
The base of this piece of ruin contains a café and several informational kiosks. One such board talks about the tradition of firing a cannon from Colline du Château at noon every day, so that everyone can set their clocks by it.
I checked my watch. It was 12:45.
That's definitely the firework-like noise i heard from the top of Tourre Bellanda, that had been about 45 minutes ago. Well, there's one mystery that i hadn't known was a mystery solved. If only i'd been aware of this tradition, i could've planned to record it somehow.
I was thinking it might be time for lunch. One of the tourist articles i've been consulting suggested a place called Chez Theresa. It starts its description with, "The local cuisine is more than just Nicoise salads, y’know?," which got me curious about Nicoise salads. They're not mentioned anywhere else in the article, it just comes at you with this as if you know that Nice is known for these salads. It goes on to say that Chez Theresa is "One of the oldest socca shops in Nice," and describes socca as "a Niçois pizza-style snack made from chickpea flour and cooked in a huge stone oven." I love chickpeas. I'm down for this.
Chez Theresa is closed on Mondays.
I found another restaurant at the base of the bluff that was literally named "Socca," so i decided to make for that.
On the way down the mountain, i came to a fork. Maps was leading me to the right, but i could hear the sounds of a waterfall off to the left. I followed the sound, and was rewarded with exactly what i hoped.
There's a beautiful waterfall coming from the base of the ruins of Colline du Château. I assume that it's artificial, because i don't know where else the water would be coming from. It's remarkable; while i was at the top, i could hear a little bit of water flowing, but i guess i had assumed it was from some kind of a rain gutter, maybe still processing the morning's drizzle. I certainly had not expected this.
It was beautiful. I stared at it for quite some time. A plaque beneath the waterfall indicated that it had been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The inscription on the plaque seems like it's designating the entire town of Nice, though; but if that's true, i'm not sure why they'd put it at this out-of-the-way waterfall, way up on a bluff. Even if it was meant for Colline du Château, this is hardly the most visible spot for that plaque.
While i stood there, an elderly British man approached me and said, "You look like a photographer. Could you take our picture, please?"
I definitely feel like Amanda's photographer aura has transferred to me since she's been gone. Then again, it may just be because i've got that R6m2 slung over my neck. Amanda always got this even when she was not holding a camera. She just looked like a photographer.
There were four elderly British people in this group, i'm assuming two cishet married couples. One of the women then handed me her phone also. "You've got two hands, maybe you can do them both at the same time!" she said.
And i did!
I dual-wielded those British cell phones like an action hero with guns (which, by the way, absolutely does not work in real life). I think i did okay.
"I've never seen that before, two cameras at once!" one of the other British people said as i handed the phones back.
"I took a bunch, hopefully one is good!" i said, as i always do when someone asks me to take their photo. All of the British people seemed happy with my work.
I continued down the mountain, going through narrow staircases that certainly seemed like they were leading onto private property between residential houses, but evidently they weren't.
When i got where Maps was taking me, i could not find the restaurant. Something else was there, a Mediterranean place.
I looked at the photos on Maps. Some of them were of the Mediterranean place currently occupying the spot. Others showed Socca...and it was clearly a completely different building. I looked around the area. None of these buildings looked like what i was seeing in the Socca pictures.
There was no possible way i was going to find it. This establishment could be clear across the city. All i know is the address that Google Maps has is wrong.
I searched for socca on Maps. A few other well-rated places came up.
I ended up at Lou Pilha Leva, one of four highly-recommended restaurants named Lou. They had socca for €3 and Salade Niçoise for €11, so i got both. The socca turned out to be similar to a crêpe, but made with chickpeas. The salad had a shredded meat on it, but i couldn't quite identify it. It tasted chicken-ish, but with a weird tang to it...maybe tuna? And not the kind of tuna i generally like? It was alright. I didn't eat the olives, even though they were kalamatas, the one olive i don't mind so much.
Their only seating was picnic table-style, so i ended up sitting in an empty space between an apparent American tourist man, who did not speak to me, and a cute goth woman with tattoos across her entire forearms and facial piercings, and probably her mother. I wish i wish i WISH i could talk to people. The goth smiled at me, and i smiled back, but that was the extent of our interaction.
[The bar is closed, i cannot get another Long Island. That's okay, i've probably had enough, i'm being too candid here]
The food was pretty good! Definitely would not mind having socca again, i hope i remember to look up some recipes later. I'm not 100% sure what makes a Niçoise salad "Niçoise," though. Maybe the oil??
My plan had been to head to La Crypte Archéologique de Nice from here. Atlas Obscura says, "The construction of a tram line unveiled hidden remnants of the old medieval city," which sounds pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it is only open on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, so that's out for today.
There's only one more Atlas Obscura location that's within the city. I went for La Tête Carrée Library, an enormous statue of a human bust, except that the head from the lips up is replaced with a giant cube, and inside that cube is a library.
This landmark exists on the grounds of the Nice Museum of Modern Art, which is temporarily closed for remodeling. I passed through a cool park on the way there, which included a segment of playground shaped like a whale, plus bits that looked like big octopuses with springy, rideable animals below them. I watched an elderly lady ride one of the animals while her husband filmed her.
The park also includes a 1:1 scale bronze replica of Michelangelo's David, which is at least the second replica David i've seen on this trip.
The blockhead library, titled "Thinking Inside the Box," seemed to be entirely enclosed within the construction fencing around the grounds of the Modern Art Museum. I circled the fence as much as i could, though, and came to a door within a concrete block building, just underneath the bust.
The door was locked. From the signage, i gathered that this was the administrative offices of the Nice Central Library, not the entrance to the actual building.
Doesn't look like i'm getting into that blockhead on this trip.
Alright. I could see two choices from here. There's a museum dedicated to artist Henri Matisse here in Nice, his home for 40+ years, which might be cool; single-artist focused museums seem to be largely my jam. Hell, at least i'm aware of Matisse; i went to the Paul Klee museum without having ever heard his name before. I would probably really enjoy a Matisse museum. OR, i could go see the Atlas Obscura museum that interested me the most, out of the five possible options: Cunégonde et Malabar, the home of an eccentric artist far out in the mountains on the edge of Nice, "excessively decorated with found objects and work of his own." It seems really interesting. It's an hour by bus from here.
I chose the vanilla extract/i'm bald/secret third option.
One of those tourism web sites recommended Musée Terre Amata, a museum dedicated to and on the actual site of a 1960s archaeological dig here in Nice which unearthed some of the oldest-known traces of civilization, dating from 400,000 years ago. Now THAT is incredibly interesting.
As i was walking toward the museum, i was suddenly struck by an idea. The Matisse museum would be closing in an hour, i'd basically already missed that, and surely i wasn't heading to some weirdo's house in the mountains this close to dark. Ergo, i'd mostly exhausted the lists of things to do in Nice. There's always more things to do, of course, in any city. I could look up more things to do for days, weeks even. The French Riviera is supposed to run through here, although i can't find it on a map. Maybe i'm illiterate.
I could hitch a train to Monaco and walk around Monte Carlo at night. It's only a twenty minute train ride, and it departs thrice per hour. Like Matisse, Musée Terre Amata closes at 5, so even if i spend the maximum amount of time there, i'd still have plenty of time to get to Monaco before sunset.
The museum was entirely in French. I think this is the first museum i've gone to that did not also have English translations readily available. The clerk, an elderly woman with a second office chair for her Pomeranian to sleep in, had handed me an English guide, but it was more of an explanation for the whole museum, rather than an exhibit-by-exhibit translation.
There was a staircase to my right upon entry, with a sign indicating that i should ascend, but i assumed it meant i should do that after i'd seen what was directly before me.
I worked my way slowly through the ground floor, which contained a huge, room-filling slab of the original dig site, which this building is constructed around. An interactive touchscreen pointed out the interesting facets of this rock, explaining the earliest known evidence of humans in the Nice area.
Other displays along the walls showed some of the items excavated from the site. I took my time and tried to read as much of it as i could, and actually did pretty well on the first few displays, before things got complicated. In the back corner, there was a glass wall, which showed a room full of filing cabinets. I assumed this was where the other archaeological samples are stored for continuing research. In the space between them was a wire figure in the shape of a man with a stuffed boar on his back, attacking him. How do i know it's a man? Because this is a French museum, they took the time to form genitals.
I was across the room from that initial staircase, tucked into a nook, examining a reproduction of a primitive lean-to with more metal wire human figures inside, when the noise of dozens of schoolchildren clattering down a stairway filled the large, echoey space. As usual, i tried to ignore it, and go about my business. Moments later, i realized that a museum guide was standing next to me, explaining the exhibit.
I turned slowly, as if in a slasher movie, right at that moment where an expendable character realizes the monster is behind them, and the audience gets their first good look at the creature.
All thirty or fifty
Deer, meet headlights. Frozen. What do. I am not part of the educational curriculum. I know i haven't showered in a few days and i'm wearing dirty clothes and my hair is uncivilized, but i am not a prehistoric man.
I casually worked my way around the right side, nearly hugging the wall, and made eye contact with two little girls sitting at the edge of the sea of students. They scooted close enough to their nearby classmates to allow me to slip by. I got into an open pocket of floor, back near their teachers/chaperones.
This was the opposite side of the room as where i'd come from. The passageway around the main dig site rock was roped off. The children were blocking my point of origin. The only way i could go was up the staircase that they'd just come down from.
I quietly began the climb, got about two thirds of the way up, and realized i was walking into a classroom. It was filled with chairs of that unmistakeable rounded elementary school design, desks all pointed toward a dry erase board at the front.
I came back down the stairs, but there was nowhere else to go. It was either try the stairs again, and hope there was something beyond that classroom, or cozy up to a teacher and see if they want to talk about Nutella or marmalade.
I chose the former.
There was a hidden hallway a sharp right from the staircase, behind the classroom. This got me into the exhibits displaying the actual artifacts that have been excavated here.
The skulls on display were all moldings made from the originals, but there were many genuine teeth from 400,000 year old humans, which is a bit wild to think about. Some of their tools were also on display. This settlement includes the earliest known evidence of humans domesticating fire (ie, having hearths in their homes).
Some animal bones from the species these humans hunted were also on display, including aurochs. For my second vulnerable admission of illiteracy today, until this moment, i actually thought aurochs were fictional?? Turns out they were real??? Extinct now, but definitely did exist.
One of the last fossils i saw before leaving was a cast of a footprint left 400 millenia ago. Just incredible. Someone walked someplace once, and the human race never forgot about it for eons.
Just outside of the museum, there were three modern boot prints in the concrete curb on the street. Really makes you think.
My watch battery was at 7%, so i decided to head back to the hostel to grab its charger before leaving the city. On the way, i saw a large, deep blue statue of a lion, which looked awesome. I pulled out my phone and took some pictures, naturally. As i was looking through them, i noticed i had a notification from the Eurail app. Why would i have a notification from Eurail? That's suspicious.
Oh.
There's a rail strike in France, beginning tomorrow.
Modified timetables will be published shortly. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
Oh god.
I have been having enough trouble figuring out how i'm going to get to Barcelona. This is yet another wrench in that machine. I hope it doesn't affect me too badly.
To be clear, i stand with the striking workers, always.
I'm just hoping this doesn't leave me stuck in Nice tomorrow.
---
So it turns out the Riviera isn't a river, it's the whole coast of that sea? Fuck, i *AM* illiterate.
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