When most people think Spring Break they think bikinis, sun, beach, and lounging around. Although I loved spending my spring break visiting cities in sweaters, it was nice to have a couple days of down time on the beach. Lucky for me, one of my friends I was travelling had the same idea. We decided to take two beach breaks during our month long trip, the first in the French Riviera after Paris.
We found an adorable town called Villefranche sur Mer, just outside the city of Nice. Right on the beach and connected by a direct train line, it was perfect. Upon arrival we headed down to the beach to just sit and hang for a bit before dinner. The bay here was interesting as it reaches a very high depth very quickly, making it a common bay for ships.
Day 2 was set aside as our day trip to Monaco on the train line but we both woke up feeling a bit tired and decided to embrace the laid back aspect of this portion of our trip and make it a beach day instead. We walked down the narrow pedestrian only streets to the pier where we dined on three scoops of ice cream for lunch at Lou Bantry…sorry mom. After that we walked over to the beach where we lay in the sand for a bit as well as wading into the water.
As the sun set, we began to wander back to our airbnb. While at the beach, the two of us had decided to have a girls night in. So we went to pick up some local food to make dinner in our kitchen – fresh pastries with cheese and spinach, local handmaid ravioli and rosé sauce, and chocolate for dessert. Being that we were in the French Riviera we couldn’t possibly leave without trying some of the Rosé the region is famous for. The pastry shop at the corner also happened to have a local line of rosé. After grabbing a bottle of it and two homemade quiches for our breakfast the next morning we retired for the evening.
With our last full day in the French Riviera we decided to hop to the train and spend the day in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. The train from our town took about 15 minutes. Upon arriving we stopped for focaccia for lunch before walking down to the coast. We wandered through the marina, Japanese gardens, and the grand prix track and eventually found ourselves on the beach. After getting more ice cream, there is definitely an ice cream trend beginning to emerge on this trip, we sat down in the sand to watch the sun set. Giving us a picture perfect end to our relaxing break in Nice.
Looks so serene and lovely! Ahhhh….breathe🥰