Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8yFStSyzCwuMXyGeA
After spending 4 of my 6 months in India (with the other 2 being East China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, and Cambodia/KL/Bangkok/Singapore), I finally left India. My parents and sister more or less strongarmed me into visiting them in the South of France for a week, so I flew all the way there, and then will be flying all the way back to Asia to Indonesia (currently in the Nice airport so let’s hope I make it! #Corona). Overall this was definitely a good trip.
Marseille
I actually liked Marseille despite it being a more “shabby” city since it had some character. We only spent a day here and otherwise took day trips out from here for two days, and it was a nice spot to spend a day in. There was a street near our AirBnB, Rue Panier, that had some cool street art – my personal favorite was one of a black girl and a sign that said “No Whiterification”. Also, I taught my parents what ACAB meant as that was grafitti’d all over the city. The highlight of Marseille was definitely the Abbey of St. Victor. It’s an old Roman Church that has been done up over the years, and it was a really grand and austere building – I prefer my churches to have the giant stone look without too much of the flash that “newer” churches have (like the 19th century Notre Dame in Marseille). This was definitely the coolest Church/Cathedral that I saw in this trip to the South of France.
The next day, we took a day trip to Aix-En-Provence, which was a nice little stop. For lack of a better word, it was a sort of “generic” European town, with narrow alleyways, pretty squares, and a compact size. Don’t really regret going here but this wasn’t a standout by any means. I did have this French cake called the Madeline for the first time which was really good – sort of like a better sponge cake. Aix was also jam-packed since we went on a Saturday and that’s apparently a big market day in the town. One pretty unique thing we saw here was a museum on 1950s/1960s Scandanavian interior design. This museum was tailor made for Instagram.
After that, we took a day trip to Arles, which (along with Saint-Paul-De-Vence) was definitely the highlight of this trip. Arles is known for being the setting for numerous Van Gogh paintings as he spent some time here, and it was cool to see these different settings in person. Much like Aix-En-Provence, this was “just another” small pretty European town, but it was empty (off season and #corona) so that definitely added to the charm here. And of course, the Roman Ruins (especially the colosseum and the amphitheater) were awesome. It was so much fun just walking around this town, checking out all the ancient Roman sites as well as the small town French vibe. I’m definitely getting to the point where I’ve become a travel hipster and I prefer the smaller towns and day trips to the big cities. I wouldn’t say this was quite to the level of Suzdal in Russia (the holy grail of village visits for me) but it was still amazing. The lack of crowds is honestly probably why I loved Arles and found Aix-En-Provence to just be “pretty good”.
Nice
After Marseille and the two day trips there, we took a longer train ride to our next AirBnB in Nice. Nice itself is a nice (sorry) city, with the same narrow alleyways that you see everywhere in Europe. There was also a pleasant stroll up a hill that gave a really good vantage point over the whole city, where you see the iconic French Riviera coast with the rocky, pebble-strewn beach of Nice, the turquoise blue water, and the red tile roofs of the oldtown buildings. One food highlight of Nice was this local pancake-like dish called a Socca. This was almost like a homeless man’s Adai, which is a south Indian breakfast dish. And trust me, calling anything a homeless man’s Adai is high praise, as my grandma’s Adai back in Chennai is legitimately one of the best things I have ever eaten.
The next day, we did day trips to Eze and Monaco. So I worked at Eze Software for 4 years after college, and my old company was named after this village of Eze as the founder went on his honeymoon here. It’s only worth like 3-4 hours tops, but I can say with certainty that the place is worthy of having a company named after it. It’s almost artificially like a medieval village, with perfectly preserved narrow alleyways and stone buildings lurching in every corner. And the small trek up to the top of the hill gives you absolutely incredible views of the French Riviera – this was far and away the best view we saw all trip. Côte d’Azur literally means Azure coast and you can see why it is called that – the only time I have seen more impressive shades of blue was the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers in Ladakh.
After Eze, we went to Monaco, which was honestly the only “eh” part of this trip. Part of it is that I am lowkey anti-capitalist so it’s a bit gross to see the flagrant wealth on display (even accounting for my bias, half these yachts don’t even look that good). It felt like a sterile, disneyland version of what Europe is supposed to look like if you haven’t been before. We only spent a few hours here but honestly there’s nothing much else to say here. Didn’t really dislike it per se, but it was just so thoroughly mediocre, especially compared to the rest of the trip.
Our final day trip from Nice was to Saint-Paul-De-Vence, which was an awesome perched medieval town that was like 10km inland. This was almost like a more authentic Eze, while also being a good deal bigger than Eze. There were a ton of cool art galleries in this town with Burning Man-esque modern art and sculptures, and even moreso than Arles it was probably the most picturesque town we went to this trip. Also was probably the best meal of the trip, at this really good farm-to-table place called Obatik (actually farm-to-table, not that Brooklyn hipster shit). And we saw the snow capped Alps from a distance here as well!
I definitely missed the chaos of India (definitely felt a bit sterile here with the exception of Marseille), and the spice of Indian food. That said, we basically had Italian food the entire week…the South of France is more or less Italy with croissants, crepes, and signs in French instead of Italian – even the architecture looks more stereotypical Italian than French. Had a lot of truffle dishes which were honestly quite good, and probably at half the price of truffle dishes in the US. This is definitely the best food you can have for bland food. There’s still a good amount more I want to see in France (Paris, Normandy, the Alsace-Lorraine region), but the Riviera was overall a good trip. Was nice doing a full family trip after seeing my dad for Sri Lanka, my sister for Myanmar, and my mom for Myanmar and a bunch of India trips in Jan/Feb.
Plans can obviously change quickly now because of Corona, but the plan right now is to see my college friends Arjun and Nick (my Burning Man tent-mate!) in Bali through March 27, then see another college friend Roy in Yogyakarta until the end of March, then a few more days in Bali probably on my own, before a week or so in Malaysian Borneo with Arjun to dive at Sipadan (Google it…this looks beyond amazing). Hoping to go to Taiwan after that but that is way too far out in advance to plan that in current conditions. My absolute worst case scenario is to road trip across the US (if national parks are not closed but the rest of the world is in lockdown…the tricky thing is having no healthcare in a country like the US, as my travel insurance does not cover the US), or just buy a bunch of video games and sit at home to ride out this paranoia until life resumes.