Не всё то золото, что блестит Not all that glitters is gold

This time I decided not to fly to the islands, but to visit "civilized Europe", at the world-renowned resort of the Cote d'Azur, in the sunny city of Nice, repeatedly sung in songs. The motive for this decision was the unwillingness of a long flight and, on the contrary, a great desire to see the sights of this advertised place known since childhood. The time was chosen spontaneously from July 26 to August 5.2009, there were 2 weeks to prepare, so after searching the Internet for normal reviews and finding almost nothing, I acted "on a whim" - I bought tickets on the Aeroflot website "round-trip" for two 39.500 r. , and turned to the DSBW company I knew for visas and hotel reservations. Unfortunately, it was not possible to immediately get to the indifferent manager, and the first employee convincingly advised on the Cote d'Azur to take a hotel in Nice and certainly near the station "as it is convenient to travel to neighboring cities and the sea is only 15 minutes on foot. " Taking her word for it, I agreed to book a two-star hotel Saint Gothard, located on the street. Paganini, house 20, literally 2-3 minutes from Nice-Ville station. The asking price for a double room with breakfast was 69 euros per night. The hotel really turned out to be a standard "kopeck piece" - a room with a total size of about 16 square meters. m, its own air conditioning, a small bathroom with a hairdryer and a shower, everything worked properly, all four small (! ) Towels were changed daily, soap and shower gel were added. More than a balcony (namely in our room), there were no frills. The sheets were not changed in 10 nights and the carpeting was rarely vacuumed, but the trash was taken out and the bed was made daily. The TV was small, under the ceiling, only 13 programs in different languages, except for ours. In general, there were almost no Russians in the hotel, mostly French, British, Italians, etc. . Breakfast was not bad for a continental - croissant, bread, jam, butter, two types of cereal, tea-coffee-cocoa-orange juice and milk. You could take a supplement, the dishes were clean, the service was friendly. The hotel staff speaks English, helpful, broken hair dryer was fixed immediately. There are several cafes right next to the hotel, but we only had dinner there a couple of times, since the price is not small - 16-17 euros per person for a "complex dinner" consisting of three courses to choose from starter-main-dessert menu, and each dish There were 6-7 varieties. For more democratic food, we found the FLUNCH self-service cafe, located directly to the right of the station building, if you stand facing it, it is open from 11 am to 10 pm daily. There, dinner for two cost us from 13 to 18 euros. Its peculiarity is that you don’t have to pay for a side dish, you take the side dish yourself in the hall after the cashier what you want and how much you want, namely french fries and mashed potatoes, stewed vegetables, rice, pasta, beans, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, vegetables -grill, different sauces and clean water with ice. And you have to pay for meat, fish, squid, desserts, salads, bread, coffee, tea, drinks, wine. For example, fish was of 4 kinds, costing from 6.90 euros to 7.50 euros, meat and hot ham cost 6.90 and 6.95 euros and so, a jug of wine 1.75 euros, desserts from 1.20 to 2. Approximately 80 euros and so on. It was very convenient and profitable to eat there. . I saw people who bought a can of Pepsi, paid for it and went into the hall, where they simply collected mountains of various side dishes with sauces, and ate contentedly. We usually spent lunch on the beach, where we drank mineral water and gnawed on salted nuts and crackers - there was not much appetite in the heat. It turned out that train tickets are much more expensive than bus tickets, namely for a bus-tram 1 euro, and for an electric train at least 3 euros, a ticket to Monaco costs 3 euros, to Cannes 6 euros. The bus station is close to the sea and far from the station (4 tram stops), and places such as Cape Ferrat, Beaulieu, Monaco, Eze, I definitely recommend visiting by bus. The ticket costs 1 euro and is valid for 74 minutes with one transfer, but not in the opposite direction. That is, you can buy a ticket and validate it in a tram or the first bus, get to the bus station, where you can take another long-distance bus you need and re-validate the same ticket in it and go further. The views along the coast on the bus are simply amazing! Just keep in mind that the bus ride is much longer than the train, the bus takes 2 hours to Cannes, and the train takes 30 minutes. The sea in Nice is really warm and very clean, the beach is large pebbles, without special. It’s hard to get shoes in, I advise you to stock up on it in advance. Paid beaches are expensive - from 18 euros per person per day. The free ones are clean and there is an open shower, you can buy an umbrella and walk with it, the price is from 7 to 12 euros, depending on the size. We liked the beaches in Cannes and Antibes - sand, and Cape Ferrat - small pebbles. In each town, there is information at the station or bus terminus. a tour bureau, where they will give you a map of the place for free, sometimes even in Russian, and they will gladly explain where there are free beaches and where the tourist train departs from, and everything else you want. Most of all we liked the beaches (there are 5 of them) of Cap Ferrat, we went there by bus 81 in 30 minutes. , but there are burning jellyfish, the French catch them with nets and even have special ones. a boat that looks like a water bulldozer. And in Antibes, by lunchtime, foam and all sorts of filth appeared in the sea, it must have been lowered from one of the beautiful-looking yachts. Returning to the title of my review, I want to note that for a budget traveler, Nice is far from an ideal place to spend a vacation, and even for several reasons: 1) A terrible number of people, 2) The high cost of food and services, 3) The sea and lavender are not there it smells - this is a resort metropolis (stone bag), 4) The streets are not as clean as the beaches, namely, they are simply littered with dogs and homeless people, 5) For decent money, the hotel room is rather shabby and no one is trying to clean it. I only liked the possibility of a “free flight” around the surroundings, we traveled everything from Avignon to Genoa, but it also cost a pretty penny, since the railways in France turned out to be more expensive than Swiss ones, but not at all more punctual - there were delays for tens of minutes. And another such incident - it is cheaper there not to immediately take round-trip tickets, but separately, otherwise there is an overpayment from the fare. Good luck to all travelers, I will definitely answer your questions!