Spring holiday for the soul - Carnival in Nice
Review of the tour "Carnival in Nice" from TO "Accord"
03/01/2011–03/11/2011
A small preface
After returning from the “Italy – Taste of Temptation” tour in early October, I spent a month reflecting on my impressions of the trip, writing reviews on various sites and organizing the photographs taken. But now everything is written and laid out on the shelves, and again it became sad and boring. A long and cold winter loomed ahead. And although tour operators make the most tempting offers for the New Year and Christmas holidays, but I know that this is not my time. I am terrified of the cold and prone to colds. Therefore, when proposals for the carnival in Nice appeared, I decided that March was already spring, and I could already decide on a trip. Moreover, "Accord" offered a very tempting tour with a visit to 3 carnivals at once: in Nice, Menton and Venice. But as it turned out, I overestimated my immunity to colds.
Just in December, very opportunely, positive reviews appeared on the Turpravda forum about last year's tour to these carnivals, and after a little hesitation, I book the Carnival in Nice tour with Accord for March 01.2011. My husband is not traveling with me, there is no vacation. My daughter is joining me, which was a big plus for me. Since staying in a hotel with a loved one is always better than with a stranger.
This tour has a Hungarian visa, but this is already the 3rd Hungarian visa for me, and my daughter has an annual cartoon, so we did not expect problems with visas. I was informed about the opening of the visa a week in advance, and the information sheet arrived in 4 days. From him, I learned that we were very lucky with the leader of the group, since Oksana Voloshin will be our leader. The best characteristics were written about her in all the reviews on the forum and the TO website. Now I join these reviews. The sea of charm and kindness, the completeness of the information necessary for tourists, good organizational skills, this is a very brief description of Oksana.
My daughter and I decided that we shouldn’t go on a tour without a rest in Lviv, so we book a room in the Irena hotel we have already settled in, and we live in it for two days before the tour. Lviv meets us with frost - 12 degrees and snow-covered streets. We arrived just at the peak of the cold snap. We have enough time, and we devote one day to studying the Truskavets resort. I am a frequent visitor there, but my daughter has not been there yet. She also liked Truskavets. But it was very cold.
And now for the tour itself.
And on the morning of March 1, on a frosty but sunny morning, we go by taxi to the railway. station to our bus. Departure from Lviv was scheduled for 8-30, but the local train, in which three of our tourists were traveling, was late, and we were waiting for them until 9-00. These half an hour played their negative role at the border. We stood there for almost 5 hours, as we got on a break, and during this time a lot of transport accumulated. And although, except for our bus, there were no other buses in the queue, we were herded into a general queue along with private minibuses, which were inspected with particular predilection. Our Scania bus is comfortable and warm and all gear is in good working order. Drivers Yuri and Svyatoslav, friendly and professional, only thanks to them our suitcases and bags fit in the trunk of the bus.
At the Hungarian border, my suitcase came under individual inspection, but since I don’t smoke and don’t drink, I didn’t have alcohol or cigarettes, this inspection didn’t bother me at all.
Finally the border is passed and we head to Eger for wine and goulash tasting. As the saying goes: “war is war, but lunch is on schedule”, i. e. the program is sacred. After a good dinner with tasting in Eger, we drive to Budapest for an overnight stay. Our group was large - 42 people. All adults, except for one boy, Antoshka, 5.5 years old, who traveled to carnivals with his mother. The whole group admired and was proud of this child, his endurance and stamina. Even not all adults could withstand this intense rhythm of the trip, but Antoshka was an example for us. He withstood frost in Lviv and the Carpathians, wet and cold weather in Budapest, snow in Slovenia, cold wind in Venice and rain in Vienna. Unlike me, since for me the frost of -12 degrees in Lviv and the Carpathians was just a tragedy, and, breathing in the frosty air, I started coughing back in Ukraine, and in Budapest I already lost my voice, and then hissed all the way to Nice, and the cough haunted me the whole tour.
This is my third time in Budapest, so I decided to take only an evening walk on a champagne boat from electives. It was no doubt beautiful, but it was cold on the upper deck, and warm below, but not so spectacular. When we left the boat, a snowstorm began. So Budapest gave us an unpleasant surprise with the weather. We had lunch at the Paprika cafe, for an excellent lunch for two we paid 15 euros.
I have not been to Ljubljana yet, but my temperature rose to 38 degrees, and because of the cold I missed the sightseeing tour, I stayed in a warm bus. In Ljubljana, with the help of a local guide, they bought me a local medicine in tablets for a sore throat in a pharmacy, and I had enough of our medicines with me, and I began active treatment. It's good that the weather in Nice and Italy was sunny and warm, during the day it was +16 +18 degrees. And I, therefore, did not miss a single carnival event. But for myself, I concluded that I no longer travel in the cold season, except by plane to warm countries.
Now I will describe the hotels a little.
Although 3* hotels were declared in the program, but on our tour only one hotel in Austria was 3*, all other hotels were 4*. The hotels are comfortable, with hair dryers, refrigerators, and Nice even with a kettle and a daily set of tea and coffee. For breakfast, there was an excellent buffet everywhere, only at the West Point 4 * hotel in Verona the buffet was more modest than in the others.
But the hotel in Nice deserves the highest rating. This is the Ellington 4 * hotel, it is located in the very center of the city, next to Place Massena, where the night carnival took place. A new, cozy hotel with new furniture and fixtures, plus a kettle in the room with daily replenishment of tea and coffee. And the breakfasts in it are not traditional French, but a full buffet. Three nights in this hotel is just an added bonus. I was already in Nice last summer, and then I lived in the National 3 * hotel, and so these hotels cannot even be compared, the National is an order of magnitude lower. By the way, now the "National" is closed for reconstruction. Perhaps it will be tightened to the desired level of comfort.
Since our hotel is located next to the main street, we had the opportunity to shop in shops on this street. All comers did not miss this opportunity. But we only bought food, French strawberries, and French champagne in small bottles of 0.25 liters, and in the evening we enjoyed these delicacies.
The hotel in Austria in Villach was called "Kramer 3 *" and it is the only hotel of all that did not have an elevator. It was hard to drag the suitcase to the top floor, and the hotel itself had to climb the high stairs from the parking lot. This is the second time I've been to Villach and this is the second such hotel with stairs without a lift.
All Hungarian hotels were good and comfortable: in Budapest "Flamenco 4 *", transit in Zalakaros "Freya 4 *", and in Sopron "Lover 4 *", a transit hotel in front of the Ukrainian border in Mezokevezhd "Balneo 4 *". Almost all hotels had swimming pools, but, alas, we were not destined to use them, since we arrived at 23:00 and left the hotels at 8:00. It was especially disappointing in the last hotel "Balneo 4 *", as there were 12 thermal pools, and special bathrobes and towels for the pool were provided in the rooms. The fact that we did not have the opportunity to relax at least a couple of evenings in the pools in Hungarian hotels, I consider it a minus on this tour. The tour program was compiled only with an emphasis on spectacle, but the rest was not fully thought out.
Carnivals in France
The carnival spectacles were all very bright and colorful, the impressions were unforgettable. Even now, I have not yet digested everything, as they say, in my memory. My favorite daytime carnival in Nice was the Battle of the Flowers, as I love flowers. The afternoon carnival was held along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. This year the carnival was called "King of the Mediterranean". Twenty wagons decorated with a huge number of flowers drove past us, and the girls from the wagons also threw flowers at us. I caught 4 branches of mimosa and lilies. Then, I gave these flowers to the girls at the reception. They were very pleased with the gift. Between the wagons walked musicians, or dancers, all in the national costumes of the Mediterranean countries. Accordingly, both music and dances were also national. Emotions also overwhelmed us.
On the same day in the evening, on Place Massena, a night carnival took place. Carts were already driving here not with flowers, but with huge dolls depicting figures from the mythology of the Mediterranean countries. A sea of light and colors, again music and dancing.
Unfortunately, our group did not get seating in the stands, and the view from the standing places was worse, as the standing spectators in front of us blocked the view. The same story was repeated at the Lemons carnival in Menton. We were offered only standing places. But the night carnival is better to watch while standing, because. all figures are transported, or carried directly over the heads of standing spectators, so you can see even better than from the stands, and the effect of your participation is created.
In our free time in Nice, my daughter and I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral ourselves, but we didn’t go inside, there were already a lot of buses with tourists there. Satisfied with external inspection and photographs. Then we walked around Nice, past the Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral along the main street to the Promenade des Anglais. We did not go to Cannes, it was a pity to waste time in Nice, especially since I was in Cannes in the summer when we were traveling from Spain.
On the day when the program was the carnival in Menton, we had an elective in Monaco. I was already there in the summer, but I did not refuse the pleasure of seeing the principality again. According to the program, we first visited the Fragonard perfume factory. Everyone went out with their purchases and as a bonus they gave us a branded bag. These bags were later used for shopping in Italy. After a sightseeing tour of Monaco, my daughter and I went to the Cousteau Museum on our own. The ticket costs 13 euros. The aquarium is just amazing! By the way, the strange statue of a man in the section, and the horse with a horn in front of the Cousteau Museum is no longer there, they have been removed. But there is no time to visit the Monte Carlo area on this tour, since it was necessary to be in Menton by 14 o'clock.
Arriving in Menton, we still managed to visit the orchid exhibition in the municipal exhibition museum. Entrance there is free. Adjacent to this municipal exhibition hall was the entrance to the park, in which various citrus figures were displayed. Entrance there is paid, it seems 13 euros. But we bought tickets for the carnival, and so we immediately went to the Menton embankment, where the whole parade of figures made from lemons and oranges took place. Here in the procession there were half as many carriages with figures, compared to the Battle of the Flowers in Nice. But also between the wagons were musicians, or dancers, with national songs and dances. The "Carnival of Lemons" itself was reminiscent of the "Carnival of Flowers" in Nice, but instead of flowers on the wagons there were figures of citrus fruits. We managed to take a good place on the promenade, and the parade was clearly visible from it. The photos turned out great!
After the procession, we went to the beach, where we sat on warm stones, rested, and soaked up the warm sun. Then we went to a cafe, I drank coffee, and my daughter ate ice cream. Then, slowly, we walked along the entire promenade to the parking lot of our bus, enjoying the beautiful sunny weather, the azure sea, palm trees and spring flowers. Multi-colored cyclamen and mimosa bushes bloomed everywhere, which was so amazing for us! After all, in our homeland there was still frost and snow. We were returning from Menton to Nice already in the dark, and we no longer had the strength to walk around Nice in the evening.
And in the morning we checked out of the beautiful Ellington 4 * hotel, and we are heading further to beautiful European cities. We again drove by bus along the Promenade des Anglais, admired the morning azure sea and saw people swimming in the sea. When the water temperature in the sea is not higher than +13 degrees, I took it as exotic.
To be continued…
