Nice France

We just got back from a week’s vacation based in Nice, France. We also made trips to Vence in Provence, Monaco, and Ventimiglia, Italy.

I’ll be posting about our French adventures weekly with Dreaming of France. The Monaco and Italy posts will be at other times. I posted about the cathedral in Monaco.

We stayed at the Hotel Victor Hugo, which is actually a guesthouse. There are only a few rooms.

It is on the first floor of a building that also has medical offices and some apartments, I think.

This is the boss of the hotel.

Her name is Cosette. She comes with her person, who is the human manager, every morning at 8. She greeted us whenever we opened the door, accompanied us to the breakfast room in case we hadn’t read the signs saying not to feed her, and sometimes made herself at home in our room.

We had a suite of two rooms. There was a bedroom and a room with a table and chairs and a small refrigerator, sink, and microwave.

We booked the suite because we know that European hotel rooms are really small by American standards and we wanted the extra space. We used it mostly for the suitcases.

The only thing that could be a problem for visitors is the bathroom size. The shower head is high for tall people but the toilet is a bit tricky. I’m 5’6 and the husband is just a bit shorter than me. When I sat on the toilet my knees hit the wall in front of me. You sort of had to shuffle sideways to get to sit down at all. I’m not sure what contortions taller people would have to go through to fit on there.

The location of the hotel was great. It was a 10 minute walk to the train station in one direction, 10 minutes to the heart of the commercial district in another, and 5 minutes to the beach. The street was very quiet and had a very different feel from the rest of the city. You could tell when you reached it without even seeing signs.

There is a plan to build a subway under this street. Construction is starting this month and is supposed to be done in 14 months according to the signs. We don’t believe it. I’m going to keep watching the news on it just to see what happens.

There was a good Sicilian restaurant down the road. The husband’s family is Sicilian so we ended up there enough that the waiters knew his “usual” dessert.