Bonjour 👋🥖

Cheers for following along from home. This is the fourth edition of the blogs that Baylee and I are putting together to catalog our travels! We hope to share some of the trip with all of you, and in turn have writing we can go back and read when we’re eventually back home.

This one is no less crammed with adventure than the last ones, so strap in!

La Spezia and Cinque Terre

Our last post left off with us leaving Livorno, towards the port city of La Spezia. This was to be our home for the next three nights, and a base for exploring Cinque Terre. We nabbed an AirBnB close to the train station & other utilities like grocery stores, and settled in.

Our plans were a little stifled when a storm rolled in. Instead of the two full days we had planned hiking between the five villages of Cinque Terre, we had our first day inside our accomodation. This actually ended up coming in handy due to the amount of subsequent planning we got done! The storm broke overnight, with the weather turning it on for the hiking we had planned the next day.

Our day of walking started at the train station. Turns out each of the villages along the coast in the Cinque Terre region are connected via train, with the first one (Riomaggiore) being just a twelve minute ride from La Spezia Centrale. We hopped off at Corneglia and began the walk north. This route took us to Monterosso via Vernazza - our mid-walk pitstop where we stopped for lunch and a gelato. The views along the way were incredible, and the villages were idyllic. Unfortunately, as we’d expected, both the villages and the hiking tracks were crammed with people. We still managed to get some pretty photos, though!

Santa Margherita

After three nights in La Spezia, we packed our bags and headed to the train station yet again, this time destined for Santa Margherita. This small town is host to plenty of tourists, and is importantly just around the corner from Portofino.

Our first day, once arriving, was quiet. We explored the town a little, got some recommendations off the guy hosting us, and found somewhere to eat for dinner. We picked an unassuming pizza place, which ended up being the best pizza we’ve had in Italy! We then packed in for the night, but were kept awake by the sound of fireworks outside - turns out we’d arrived smack bang in the middle of Ligurian celebrations for the Lady of Montallegro!

The next day included checking out more recommendations, including a small beach seemingly not known to tourists, before getting scrubbed up and hopping on a ferry to Portofino. This short stint on the water was filled with sights of mega yachts, too large for a berth in Portofino itself, as well as some pretty stunning views of the landscape. We arrived in Portofino with a few hours to kill before dinner so headed off for a walk to Portofino rock, of which a bar sits atop. We grabbed a drink, ate the accompanying snacks, and watched vessels slip past as the time ticked away.

Heading back to Portofino we looked around the wharves in awe of the massive yachts that did have berths, and found a seat at a small bar for some people watching before our dinner reservation rolled around. Dinner was right on the water, at a place specialising in local seafood and Ligurian cuisine. Our meals included octopus, mussels, calamari, spaghetti and tirumasu - bellissimo!

Menton & Monaco

Leaving Santa Margherita, we hopped on another train for our longest stint on the rails yet. Our route took us to Genova Piazza Principe (a major station in Genoa/Genova), where we transferred to a line terminating in Ventimiglia. From there, we hopped on a short regional train, crossing the France-Italy border and dropping us off in Menton. All up this took us around five hours, however comfy train seats and books to read meant the time flew by.

Menton, home of famous lemons apparently, is also a French resort town on the Riviera. We used this as a base for exploring the surrounding area, taking a day trip to Monaco on another quick regional train. We’d intended to also explore Nice and the surrounding countryside, however were sidelined by need for further planning, and the allure of the beach.

Our day trip to Monaco was jammed packed with things to do, starting with the changing of the guard in front of the prince’s residence, which we stumbled across on our way to the aquarium. Lucky!

The aquarium was pretty cool, and we learnt quite a lot about the Monegasque Principalities historic interest in marine conservation. We also snagged some tickets to Ranier III’s other interest, car collecting. The collection was immense, including hundred year old Rolls Royces, and some fairly recent F1 cars. We then took a walk along the Circuit de Monaco before heading past the Monte Carlo casino, spotting multi-million dollar hypercars along the way.

Cannes

Our next stop along the French Riviera was Cannes, home of the annual Cannes film festival. Cannes as a city was okay, but not the nicest of our stops along the way. However, we still made the most of it and explored all it had to explore. With only two nights, we had just a single big day to see as much as we could. This started with a trip out to Sainte Marguerite, and island just off the coast. As per Portofino, the ferry took us past megayachts and cruise ships, dropping us off next to a small beach. After exploring the island and Fort adorning the north coast, we wandered over to try to find a spot in the beautiful coves lining the southern coastline. These ended up being absolutely packed, so after walking around in the sweltering heat with no beach space in sight for almost an hour, we gave up, had a quick dip at the quieter beach near the ferry terminal and buggered off back to the mainland.

We then found time for another swim on the mainland, in the small patches of public beach between the ridiculously expensive beach clubs. This was a quick, one in at a time situation due to both how hot, and how crowded it was.

Afterwards we found an Irish pub near the port, which we thought was pretty funny. Clientele were drinking pints of Guinness in the 35 degree heat - that shouldn’t be allowed. Turns out, the barman was also Irish!

Toulon

Moving on from Cannes, we took another train westward to Toulon, a city marking the end of the French Riviera. Toulon was much less tourist-y, albeit still offering many of the things tourists around these parts seem to go for, including the petite trains. Our two days in Toulon were mostly spent outside.

Our first day was a designated beach day, starting relatively early with a walk through the markets, to a sports store to pick up some cheap reef shoes, through to Plages du Mourillon - artificial beaches around the corner from the main port/naval base area. This was a great spot to relax, giving us the chance to get more reading done, and not get sunburnt in the process! The reef shoes turned out to be a great investment, as the spot of beach we were on was pretty rocky.

As Toulon is flanked by mountains, notably Mont Faron, we figured the next day should include some walking in said mountains. This ended up being a good idea, but boy was it hot. We hit the track by 8:30am, making it to the top of the trail (more a goat track in parts) by 11am, where the temperature was already north of 30 degrees. Heading down was easier, but no less hot, rendering our afternoon pretty useless as we attempted to rehydrate. All in all, good walk though! Some stunning views were had.

Aix-en-Provence

Finally, we hopped on another train to Aix-en-Provence. This time we took the TGV, France’s high-speed rail network, and their answer to short-haul domestic air travel. This was a pretty great experience, with an unusually comfortable and quiet cabin.

Aix-en-Provence, or Aix (pronounced axe) for short, is a university city in the Provence region of southern France. I’d compare this place to somewhere like Greytown back home. Lots of old buildings, lots of walkability, and LOTs of nice food, flowers, clothing, and anything else you could want in the markets lining the small squares. Aix was also the home of impressionist painter Cezanne, who used the surrounding area as inspiration for a large number of his works.

Our time in Aix was split between walking around the alleyways of the city, a trip to the art gallery to attempt to understand impressionism, and a wine tour to a couple of small wineries in the Provence region - known for it’s rose. The highlight was definitely the wine tour, taking us past Montagne Sainte-Victoire - one of Cezanne’s big inspirations - towards our first stop. In all we sampled 10 different wines across two wineries, learnt lots about the French appellation wine control system, and met some new faces from America and Australia.

We wrapped up our time in Aix-en-Provence on a quiet Monday morning, heading to the train station for our next destination - Montpellier.

Next time on: Jamie and Baylee’s travel blog

Whew, that was a read! 1700 words, sorry about that..

We’ll leave this blog here, with a couple more weeks in Europe to go before we high-tail it over to Ireland. Expect our next post to conclude our time in France, including Montpellier and Perpignan, as well as our whirlwind trip to Spain through Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid.

We hope you enjoyed the read!

Au revior,

Jamie & Baylee