French Riviera Weekend: Villefranche-sur-Mer

Bonjour!

This weekend's trip will be split into three posts as I want to share lots of fun stories and photos from the beautiful French Riviera! On Thursday night, we took a late flight to Nice from Barcelona. Allie, Kaitlyn, and I got to Hotel Bristol (very close to the train station and a convenient city tram) shortly after.

On Friday morning, we got some coffee (and for me a Pan au Chocolat, my favorite) from the Boulangerie Pétrie de la gare. We then took the train to Villefranche-sur-Mer for our first day trip. We were immediately impressed and pleasantly surprised by just how cute and colorful this town was! The water was a gorgeous shade of turquoise/blue and it was a very peaceful morning.

Before lunch, we walked along the water getting to know our location for the day.

Then, we went up to the Citadel Saint-Elme, a former military citadel with views of the town and cute mini museums to explore!

After this, we walked up through Old Town to visit cute shops and the yellow cathedral. We took a quick rest in the red chairs before heading back down for lunch at Le Cosmo.

After lunch, we spent some time enjoying the spring sun and the beach! It was so relaxing to hang out there for a while and so beautiful. I had read an article before coming that said the beach was sandy... not so much, but the rocks were small, comfortable, and didn't stick to you like normal sand! :)

We then walked along the port and the trail to try to hike up to Mont Alban. Although we got a little lost (I think something happened with our directions), we popped out in a residential area of Villefranche-Sur-Mer and got some great views of the bay. I definitely want to live somewhere like that someday! We caught the bus back to Nice from the bottom of the hill once we found our way down.

We arrived back in Nice shortly after. We decided to explore a little bit, walking through Garibaldi Square, passing some delicious-looking gelato, and then heading to the market area (Cours Saleya).

After a while, we walked along a stretch of the Promenade des Anglais and hung out by the #ILoveNice sign on the beach for a panoramic view of the city at sunset - one of the prettiest I've seen during my semester abroad!

We then went to dinner in the Nice Old Town at La Lupita and stopped by Wayne's Bar afterwards.

The rest of our weekend will come soon!

Amy