In an attempt to get the “vacation” part of our vacation started, we decided to bail on Cannes a couple of days early – after all, 8 days in Cannes is definitely more than enough. As an added incentive, a former colleague of Greg’s just happened to be on her summer vacation in Nice at the same time, so we took the cab ride from Cannes to Nice with our 60 kilos of bags in tow.

The ride was “supposed” to be about 75 Euro, but upon hitting the famous Promenade in Nice, the traffic ground to a halt. Not only was it a beautiful Saturday morning, the Nice Ironman had the better part of the street completely blocked. Chaos would be an underwhelming description for the traffic that ensued. Our driver did his best – even barreling 15o meters the wrong way down a one way street in an attempt to find a detour around the standstill. The funniest part was that the one way street ended in a parking lot in front of the police station! We eventually found our way (via numerous detours) to the hotel – and, 130 Euros later, we were standing in front of the Hotel Suisse.

We had chosen this hotel because, not only were our friends staying here, the price wasn’t bad and reviews on TripAdvisor seemed pretty good. At first glance, it looked really nice. The hotel sits at the end of the promenade as literally the last building, built into the rock butte. It is absolutely stunning, both to look at, and to look out from. Your afforded a complete panorama of the beach and city. Sadly, that’s pretty much where the delight ended. Greg was already grumpy within 30 seconds of entering the hotel lobby – accessed by two sets of stairs which made our big suitcases seem twice as heavy. Then, we were greeted at the reception by two women displaying the oh-so-charming French arrogance known the world over. Not only did they act “irritated” that we should bother them by checking in, answers to questions were curt and they didn’t even bother to stand up from behind their counter. Whatever. Thankfully there is an elevator in the hotel – but unfortunately it will accomodate exactly one adult with one large suitcase! Stef made the journey up to our third floor room first and then sent the elevator back down for Greg.

Finally arriving at our room, we found that you couldn’t actually carry your luggage into the room. Instead, you had to walk in and then drag the luggage through the door as it only opened about two feet before hitting the wall. Small? Well, we had to step over our luggage to walk around the bed! Being that the hotel is listed as a three star hotel, we hadn’t expected much and were prepared to “less than fabulous”. The room was clean and the view, as mentioned, was great. But, for us, the crushing moment was the discovery that there was no possibility to get online from the room. Now, before you think that we are too spoiled, this was not a situation in which we just wanted to surf. No, Stef had a major deadline to meet for a client. The hotel’s web site proudly proclaims “broadband internet access in the lobby and guest rooms”. Greg ran down to the reception to inquire and was told that “no, we don’t have wireless in the rooms – but you can plug into the phone”. The phone, of course, was a 56 modem connection – which, by the way, Mac laptops stopped having a port for about 8 years ago. In frustration, we grabbed our laptops and headed to the lobby – only to find out that the “free wifi” meant that you got one login per room. The fact that we had two people, with two laptops was lost on the “talent” at the reception desk.

Email checks done, we headed out for a good lunch (Italian again – so sue us), then beach time. In keeping with the general sentiment of the day, clouds rolled in just as we made it to the beach. Tired and in need of some relaxation, we ignored the lack of sun and proceeded to get a 90 minute nap on the beach. Oh! Did we mention that the beach in Nice is a rock beach?! And the rocks are big?! And we woke up with dents! Seriously! As we headed out for dinner two hours later, Stef was still sporting some lovely dents in her stomach!

Enough was enough. After 24 hours in Nice, we have decided to head for Florence – Stef’s favorite city in the whole world – and, unbelievably a city Greg has never seen… Should be fun!

Nice pictures: (click on an image for a better view)