Avignon France- The Windy, Chilly City!

February 29th

The day for Avignon was February 4th, now this is such a cute little town.....it was sunny and warm and..........FALSE....IT WAS NOT SUNNY OR WARM.....IT WAS FREEZING....IT WAS THE COLDEST PLACE I HAVE EVER BEEN........IN MY LIFE.......ok now it was a cute town that is true, but it was NOT WARM....it was frigid which is why this blog is titled, the windy chilly city. Because not only was it cold but it was windy...mixing wind and cold does not go together at all!! We survived it because we are warriors but it took LOTS of layers...the picture is of samantha and myself....we were both wearing around 6-8 layers plus scarves plus hats...and we were still cold...we're also from Texas :)  

Anyways...so the day started with a hardy breakfast...after breakfast we left our hotel and went out for a freezing cold walk to Palais des Papes or the Pope's palace!!! This place is HUGE and gorgeous and so medieval, it's wonderful!!! a little background on the palace. The Palais construction began in AD 1252. Avignon became the residence of the Popes in 1309, when the Gascon Bertrand de Goth, as Pope Clement V, unwilling to face the violent chaos of Rome after his election (1305), moved the Papal Curia to Avignon, a period known as the Avignon Papacy. Clement lived as a guest in the Dominican monastery at Avignon, and his successor Pope John XXII set up a magnificent establishment there, but the reconstruction of the old bishops' palace was begun in earnest by Pope Benedict XII (1334–42) and continued by his successors to 1364. The site, on a natural rocky outcrop at the northern edge of Avignon, overlooking the river Rhône, was that of the old episcopal palace of the bishops of Avignon. The Palais was built in two principal phases with two distinct segments, known as the Palais Vieux (Old Palace) and Palais Neuf (New Palace). By the time of its completion, it occupied an area of 11,000 m or (2.6 acres). The building was enormously expensive, consuming much of the papacy's income during its construction.

The picture below is the group huddled in the fire place of the dining room!! Hip on coals as we called it!!! :)

After going to the palace we headed out to find lunch, this is where we decided to be cheap and bought a baguette and some fruit, so sadly i don't have a food recommendation for Avignon, it was so cold we went to the supermarket and back to the hotel to eat!!! Once we ate and met up with everyone we headed out huddled onto a shuttle and headed to the train station...got on the train and went to Marseille...Avignon was fun, it was something we had never seen, and the cold was something most of us had never experienced....So i hear that you remember a place for the food and weather....the food was great but the weather....not so much, i still look back on it and have fond memories of shopping at H&M for more clothing and if anything fighting the wind and cold is now something to look back and laugh about!! :) 

So long Avignon!!!!!

Thanks for your time :)

A bientôt 

Emily O. :)

We love Nice... it's nice. Nice is nice!

February 28th 2012

Ah Nice, It's a beautiful little city along the French Riviera....this city has everything you could ever wish for. There is an ocean, there are beautiful mountains and there is a city full of character and culture, it's a paradise really. Now we arrived as a group in Nice on february 2nd we flew in from Paris and literally thought we were going to hit water when landing. The runway is right off of the ocean, like....right off of it...so there is little room for error, but we made it safe and sound. I remember being completely exhausted as was the rest of the group. We went to our hotel, put up our bags and then went out for a group dinner at a restaurant along the promenade where most of us got pizza's and pasta's. It was beyond delicious!! 

Pizza from restaurant in Nice

Wednesday after a good night's sleep we all met in the lobby and found our tour guide waiting for us, her name was cecilia! She was so nice and spoke english very well which was exciting for us...We went all over Nice, we saw the newer part of nice which isn't THAT new....just newer than the old part if that makes any sense. The picture below is of old Nice which was my favorite part. Old-nice Near Place Masséna is the district known as Vieux Nice or (Old Nice).

after we walked around the city we ate lunch....lunch was interesting...it was a plate with like 10 different Nice cuisines on it....most of it was pretty good :) there's like stuffed tomatoes, stuffed onions, chick pea pancakes...and so on as you can see.

after lunch they let us loose...YES they let us roam the city alone and we did a fantastic job of it. we went to the top of this hill...took like millions of stairs but finally we made it to the top and had a breathtaking view of Nice which is what you see in the first picture above. You could see EVERYTHING and it was just absolutely wonderful!! You would definitely have to walk up to the top of the hill and look out over Nice if you ever visit...this is a must see!!! After that we headed to a contemporary art museum and then went to another museum that was like examples of how a house looked back in the day. Both museums were really interesting and if your ever in Nice you should check some of them out...they give a real interesting look into the culture of the town!! So after resting for a while we then headed out for dinner on our own, we found a little cuban restaurant called La havana which i would recommend eating at, there was some meat with veggies and banana's and cheese on top...it was strangely good :) a little weird but good!! 


Last but not least we got to see some of Hotel Negresco, which is a lovely hotel....The Hotel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais on the Baie des Anges in Nice, France was named for Henri Negresco (1868–1920) who had the palatial hotelconstructed in 1912. In keeping with the conventions of the times, when the Negresco first opened in 1913 its front opened facing the Mediterranean sea. 

All in all we had a great time in Nice!! Hope to go back one day when it's a bit warmer!! :)
Thanks for checking out the HIP blog, hope you enjoyed my take on Nice!!!

A bientôt

Emily O.