Cities Visited: Toulon, Marseilles, Villefranche, Monaco (I know this is technically not a city but it was visited during our French stops)
I was a little nervous going into France because I did not speak any French. I did learn, Do you speak English, in French hoping that would be sufficient. When we got to the local train station we learned we had to use a kiosk to buy our train tickets to Marseilles. Since I couldnt read the screen I knew I needed help from a local. I asked a student nearby my key phrase in French and what do you know, he responded yes! So thankfully he helped us out. FYI I LOVED the little train stations. They were so quaint!
We visited the Chateau d'If, made famous in The Count of Monte Cristo. The water was a gorgeous blue. We didn't do much else because we were rushed to get back to our ship. In fact we had an Amazing Race moment where we ran down this long platform to our train only to realize it was the wrong platform and we had to run all the way back up the platform down another to jump on our train literally minutes before it left. At that moment I realized that maybe I wouldn't be good on the Amazing Race--I would have had too many heart palpitations.
Villefranche is very picturesque. When you see pictures of the Riviera and think, it really cant be that colorful, it is! From Villefranche we took a train to Monaco. It happened to be the day after the Grand Prix so it was interesting to see all the grand stands. They even removed the street lights from the main drag so we saw them reassembling them. Even though we did see the infamous Monte Carlo Casino, our favorite section of Monaco was Le Rocher, the old section of town. I also got to go see Princess Grace's tomb. She really was a classy lady.
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