From Genoa to Marseille: How to relax on the Cote d'Azur and not go broke
I sat down to write this text on July 14, and he had to start with a paragraph about what associations Nice caused me. But now they are completely different. Just ten days before the terrorist attack, we watched the winning match of the French against the Icelanders in a street bar and returned after it along the English promenade, passing it all from beginning to end. Buses did not go anymore - we walked in a huge crowd, and I later described to my friends how the French rejoice for their team, how people embrace in the streets, wave flags, sing a hymn, honk. It was this night walk that stood before my eyes when I leafed through the news in horror on the night of July 15, and a file was opened on my computer with the beginning of a text about a trip to the Cote d'Azur. I do not dedicate it to the nights of July 15, but that night, where we are joyfully together, we go home after a football match, and airplanes flying to this azure city continuously land from the sea.
Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind at the words "Cote d'Azur" - celebrity villas, "Ferrari", flying from Nice to Monaco, and diamond necklaces around the wives of Russian oligarchs. For a long time, it was an unattainable reality from foreign films, but after I began to travel and toured more than thirty countries myself, little seems to me out of reach. Now, Côte d'Azur was rather an attractive and somewhat mysterious place for me, the moment of which I unconsciously drew off, knowing that I would have to say goodbye to the image that had long been imagined.
The first time I went there "to explore", making a circle on the buses for 1 euro on the route Milan - Lyon - Marseille - Nice - Cannes - Monaco - Genoa. Then I went alone, having for food, accommodation and travel no more than 25 euros per day. It was March, the azure color of the water eclipsed by rain and fog, and Nice looked like a voluminous black and white photograph. Then, in the spring, they were still only preparing for the opening of the season. In this behind-the-scenes life of cities for me there is always more charm than in summer embellishment, but still I decided to return in summer.
I want to talk about the July trip with my mother on the amazing coast of the Mediterranean Sea - from Genoa to Marseille. We travel often and try to do it as much as possible budget. It all started with the fact that at the beginning of April I managed to catch an excellent share of the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizzair - a 50% discount on the second ticket. I picked up convenient connections in Budapest in order to have time to look at this city also, and bought two tickets Moscow - Milan, Nice - Moscow. Their advantage was the price (about 10 thousand rubles for a round-trip ticket at the end of June), and the minus was the opportunity to take only a small hand luggage. Since my mother is a big shopping lover, on the way back we had to pay 11 euros for each flight through our personal account in order to be able to fly with a suitcase. Therefore, it is important to check the fare rules and pay for luggage via the Internet in advance.
We traveled all the way along the coast by buses. I paid for these internal travels back in April - it turns out to save several times. For example, from Milan to Genoa we drove for 1 euro, from Marseille to Nice - for 5 euro. I think the advantages of such an early booking are obvious, but of the downsides is the impossibility to change or return the ticket. In Genoa and Marseilles, I booked apartments through Airbnb. The adventures began when planning a trip back in Moscow, we decided not to stop in Milan and decided to go to Genoa right after arriving. Therefore, I wrote off the owner of our apartment in Genoa and warned that we would come a day earlier. She confirmed that the apartment would be free, and made an appointment on the street near the supermarket for eleven evenings. We arrived earlier, quickly found the right street and, to pass the time, went to dinner in a bar nearby.
When the time came to eleven, I left my mother with bags to finish drinking beer, and she went to meet her mistress to get the keys from her. Having stood at the supermarket until half past eleven and did not wait for anyone, I was slightly surprised and returned to the bar behind the phone. At the other end of the wire, a soulless female voice politely told me in Italian: "Unfortunately, the caller is not available. Leave a message or try to call back later." "Indeed, it is a pity," - I thought, and went to tell mom that we seem to have no place to sleep.
I don’t know what happened this weekend to Genoa, which is not the most popular tourist destination, but I couldn’t find a single free hotel at any reasonable price. The cheapest room cost about 100 euros (and our apartments, by the way, 40 euros per night), and he was in a hotel at the airport, where you had to get by taxi. I, fortunately, speak good Italian, so I explained the whole situation to the waiter and asked him if he could tell us a cheap hotel nearby. Another twenty minutes later the hotel was looking for us half the bar, talking from table to table.
Ten minutes later, I talked to a girl sitting next to a large company, and found out that she had once taught Russian and that we have an Italian friend in common. Five minutes later, her friend had already called her friend, who soon came to the bar and agreed to take us overnight for 30 euros. And now we are walking through Genoa at night, all the way up, and talking with Daniela about Dostoevsky, traveling, the Genoa Ethnographic Museum, and then we arrive at a house from the beginning of the 19th century with high ceilings decorated with stucco, a library where all Italian literature is collected, and two lazy cats. And Daniela suddenly says: "Listen, you are in a difficult situation, you don’t need any money, just feed me breakfast in the morning." The next day, early in the morning, the landlady called with a million apologies and an invitation to dinner, saying that she confused the date of our arrival. To be honest, we were already not angry, because, despite the slight stress, it was a great adventure.
We spent four days in Genoa, two of which traveled to towns located south of Genoa, along the coast of the Ligurian Sea. On the first day - in Portofino and San Fruttuoso. You can get there by ferry from Santa Margherita Ligure station. Portofino is a small fishing town located at the foot of a high cape. Now it is one of the most popular, expensive and beautiful Italian resorts. On the slopes of the cape one can see villas, immersed in flowers and greenery, below - the sea of such color, which happens only in tourist brochures. A couple of hours were enough for us to walk around the town, climb up the path a bit and walk between the villas, but you can come for the whole day: the town is part of a national park and beautiful walking routes of different length and complexity are laid along it. You can spend hours strolling along these paths among flowers and trees and look out over the sea, yachts and private beaches.
On the second day we went to the famous place of the Cinque Terre ("Five Lands") - these are five fishing villages located high on the rocks. Between them you can travel by train, ferry or on foot. If you ever want to go there and walk from one village to another, be sure to learn in advance all the routes, their length, complexity and travel time. I have long wanted to walk along one of the paths, but in the first two villages we were not lucky: the paths were closed for restoration work. Therefore, in the third village, Manarola, I finally saw the entrance to the treasured path, cheerfully waved my mother with my hand, and we began to rise.
For three hours we walked up and down the mountains, rolling into the rocks, under the scorching sun, with anguish looking at the fresh blue water, iridescent far below. At the beginning of the way, we were met by joyful tourists in trekking shoes and with bottles of water, who came down and greeted us cordially. After about half an hour, we realized that they were greeting each other, knowing full well what was waiting for us ahead. After another three hours, we also joyfully greeted those going up. At the very end, already descending from the mountain path to the urban asphalt, we saw three cheerful and energetic Americans, who clearly thought about whether to go or not. And I, trying to stay on the legs, hit it, on the machine: "Don't do it, don't go!" Of course, we all laughed, but then, noticing them by chance in one of the restaurants, I realized that they still changed their mind about going.
From Genoa we had to go to Marseilles first by train and then by bus: with an early booking, the trip cost us 20 euros per person and on the way we could walk around Nice for a couple more hours. But this time we regretted taking the non-refundable tickets, because I managed to mix up the number! I must say that my mother and I closely followed the European Football Championship and went to watch the matches in bars with Italian and French fans. And so, quietly walking around Genoa, I saw the Portuguese flag in the window and decided to remind my mother that the day after tomorrow I would have to go to a match between Portugal and Poland. “Not the day after tomorrow, but tomorrow,” my mother corrected me. And then I realized that today at nine in the morning we had to go to Marseille, and we quietly walk around Genoa and did not even begin to collect things. We left for Marseille at five o'clock in the evening, running to the station ten minutes before the last train departed and spending 120 euros on tickets. But left, and thanks for that.
Marseille is the capital of Provence, the coastal city, to the east of which Cote d'Azur goes, and to the west - the less well-known, but no less beautiful Blue Beach. The city is big and incredibly diverse: walking around it, I remembered Sicily, Malta, Tunisia, Israel, Rome, Madrid, Paris and Budapest. I wanted to capture this city, capture it in memory as it is, with a port, a fortress, parks, cathedrals, mountains, sea, chaotic spots of quarters and streams of people. One Marseille root served us a local delicacy: a freshly baked croissant is cut along, a piece of smoked salmon is put in there, and smeared with a thin layer of honey. I never thought that I would eat this, but, having bitten off a piece, I realized that this is the taste of real Mediterranean France, the taste of summer, where you sit on the terrace overlooking the city and there is nothing but the present moment.
The studio in Marseille cost, as well as in Genoa, 40 euros per night, but it was much less: if the bed was laid out, then it was impossible to stand at the stove, the shower was separated from the room only by a curtain, and the toilet in general turned out to be behind the closet door. But there was a large terrace overlooking the city. We spent four days in Marseilles, of which one spent in the small town Aix-en-Provence, a small but stunningly beautiful one. It is there that you can fully enjoy the most famous Provencal style in paintings and books - with pastel-colored houses, flowers on the windows and a lavender scent.
On another day, we did not know where to go from the unbearable heat, so we took a ticket for the ferry and sailed to the Frioul Islands. We did not have time to go on board and sit in the bow of the boat in the sun, as the sailors began to wave from the cabin to us and call us upstairs. So we drove a boat full of tourists and took him out of the port, and then under the direction of the captain we headed for the If castle, where Edmond Dantès was in prison, and sailed to the Friul archipelago under the incomprehensible Russian pop music and abrupt speech of Marseilles sailors.
Our last destination was Nice, from there we flew to Budapest, and then to Moscow. Since we only stayed here for one night, I chose the hotel right in front of the airport, where the bus terminal, which we came from from Marseille, is also located. The Ibis Budget room cost us 60 euros for two with a preliminary non-cancellable booking, which is very (very!) Cheap for Nice. We arrived at seven in the morning, left things at the hotel and went for a walk until check-in. After walking along the English promenade from the airport to the city center, we were terribly tired after an almost sleepless night, and the heat in Nice was completely merciless, so we decided to take a bus, return to the hotel and wait there.
I came in first on the bus and, trying to portray the words “Deux, aéroport” (“Two to the airport”) forgotten French with a burr “p”, I heard the answer from the driver in clear Russian: “Here you go, put it on the right. And you are from what are you doing in nice? " We finally arrived at the hotel, but only an hour and a half later, because Pavel (that was the driver’s name) said that he had his last working day before his vacation and suggested that we take a ride with him along his route north-west from Nice and admire the Alps and mountain river. He told us that he came from Dagestan and has been living in Nice with his family for sixteen years. It turns out that he is the only Russian-speaking bus driver in Nice, but we, as you remember, are able to choose the right places.
Of course, my ideas about Nice as the city of the rich were to some extent confirmed. But it seems to me the most important thing is that I saw another side: it is also just a spiritual, beautiful and open city, where ordinary people live, where you can find cheap shops, get to the most beautiful free beaches by public transport, walk along the promenade luxury hotels, meet people. Not only Nice, but the entire coast from Marseille to Genoa, including the Cote d'Azur, you can drive around on inexpensive buses and trains, stay in apartments, buy food in local markets and in supermarkets without spending money on cafes and restaurants.
From a lot of travel experience, I learned one important thing: the most important thing for me is the atmosphere of a city or a place; it is this that determines how I will spend time. And the atmosphere, although it depends to a certain extent on nature and architecture, is still created thanks to people. And if you are open to the world, the world opens in response - this is what our trip once again proved to me, in which strangers always helped in difficult situations, were friendly and hospitable, and even from the hopeless, at first glance, the situation was the last moment.
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