Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Lost AND Found


I’m never REALLY lost. I’m just temporarily unaware of EXACTLY where I am! (Thank God for Maps – it still works in foreign countries.) Today we arrived in the French Riviera, and thus far, it is every bit as glorious as its Italian counterpart. The colors… ooh la la! Just as beautiful as Portofino. I wish everyone could see precisely how beautiful it really looks. My iPhone camera just doesn’t compare to what my eyeballs are showing me!

Villefranche-Sur-Mer is a wonderful little port and it’s a great jumping off point to explore all of the French Riviera. Unfortunately, we only had one day and thus, seeing everything from Cannes to Monaco was out of the question. We decided on Monaco and were told by our guide that we made the right decision. (She obviously knew the perfect thing to say to an over-analyzer like me!) Monaco is mesmerizing. There are only 38,000 inhabitants and 1 in 3 are millionaires. Maybe this is where Millionaire Matchmaker finds all her clients. The casino in Monte Carlo is magnificent, with painted ceilings and chandeliers everywhere. It almost made me want to gamble. While in Monte Carlo, we ran into our Texan cattle ranchers as well as some of our newfound friends from the previous day's tour from hell. The world is small, and even smaller when you're on a cruise. Bumping into people you know is inevitable... even in Europe.

The highlight of the day for me was Eze. It’s a tiny medieval village on top of a hill, and trust me, the hills are STEEP. Wedge sandals were clearly not the right choice on a day like today. The thing that always gets me when I see these historic places is how old they are. Villages like Eze were there before America was, well, AMERICA. I was so enraptured with this charming site that we/I decided to leave our little tour group and stay in Eze a bit longer. Our guide told us how to take a bus back to Villefranche, and after waiting for almost an hour, the bus finally pulled in right outside the village. But that’s where everything wentkerflooey. Neither my mom nor I managed to tell the driver (who spoke perfect English by the way) where we were going. So, when we finally thought to ask him where Villefranche was, he opened the doors and said “It’s back that way.” Ummm, okay... How far is “back that way”, and where were we NOW??? Turns out, we were in Nice and it was a 45 minute walk back to the tender boat that would take us to our ship. I stubbornly didn’t want to ask for help and wandered around Nice for a bit trying to figure out where to go. “Neece is Nice” is supposedly what Americans say (sorry to all the Frenchies that are annoyed by us tourists) but I just wanted to get the hell out of dodge and get back to our port. No Neece-is-Nice for me today!

A policeman pointed toward a British couple who were headed to a taxi stand. My eyes followed the bouncing bow attached to the back of the woman’s hat as mom and I hustled after them as fast as we could. And as luck would have it, they were bound for our cruise ship too! But try getting a cab to pull over. It’s not easy, especially when you don’t speak the language. We finally managed to get someone to take pity on us and the four of us piled into a tiny car smaller than my Honda Fit! (Uber actually would’ve been cheaper, but I won’t get into that as the cab driver was less than enthused about his competitors.) Ten minutes later, we were back in port and happy to be headed back to the ship ON TIME.

I needed a drink after that fiasco and we ran into our newfound British friends in the Sunset Bar above our cabin. When we pointed to where our cabin was situated beneath the bar, they said, “Someone over there keeps hanging their laundry out on their deck.” Oh dear. I guess they saw my Victoria Secret Very Sexy bra drying off my lounge chair. I felt like a little old Italian lady who hangs her laundry on a clothesline attached to her fire escape. It just goes to show that you never know who’s watching you, even on a cruise ship. At least if I ever get lost on the ship, I won’t need to consult my Maps app. All I’ll need to do is lean over the railing and look for my undergarments. Ah, home, sweet home!

Au revoir!

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