We departed Newark late on Friday night on La Compagnie, which promotes itself as a boutique airline. They fly direct between Newark and Paris and, during the summer months, also from Newark to Nice. While it’s nice not to have to connect, what’s even better is that part of them being a boutique airline is that they only offer business class, so there are only about 70 passengers on the entire plane. That makes boarding easier, overhead storage space much more available and, obviously, there is a better class of service and sleeping in the skies in business class.
The planes are a bit old and the seats are not true lay-flat seats but the wedgie ones that are flat but angled to the ground — like Lufthansa’s old business class, if you’re familiar. But I will take that any day compared to flying in Economy, especially on the overnight flight. The flight didn’t leave until 11:30, which is already way after my bedtime and landed at around 2 PM local time in Nice, which was helpful in terms of arriving at the hotel and a room actually being ready versus having to leave your bags at the hotel and wandering around the city like a sleep-deprived zombie with bed head.
The hotels available with only a week’s notice on the last big weekend of summer were, well, limited. At least if you wanted to stay on any sort of budget. My goal with the 20 countries/region thing is to do so in as immersive a way as possible, so trying not to default to a western (okay, American) bubble and just choose a Starwood (it’s still hard for me to say Marriott) property where everything will be predictable. No, the goal is a bit of unpredictability and a reasonable price. This generally equates to three or maybe four star places that are local where I am more likely to either need or be able to practice my local language skills and where I could have more genuine interactions with real people.
I booked Le Geneve Hotel via Booking.com (since our stay just over two weeks ago, it has changed its name to Hotel Le G, oddly enough). It had user ratings of 8.7 out of 10, was said to be convenient to the Old Town of Nice and was only EUR 155 including breakfast. I was a bit surprised that when I booked, Booking.com sent a follow-up saying that since I was spending over EUR 100/night, they’d throw in a taxi to the hotel from the airport. Wait, what? Don’t think Starwood has ever offered me that. Yep. I gave them my details and sure enough, there was a driver with a sign and my name. He led us out to a nice, new black van and proceeded for the entire trip to essentially not hear us asking for him to turn up the air, so we arrived a bit more hot, sweaty and disheveled-feeling than typical overnight flight dishevelment. It was also a bit confusing to know how/whether to tip him since we had no idea how much such a taxi ride would have been, how he was being compensated etc. We gave him EUR 5, which was no doubt more than enough given how little tipping is used in Europe (at least not at the 20% type range as in the US) which was, we assume, still much less expensive than a taxi from the airport to the hotel.
When we walked into the hotel, which was just off of Place Garibaldi (a nice square with fountains, of course), what first hit me was how stinkin’ hot it was in the small reception area. The clerk was seated behind a small counter and had a couple of fans blowing on her and still looked miserable. It was around 90 F outside that day. Usually the lobby of a hotel is its best foot forward to make a positive first impression, so the lack of a seating area and A/C did not bode well for our stay. As we trudged up the stairs (don’t think I ever saw an elevator, though fortunately we were only one floor up), I was thinking of what my wife was going to say about my hotel selection. And I couldn’t imagine how I could’ve missed the A/C part as that was always one of my criteria.
As the clerk opened the door for us, I was relieved to discover that indeed, I had not overlooked the A/C part as the in-room unit was humming along and the room was noticeably cooler than the hallway or lobby. Whew! It was small, but had a mini-fridge, a tea kettle for instant coffee and tea and even a small safe. It’d be just fine.
After taking 30 minutes to cool off, change our clothes and catch-up on what we’d missed during the flight (the WiFi was fast and free), we headed out to explore a bit. Google Maps on my phone was a bit confusing. It was clear we were indeed near the Old Town, but we ended up wandering down Promenade du Paillon through a park with some interesting sculptures and playground equipment. The delightful surprise was, towards the end, there was a large stone tiled area with jet fountains that would periodically turn on. On a day as hot as that one, children were laying around on the wet stone and, when the jets would turn on, would just squeal in delight and glee and commence running around and through the jets and having a wonderful time. Just pure joy.
The Old Town was lovely and my first real introduction to the narrow streets of many Provencal towns. Shops selling lavender, Provencal fabrics and souvenirs were interspersed with butcher shops, restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Tourists abounded, yet it retained a sense of calm, though admittedly it was a Friday rather than the weekend. We had dinner at Bar du Coin, which a friend had said had the best pizza in the world, so we had to check it out. It was good, but I’ll take a Chicago deep dish any time to that. Nevertheless, all the walking around, jetlag and lots of carbs put me into a quick sleep that night.
The setup for the free breakfast at the hotel was a bit unusual. The hotel was somehow connected to the adjacent restaurant, which you accessed by going outside and into another entrance (as opposed to entering the restaurant via the hotel which happened to also have an entrance for the general public). It was an, um, interesting place. It was made to look even older than the building was, with roughened walls painted an ochre shade with some slats showing – I guess a shabby chic look? Other parts had a kind of kitschy wallpaper pattern that would’ve been popular in, say, the 40s or 50s. There were deer antlers on one wall, interesting artwork throughout, and a creepy male mannequin wearing a leopard print Speedo and with a gold chain around the waist from which hung gold letters spelling ROCKSTAR (in case you thought anyone else would be wearing such a thing).
