This is just Day 2??

Saturday, 9/6

We arrived in London around 8:30 local time and changed planes – we also changed airports. We collected our bags at Gatwick and found the place to buy the bus ticket to Heathrow. The bus trip was about 45 minutes and then we had about a 90 minute or so wait at Heathrow for the next leg of the flight.

I was again in the middle on the plane from London to Nice. It was a smaller plane, full flight, and the man on the other side of me from Jim was a pleasant Englishman on his way to Monaco for his company’s annual meeting. There were many others from his company on the same flight. He works for the British arm of Marsh McLennan. He’s been making this same trip for 20 years. Poor guy.

BTW, presidential candidate John McCain recently announced Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his VP running mate. I wish I could remember the exact thing one of the Brits on the plane said, but the gist of it was that the Americans are up to craziness again.

We arrived in Nice about 2:30pm local time. It was warm in my knit pants (comfy on the plane, but …) It was also a long trudge from the jetway to the luggage claim. Immigration was easy, getting baggage was easy, and then came the decision about how to get to the resort. We had decided against making car rental arrangements in the US – one of our several “we think we know better” decisions. We had discussed trying to do a lot of things via local train and bus service, renting a car only for the time that our friends Pat and Tony would be joining us from England for a few days. We stopped at one of the car rental desks and were told that the only cars currently available were “prestige” cars – we figured (rightly, it turned out) that this meant “expensive, and certainly beyond your puny means” and so we didn’t pursue it much more at that point. We also needed some cash – we had come only with US dollars in our pockets, which NO ONE in Europe would be interested in – ah, Mexico! Anyway, the CashPoint machine in Terminal 1 was out of service – “diseased” is how the charming woman at the Info desk put it. The same woman made a quick call to Terminal 2 to see if the cash machine there was working, and it was. So off we went to the shuttle from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, dragging our luggage with us.

At Terminal 2, we found the ATM and were presented with many cash withdrawal options – there might have even been a 1000 Euro (€) option. I picked €500 and was rejected. I calmly reinserted my card, picked €400 and that was fine. Whew. OK! Now, off to find a taxi. However, one more try – car rental prices? There were more rental company desks at Terminal 2, but all of them were busy. We figured we’d find a rental car in Cap d’Ail. Again, we thought we knew everything.

As we were leaving the terminal, I stopped again at the Info desk and asked about the protocol for tipping taxi drivers – is it done? The woman behind the desk politely said “It’s up to you.” I pressed her – “What’s the custom?” – she conferred with her colleague and they both indicated that taxis in Nice are so expensive that it was probably best not to bother. We all laughed and went on our way. We were so in for it.

We dragged our luggage out to the curb and looked for a taxi stand. I saw a woman getting something out of a car and behind her was a man who looked very much like a taxi driver. I waved at him and called “Taxi?” He pointed at the woman – at first, I thought he was telling me he was waiting for her, a passenger ahead of us, but it turned out she was the next taxi drive in line. She really looked like a regular citizen! Anyway, I gave her an apologetic look and she didn’t seem to mind.

She was a very attractive, tanned blonde woman who didn’t speak much English. I showed her the address for where we needed to go – P.V. Residence Costa Plana, Cap d’Ail – she seemed to have no problem with it, she stowed our luggage, and off we went.

I tried to speak some French to her as we drove, but I guess my accent isn’t as good as I’d like to think. She tried some English on us, but that was limited too. The drive was exciting – our first view of the drive between Nice and where we were staying in Cap d’Ail – we were going to be taking the exit for Monaco! The road we were on – the A8, equivalent to a U.S. interstate (with tolls, however) – was far enough north of the Mediterranean that we didn’t see it on the drive.

Something was dangling from the rearview mirror and as it turned my way, I recognized that it was a Hello, Kitty ornament. I said “Hello Kitty” loud enough for our driver to hear and she exclaimed, in a charming French accent, “I love Hello Kitty!” Jim had no idea what was going on.

We took the Monaco exit from the A8, went through a long tunnel and then wended our way on the 6007 road into Cap d’Ail. What hadn’t been apparent in our looking at maps back home started to become very clear to us – this part of the world rises steeply above the Mediterranean and everybody who lives within a few hundred meters of the sea can see the sea! As the taxi driver turned off the 6007 and onto the road called Rue General Charles DeGaulle we began a (relatively) steep descent parallel to the sea. Soon after, we were turning into the driveway for our resort and began a very steep ascent up the drive. There was a sharp switchback type of turn and suddenly we were at the gate to a parking garage underneath a building. This wasn’t looking like any resort we’d been to before.

The road, the building, the greenery were all packed closely together. The driveway was steep, turned sharply – and was very narrow. I didn’t notice it at this point, but later noted that the steep side of the hill we were on was held back by chicken wire that stretched up to the top of the slope. A rockslide prevention measure!

The taxi driver parked (with that emergency brake set very strongly, we hoped!), went to an intercom, and said something that we didn’t hear or understand. The gate started to slowly move aside and we started to get our bags out of the car. The gate slowly started to close. The driver went back to the intercom, said more stuff, and then told us that we just needed to go into the garage on foot, with our bags, and make our way to reception by way of the elevator around the corner. By this time, our bags were out of the trunk and I had my wallet out, ready to pay her. She said “Seventy five” and in a daze I took out the money out and handed it to her, my foggy head thinking all the time, “What is that? A hundred dollars? A hundred fifty dollars? What kind of cab ride was that?!” No tip, needless to say.

She took the money, wished us well, and went on her way (I didn’t watch her, so I can only imagine that she had to back her large-ish car all the way down the driveway, at least until that switchback which might have given her enough room to turn around.

Jim and I dragged our suitcases to the elevator and might have even started thinking “We’re almost there!” We rode the small elevator up 2 levels and stepped out onto a wooden deck surface, a large swimming pool to our left, behind a fence, and an open air reception desk ahead of us.

We checked in, got our keys, and were informed that Elevator #1 wasn’t working. They handed us a map to the grounds and highlighted our room, #114. Here’s what we found out: the map made no sense and got us lost; we could never find Elevator #2 to even give it a try; our room was up about 5 flights of stairs; every room in the place had a view of the Mediterranean. This last was the only saving grace for this shabby room they put us in. We were too tired to go back to the desk to express our disappointment about the room and to request another room – for all we knew, this was as good as it got. The “room” was really a small one-bedroom apartment with a small kitchen area (no oven, but 4 burners and an oversized toaster oven). The bedroom was only slightly larger than the double bed that occupied the center. There were two daybeds in the living room, doing duty as couches and sleeping platforms.

Anyone who had never been to the various resorts we’ve been to in Mexico and Aruba, and who’d never been to our home resort in Key West, would probably have found this place in Cap d’Ail to be perfectly acceptable. But it struck us as claustrophobic and very shabby. Two weeks in this place?? It was also very warm and humid the day we arrived, and there was no air conditioning (poor Joan!) The breezes from the Med, plus the eventual weather change that occurred in our second week, ended up making it bearable and eventually quite nice, but we didn’t know that was in store as we stood there, looked around us, and (Joan) tried to keep a stiff upper lip.

We dismissed the bedroom as a room to use and slept for the 2 weeks on the day beds. The wall of the apartment that faced the sea was comprised completely of sliding glass doors. We kept them all open for the entire 2 weeks. The doors opened onto a terrace with table and chairs; this was also the way into the apartment so we were able to lock the place up at the landing while keeping the sliding glass doors open even while we were away during the day. (There are virtually no bugs, in case you’re wondering)

Tired of the whining? OK! I’m done. Wait - one more thing – the bathroom comprised two rooms – one with the toilet and a sink and the other with a bathtub and a sink. The bathtub had a shower hose attachment, but no shower curtain or door. Bathing was an adventure; we made it work.