London to Nice

Posted on 2014/09/11 12:52:45 (September 2014).

[Friday 5th September 2014]
So we were off to the Cote d'Azur for a long weekend starting today.

Just like our trip to Italy back in June, there had been some deliberation about how exactly we were going to get there. Given that this would be a shorter journey, and we'd successfully done it by train last year, I managed to stick to my guns this time and win the argument to go by rail. It also helped that we'd left it rather late to book the transport, by which time the flights were very expensive, and comparatively the trains seemed fairly reasonably priced.

Off, then, we headed to St. Pancras this morning, and got on a Eurostar to Paris. From Gare du Nord we got the RER to Gare de Lyon, and Erika fell asleep somewhere along the way, meaning me and Chie could have a peaceful lunch at a brasserie near the station between trains. The food wasn't particularly noteworthy but the first meal of a trip is always jolly regardless, with the excitement of being in another country and so on.

After lunch we got on the TGV which would take us from Paris down to Nice. Very kindly the conductor offered to move us so we could have a table seat for the three of us. As we were in First Class this meant we had loads of space to spread out, and reassuringly there were other kids of a similar age to Erika so we didn't feel bad about Erika being a bit noisy now and again. On these "idTGV" services all of the carriages are divided into two zones - "zap" and "zen", with the latter being a quiet area, and the former being quite pointedly the opposite, and the default option if you're travelling with kids. The division between the two is roughly 50/50 I think, and everybody has to make an explicit choice when booking, which I think is great because it means nobody in zap has any reason to complain if kids are, well, kids.

I'd bought a couple of toddler magazines for Erika to keep her entertained en route, one of which contained a little packet of play dough, with which we made little animals to pass the time. Plus we punctuated the journey with a couple of visits to the bar carriage, which is always quite jolly. I think overall Erika quite liked being on the train.

We arrived in Nice at 8:45, a bit late for Erika, but then I kept pointing out in UK time it was only 7:45, and she doesn't normally go to bed until about 8:30. Mindful of that we'd booked a hotel right next to the station, since we were only really making a brief overnight stop off in Nice anyway.

Erika had already had dinner on the train, but Chie and I were keen to try and eat out somewhere nearby. So we thought we'd try going for a bit of a walk after checking in to see if Erika might doze off in her buggy, and sure enough she quickly did. This gave us the opportunity for another nice peaceful meal, this time at a Moroccan restaurant I'd found on the web. It seemed to be an entirely one man operation - our host was both waiter and chef - but nonetheless our tagines were actually quite tasty.

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