France 2024

Today was a travel day. We checked out of hotel early so we wouldn't feel rushed and headed to the Gare de Lyon to catch our TGV to Nice. Unlike the US, in Europe traveling by train is much easier than flying. I did a full comparison of taking the train vs taking a plane and taking the train was the clear winner. With the Metro station being close to the hotel where we were staying and only one stop away from the train station, getting to the station was fast and easy. We decided to get first class seats since for just a little more money it provides nicer seating on the upper level with a better view, power at every seat, and the ability to reserve seats. We arrived at the station with a little over an hour to spare. We stopped at a coffee shop and picked up some sandwiches for lunch as well as some croissants, an orange juice and a coffee for breakfast. Alexandra did a little shopping for gifts while I sat and read the paper using their free WiFi while keeping an eye on our luggage. Train boarding wasn't very difficult other than having to lift our luggage up the stairs and figure out how to get it to fit in the luggage compartment. Another passenger had put their suitcases on in such a way that it took up the entire section, so I had to rearrange their luggage to get ours to fit. The train trip itself was comfortable and fairly uneventful. The train did offer free WiFi, but bandwidth frequently dropped into the kilobit range making it not very useful for anything needing higher bandwidth. Total travel time was just under six hours and there's a train that leaves almost every hour.

The same trip by plane is significantly more painful. In addition to being more expensive than taking the train, the Orly Airport is at least an hour away, requiring taking two or three trains and a lot of walking, and then you have to go through the normal airport security. In the end it would have cost us 100€ more, been a lot more stressful, and only saved us an hour of total travel time.

Once we arrived into the Nice Ville station we took a taxi to the AirBNB apartment where we would be staying the remainder of our trip. We were met by the owners when we exited the cab who took the time to show us where everything is and how everything works and even gave us some tips on restaurants and things to do while in Nice. After settling in we decided to take a walk along the beach and then to the main town where we ended up at an Italian restaurant. After dinner we walked around a bit more before walking back to the beach and ended up walking all the way around to the harbor. After admiring the yachts in the harbor we purchased a fare card and boarded one of Nice's new trams and went back the apartment.

The fare card ended up being easier than I originally expected. One card can be used by multiple people, so if you're traveling together there's no need to purchase multiple cards. The card provides unlimited travel within a 90 minute period, giving you time to transfer between trams and busses. You can also add fare to the card remotely using your phone. We ended up adding 10 trips (five for each of us) to our card which worked out perfectly for our time in Nice including covering our trip to the airport.