Last Day - Exploring Cannes

 So we had come back to France with this one random day attached because there wasn't a cheap flight option from Montenegro to France on a different day. And our main flights from Europe back to North America had been through Nice.

So anyway, we had this very strange hotel. It was a ginormous property, but it was mostly deserted it felt like, and it was kind of like a small community WITHIN the hotel, like little courtyards with some storefronts (that weren't open now), but it had a weird feel, like this was the place to be 35 years ago or something. Anyway, it worked great, because we could easily walk to a grocery store, and then easily go down to the beach and walk (somewhat far) to Cannes itself. Which is what we did.

I had had half-plans made to go on the train to some of the different little towns along the Southern coast, but I don't know why we didn't really, except Brett and I probably argued about the cost? and I was kind of cranky, and then it was really quite cloudy in the morning, and I thought it wouldn't be a nice day. Then it did turn out to be pretty nice. But anyway, we found a "trail" on AllTrails for Cannes that took us in and out of little streets and main streets and up to a church and back down by the pier, and we stopped to people watch and whatnot. So it was good.

We passed a market just as they were packing up, and Ethne had mentioned several times wanting a fig but we had never got one while in Albania or Montenegro, so I asked a guy if I could buy a fig, and he thought I meant one carton, but I was like no, ONE fig. And then he just gave it to me. What a nice guy.  So Ethne was happy that she finally got her fig. :)

French baguettes are delicious. And with some good cheese and meat, we felt very good about our lunch.

There were a lot of expensive stores that we did not patronize.

We actually walked a lot. So we went back to our hotel, but this picture is a lie, because while it LOOKED nice enough to sit and read by the pool, it was not. Far too cold.

And that was the end of our trip. 

Here's the condensed, video version (that I love soooo much):

https://youtu.be/rze9X1v9U68

Montenegro Day 7 - Plaza Veslo and flying to France

So on our last day in Montenegro, I had planned to go canyoning in a water-filled canyon with wetsuits and rappels and all that jazz. Unfortunately, due to rain (I guess? we never saw any rain) and high water levels, it was cancelled and so we had a day to just kill. We looked on the map for something relatively close by, and we found this place called Plaza Veslo. It was kind of off by itself, with nothing around it, but it was really cool. So we wandered around there for a few hours.

There are a lot of drone shots here too. 

Then we went back and went to a little beach RIGHT by the airport and sat there for a little while longer. I called and talked to Hazel since she was up in the early hours of Utah time, doing her custodian job. We did that a couple times and she was like, that was kind of nice to have someone else in the world who was up at the same time as me.

We got our car turned in, and we went into the tiny little airport (this was in Tivat), and then walked out onto the tarmac to get on our little EasyJet cheap flight. (Since we used those cheap airlines, Wizz and easyJet, we had to pack really light. We had one checked bag for all of us to share, and then one SMALL personal bag each, not like a regular carryon, more like a big purse.)

We had a layover in Geneva, Switzerland. It was only 2 hours, so too short to visit our friends the Herrs who live there, sadly.

Then we got back to Nice. At that point, I had planned on taking the train to the place where I had accidently gotten our hotel --I thought I was getting one IN Nice, but actually it was a little farther away in Cannes. Hotels are WAYYYY more expensive in France than Albania or Montenegro, and I was trying to get the cheapest one, so of course I had gotten nonrefundable since that made it cheaper. And that was fine, all the little towns along the southern coast of France are easy to get to by bus. However, by the time we got off the plane and got our bag and got out to the train station, the last train of the night had already gone. (This was around 11:00, maybe 11:30?) Not great. So then we're like, now what do we do? And we figured we would have to get an uber, so I went to download the app, because my phone was the one that I had bought a travel sim for, but when you use the travel sim, you can't use your own regular phone number, and Uber wanted to verify my account by sending me a text --to my old phone number, so I couldn't get it. Luckily Brett remembered that he still had the app on his phone, and he was able to use it to get us one. So, hooray, we got in the car and got dropped off right at the gates of our hotel. 

Not great, is that the hotel gates were locked. Luckily, someone happened to walk out right then, so we could enter the outer gates, and walk up to the hotel. Not great, the hotel doors were also locked and no one was there at a front desk or anything. So, had I been on the ball, I would have read the fine print and realized that since we were checking in late, we were supposed to have let them know that ahead of time, and they would have put our key in the lockbox. But I hadn't. 

So, this was a rough moment. Because we couldn't call or anything since there was no one to answer, and the only other thing to do was to find a totally different hotel and lose our money and pay more money, and FIND such a hotel. And of course, we were all tired and had been traveling and waiting and being disgruntled throughout the day, and now it's late. Anyway, so I was like, well, I guess it doesn't hurt to TRY to call the hotel. But again, my phone doesn't actually make calls, so there were a couple guys just sitting nearby smoking- the security guards on a break or something- so I walked over to them to ask if I could borrow one of their phones, and I don't speak French, and they don't speak English, but they understood that we didn't have a key, so then they pointed at the lockbox thingee, and made us understand that we should have a code, but I said I didn't have a code, and the guy said, "What's your name?" and I told him, and he went and put a code in the lockbox, putting his finger to his lips to indicate that he apparently wasn't actually supposed to be letting us get into the box without us having a code, but lo and behold, there was an envelope there with my name on it with a key!!!! Hoooray!!!! What an enormous relief!!! 

So we went in and went to sleep. Yay for heaven-sent security guards who were willing to help us!!