Jack & Jo's European Adventure: Nice is very nice!

Promenade des Anglais, Côte d'Azur, Nice, France, the only place to stay when in this part of he world, it is absolutely beautiful, there is only a road between us and the French Riviera coastline, where the water is mesmerizing it's so calm and relaxing. I have been so amazed at the fact that Jo not only has come in for a swim, but has stayed in the water for as long as me, near on two hours. And she has claimed she never wants to leave this beautiful part of the world.

We did have some horrifying moments though whist taking our dip, and it is not something that we are going to forget in a hurry. We had been in the water a little over an hour, floating, swimming, chatting about where we have been and the amazing things we have seen and done, when Jo starts asking me "What is that"? I came in closer to her and began looking for what was concerning her, I noticed a couple of white rocks, about the size of a football, I said "it is OK they are just white rocks". Jo said "no not them, that over there", I started to swim out toward the area she had indicated and just as I neared what she was motioning to, the ocean started pulling back the water and to my horror revealed a huge stingray with wings about 8 feet wide, the as the water surged up to pound back in toward the beach, the stingray lifted up off the bottom and swam toward me, only a few feet away.

I freaked out and started thrashing my arms in an attempt to get away from it, Jo saw me and her face went white as I went by her. When I was close enough to shore to touch the bottom I started pumping my legs trying to run up to the beach, but being a pebble beach, I was going no where, I looked like "Wile E Coyote" as my legs span around, but my head and torso remained still. Right around this point Jo swam past, faster than anything I had seen in the water, she was shouting "WHAT IS IT, WHAT IS IT?" Just as I started to yell back to her "IT'S A STINGRAY", an excruciating pain shot up my right leg, as my calf muscle cramped up, mortally wounded, I rolled onto my back and thrashed my arms like anything trying to get to shore, whilst screaming for Jo to come back and help me.

Meanwhile a lady that had been sunbathing topless on the beach, jumped up grabbing her goggles and snorkel, sprinting dives into the ocean and then pulling her goggles on, she was keen to see the sea critter that was chasing us, as she was swimming around the snorkel was twitching this way and that as she looked for the beast. Jo dragged me by my leg up onto the rocky shore and started pushing my toes back to ebb the pain in my leg. Back up the beach, where the topless lady had been, a little girl about three years old, was crying very upset, "Mummy, Mummy".

With adrenalin still racing through my veins, I looked back out to the woman snorkeling and noticed the stingray had actually not moved at all, in fact it was not even a stingray, but a huge rock in the shape of such a beast. I broke the news to Jo, calmly, she was still trying to get me out of the water she looked out and burst out laughing, uncontrollably, so much so warm fluids ran down the inside of her thigh, at this point I was rolling on my back, trying to reach my toes alternating between grimacing in pain and laughing so hard it hurt. We must have been a sight, as the little girl abandoned by her mother, was now watching us and giggling out of control, Mum was still out frantically looking for the sting ray, we laughed so hard and continued to do so for a good hour or so later.

Not long after, still with an aching calf muscle, I really conquered my fears when I swam out to the rock and stood clear off the water on its back, thrusting clenched fists into the air, hero or what?
We went out for dinner later that evening and there were three very solemn old French lady's at a table near us, at some point in the night, their conversation sparked a laughing session between them, Jo says "I wonder what they are laughing at?", I looked at them and said jokingly "they were on the beach this morning and just realised it was us they saw, when we where attacked", that set Jo off again and she was soon out laughing the three old ducks. Our waiter stood between the two tables looking a little complex-ed, wondering what we may all have been laughing at, very funny moment.

Our last day in Nice today and after a brief swim, I managed to drag Jo away from the beach to take her out for a day in Monaco, Monte Carlo. We took a bus into Nice Train Station and brought tickets from a machine, there were people everywhere inside and out on the platforms, we were to find that all trains had stopped running and we were in for an hour wait on a hot steamy train station platform, followed by a hot steamy train ride in a packed train.

Was so worth it though, Monaco has been on my wish list since I was a little kid, and I was not disappointed, the place is unbelievable. We had lunch at the Monaco Casino's, "Cafe De Paris", cost a small fortune $60 Euro for a Caesar Salad, a Chef's Salad and two Hienikens, very de-lish salads though. We then walked part of the Grand Prix circuit and around the harbour, including a ferry ride across the harbour, it was a fantastic day, we both loved the place, Jo is now wishing we were rich, I told her not good enough, we'd need to be filthy rich!