Europe Hotels part deux: Nice!

We actually had kind of a tough time with this hotel, at first. I knew that I wanted to be near the water, but most of the hotels near the water were far too expensive. Ryan wanted to be by a certain street that looked cool....haha, I don't remember what it was called, but it was not super close to the water.

We used trip advisor to look through the hotels in the area. Pretty much, we started at the top rated hotel, and went through all of the ones that were under $200 a night (our flexible budget). From there, we read some of the reviews, looked through all of the pictures, and of course, "mapped it" to see how close it was to the water!

After searching for a whlie, we were able to come up with a list of hotels that were within our price range, and were in an OK location. Then, and I really don't remember how, Ryan found a deal through Orbitz for the Mercure Nice Promenade des Anglais. The deal was perfectly in our price range, and we were even able to splurge for a sea view!!

I'm super excited for this hotel (as you'll see, the "hotels" we're staying at in Italy are not exactly....well, this nice - but don't get me wrong, I also can't wait for those!)! Check out some of these pictures (all taken from Trip Advisor - you can read the reviews here).

The hotel recently had a decor upgrade, which is shown in this picture!

Here's one of the streets right by the hotel

And below you see a map of the area we're staying in. On trip advisor, they have a little marker to show where the hotel is, but for some reason that didn't save on here! So, if you take a look at the words "Promenade des Anglais," our hotel is right where the "e" in "des" is. Sweet!



So, take a look at a couple of view shots from guests who have stayed at the hotel:

Beautiful! Unfortunately we're only staying in Nice for two nights, and will really only be there for one day (getting there late afternoon one day and leaving SUPER early the day we leave). But, we're hoping to make the most of it! And, if we get around to planning some of our activities before we actually get there, I'll be sure to write about them!

Finally!

I feel like I've been waiting forever...but my passport finally came about a week ago! I've been meaning to get it for a while, just in case an opportunity came up to travel outside of the US. Anyway, Ryan and I have been thinking about going to Europe for a while, and since airfare has been dropping, we booked our flights (yesterday!) for this September!!!! I'm soooo excited, you don't even know!

Where are we going? Well, I'll just give you an overview for now. I'll go into more detail about some of the places and what we plan on doing in later posts.

1. Venice, Italy

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So we knew for sure that we wanted to go somewhere in Italy. But where? We have a limited amount of time for our trip (thanks to Ryan's super limited pto...), so we knew that there was no way we could see everything! So, for me at least, I didn't really care whether we spent the time in Rome, Florence, Venice, Sicily, because I definitely plan on going back and exploring the rest of Italy. Well, after watching Rick Steves's Venice episode, we both thought it looked so romantic. Oh, and what if it's not there in 10 years (apparently it might "drown" at some point...hmm)?

2. Cinque Terre, Italy

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Originally we wanted to go to Portofino. We wanted to go somewhere on the "Italian Riviera" (not sure if it's actually called that...), found Portofino on the map, recognized that name, and decided to try that out. Well, turns out there are only a couple of hotels, and they were both pretty pricey, so we looked around that area and stumbled upon Cinque Terre. About a week later, Rick Steves had an article on cnn.com about Cinque Terre, and it sounded awesome! We've since done more research since then (including reading about Lisa's adventures here) and decided that Cinque Terre will definitely be on the list of stops!

3. Nice, France

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Our next stop will be the French Riviera! Specifically, we are looking into staying at Nice. Looking at the pictures, I just realized that all of these places are on the coast. But, whatever, why not? I've always heard great things about southern France, so I was excited to add Nice to the itinerary. Also, I am very excited to stop by Monaco, and maybe check out the Monte Carlo!

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I guess only the REALLY rich people gamble here, but it sounds like there's another casino nearby, so I'd love to check that out as well!

4. Paris, France

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This is the last place we'll visit on our trip. I've wanted to go here for a while, so I'm excited that it's finally happening! I don't even know what we'll be doing while we're here. There's way too much to do in the small amount of time that we'll be there, but we do have some ideas (to be shared soon!). In the meantime, for those of you that have been to Paris, or have done some research, let me know if you have any suggestions! Or, let me know if there is anything I should not "waste" my time doing. Oh, and I really hope the Eiffel Tower sparkles when I'm there (like it does in the picture below!).

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