Travel With Me To The French Riviera 🐚 4 cities you need to visit, toddler travel, euro summer pt 03

Sorry it's starting to get a little dark outside but hopefully you guys can see me. We got into Nice pretty late because we had quite the fiasco and delays when it came to the train which is kind of funny because when we were debating on how to get from like Como to Nice we were thinking about just taking a plane from Madrid to Nice but we would have a layover which with a toddler is not ideal but the train that we were supposed to be taking to get from Madrid to Nice ended up getting canceled and we were kind of freaking out because we weren't sure how we were going to get here with a toddler and obviously if we didn't have Penelope we would just get a taxi or an Uber or some kind of car service but it's kind of hard to just find a car seat on a whim and what ended up happening with the train is that someone ended up passing away. I'm not quite sure what ended up happening whether someone got hit by the train or what but essentially someone ended up dying and causing the train to cancel because they had to do a full investigation along the track so they just canceled all the trains that were going along that track. Eventually a few hours later the trains got up and running so we were able to get on a train but oh my gosh I kind of forgot what a nightmare public transit can be in Europe because as soon as the train got into the station everyone was flooding this train since there had been a few cancellations and everything had just been all backed up so there was just hundreds of people trying to get on these trains and obviously when you're traveling with a toddler in a stroller and you have several pieces of luggage and you have to go up and down flights of stairs to get to the train track it was just absolutely chaos. It started raining and I was just like so anxious that we weren't going to get on this train with Penelope and all of our stuff. It was just absolutely chaos. Thankfully there was a lot of really nice people that were like do you need help? Can I grab your bag? But once we got on the train it was literally like little sardines packed into this train. I'm here like holding Penelope. I have nowhere to put her down and there's nowhere for her to go. I'm holding her for like most of this train and then not even halfway through the train like a few stops in while we were on the train we ended up having to switch to a whole nother train which if we didn't have very friendly people speaking Italian around us then we would have had no idea that we had to transfer onto a whole different train. It was just so frustrating and of course it's the dead of summer so I'm literally just like drenched in sweat. I smell so bad. All I can think about is getting a shower and honestly just getting to Nice as soon as possible. Thankfully we made it as soon as we got here we all took the longest shower and now we're just having wine on the patio. Here is a little bit of the view. There was a very epic sunset when we got here so kind of was just enjoying it taking a little bit of a breather but if there's anything I learned out of that whole fiasco is to just travel as light as possible. We ended up traveling with one big suitcase, a carry-on, a personal bag for me. Joel has a hiking backpack like a backpacking backpack and then he has a smaller backpack and then we have the stroller and obviously Penelope and then I think we had like a tote bag of food so we were just traveling with a lot of stuff to be going up and down stairs and going from train station to train station and obviously like you can't predict someone dying on a train track. Anyway we're so glad to be here. I have never been to Nice before and I already really love the vibe. It feels very casual, very laid-back compared to Paris. I think Paris is the only other French city that I've been to but it just feels like a much more laid-back vibe for a big city. We wanted to be in Nice because it's very easy to pop to other places. I just learned that Monaco, which is a country, is like two or three stops away. You have Canes. I think we're gonna try to go to Antibes one day and then my husband has tickets to go to a garden at the top of a village called Eze tomorrow morning. So yeah, I'm glad to finally be here. Knock on wood that nothing else happens in the midst of our travels because as you guys know any type of delays when you're traveling is not enjoyable but when you have a toddler you're just kind of like, oh no what are we gonna do? Anyway we made it. It's almost 10 o'clock. I think I'm going to wind down with a little tv show and get ready for a fun time in Nice. I'm so excited to be near the water. I think we might try to do a little bit of a beach day in the afternoon tomorrow. We'll see how it goes but I am just dying to get into that crystal clear blue water and getting a croissant. Those are my two non-negotiables that need to happen tomorrow. So today we took, well I was gonna say we took a bus but we didn't take a bus because the bus was too full so they completely missed our stop but we took an uber to come up to and it feels kind of like a medieval town with all these old stones and buildings and you hike up quite a lot of steps. I'm very out of breath but it is super charming. Right now we're walking up the top and there's all these cute little shops and I think there's a hotel up here. Cute little charming streets. So you can hike to the top and there is a exotic garden. It's kind of a cactus garden that you need tickets for. It just feels very charming, very quiet, beautiful views of the coast. Sitting down for an early dinner on a very busy road so I'm not sure how much you guys will be able to hear me but lately I've been trying to come back to our hotel room for a midday nap to just give Penelope a little bit of a break and then give us also a little bit of a break. We've been in Nice for a few days now and just per personality I think we're going through the terrible twos and the three major phase all at once and it is absolutely exhausting. I'll talk a little bit more about it when we are when I'm sitting somewhere a little bit more quiet and I can gather my thoughts but today I took the most epic nap between the heat and just walking around everywhere with the toddler. We're kind of spending the afternoon bopping around the old town area. We're staying in the harbor. I haven't really talked about where we're staying here but we're staying in the harbor area which has actually been very convenient. We really like this area. Close to the beach, close to shops, close to restaurants. We've actually been eating out with Penelope a lot which maybe is adding a little bit to my exhaustion but I think that's my number one tip for anyone that is planning on traveling with a toddler or traveling with a young baby in general it's just very exhausting. We've traveled a lot with Penelope but this age is definitely the hardest and it's just go go go and you're doing a lot of things that are more family toddler friendly than necessarily things that we would like to do but it's been pretty hard to mostly just because my hands are full. I'm chasing a toddler and I'm absolutely exhausted. It's definitely worth it but I feel like it's very hard to show the whole entire story of traveling with a two-year-old. I think I'm also starting to realize that three weeks traveling in Europe with a two-year-old is probably a little bit harder than expected. So today we decided to hop on the train and pop down to Antibes for the day which is a very cute little village. It's very very busy but so many cute restaurants and shops and there was a massive market filled with fruits and vegetables and flowers and dried fruit. This is such a stunning little area I feel like if we didn't stay in Nice we would definitely stay here because it's so quaint there's so much to do and see. Obviously the water is absolutely stunning so we just had lunch grabbed some coffee which by the way espresso tonics are a thing here. There's a coffee shop back home in Denver that does them and they're so good and refreshing so I highly recommend an espresso with tonic water this summer and now we are trying to hit up the beach. We forgot our umbrella so we'll see how long we last with the toddler at the beach but honestly it's so hot I just could use a good dip in the ocean just to kind of like refresh. It has been very very hot here. I've been seeing everyone wear very cute flowy dresses and outfits. I like cannot survive without just a tank top and shorts on because it's been so hot. And then on the topic of travel we have been using our Nuna this whole entire trip and that thing has become quite the workhorse for us. We just fill it to the brim underneath and it goes over gravel, it goes over the cobblestones, it folds up super small so that we can get it on the train. It is and has been well worth it for not only this trip but the last two years that we have been traveling with Penelope. It has been handling stairs super well. I'm quite shocked at how well that thing has handled our travels. So if you're debating on traveling with a toddler whether internationally or locally, whatever traveling you're planning on doing, highly highly highly recommend bringing some type of travel stroller. It will be your number one piece of used gear in your travels. Good morning. We're up bright and early to go get in a little bit of swimming. We're also going to stop by a restaurant we tried to get reservations for but couldn't and it's a really popular spot in Nice where people dive off of it. I don't know if they allow people to dive off or not but there's a whole platform and art installation of statues on the end of it. Maybe people used to be able to dive off of it. I also don't know if you guys noticed what I found conditioner. Sephora. Thank god there's only like four options still. We went to the richest country. We went to Monaco yesterday just to get conditioner. Not just to get conditioner and I didn't film it because Penelope was having quite a day. Sorry conditioner is the only thing we could afford in Monaco so that's what we wanted. Definitely couldn't afford to stop in Hermes or Miu Miu or Gucci but we did stop by the casinos which looked very radiant. I don't even know what kind of word to describe it. I've never seen a casino look as bougie. Over the top. I don't know. I think yesterday was our hardest day with Penelope other than a train fiasco. Opulent. Isn't that like over the top? Yeah over the top back to the casino. Opulent. Anyway yesterday was probably one of the hardest travel days we've had with Penelope and mostly just because she's part toddler part teenager. And we just had a lot of meltdowns, a lot of defiance. I think that's been the hardest thing about traveling on this trip. It's not necessarily the logistics of traveling with a toddler. That's easy. It's definitely dealing with all of the emotions on top of just walking a lot, being tired, not necessarily sleeping as much as we would like or as comfortably. Or just being ready to go and do and go and do when you first wake up and not just hang out in the room. I feel like it's very hard to just stay in a hotel room or stay in an Airbnb with a toddler. You kind of always have to be going somewhere and doing something. I feel like the only time we really get a break is when she's sitting in the stroller which has honestly been saving us. I might want to like go over there and take some photos and stuff. Au revoir Nice. We have made it down to Saint-Tropez for a few days. Nice was such a fun experience. I will say I don't feel like it was really on my radar in terms of visit but it was such a cool city. It reminded me a lot of LA or maybe more like the Venice Santa Monica area just because there's so much to do. It is obviously way more historic. There's an area called Old Town that is so fun to walk through. So many little winding streets as you guys saw. But then also just like tons of hip coffee shops and cool boutique shopping and obviously the beaches and the water are just absolutely stunning. The food is so good. I feel like Nice has become my favorite city in France for sure. I feel like as we were walking through we were kind of like I think we could live here. Like it just felt so cool. It felt very casual and everyone just had like a really effortless kind of vibe. But we're excited to be in Saint-Tropez because our apartment in Nice had a really great view and a really great location. We were right on the port which was a great area to walk around but our Airbnb was like a studio so it was really really cozy. And our Airbnb in Saint-Tropez is kind of outside of the city. Kind of more in like the country area. It's much more like a villa and like a proper house that has several rooms and a living room and a kitchen. So we're excited to kind of camp out there for a little bit. Also has a pool so we'll probably do some pool days. And we are meeting a friend of ours who have been living in Europe for the past year with their kids. So excited to just have like a low-key final destination in our whole euro summer travels. We'll see how much we actually end up going into Saint-Tropez because it is quite bougie from all the research that I've been doing. The main thing there is beach clubs and shopping and then nightclubs which we might do some of the beach clubs. Probably won't do a lot of designer shopping and definitely not doing any nightclubs. But either way excited to check it out. It's much more like a villa and like a proper house that has several rooms and a living room and a kitchen. So we're excited to kind of out there for a little bit. Also has a pool so we'll probably do some pool days. And we are meeting a friend of ours who have been living in Europe for the past year with their kids. So excited to just have like low-key final destination in our whole euro summer travels. We'll see how much we actually end up going into Saint-Tropez because it is quite bougie from all the research that I've been doing. It seems like the main thing there is beach clubs and shopping and then nightclubs which we might do some of the beach clubs. Probably won't do a lot of designer shopping and definitely not doing any nightclubs. But either way excited to check it out. So far the French Riviera has been absolutely stunning and I am surprised how close everything is. Another thing that was nice about being in Nice is it was really easy to do a day trip to Es Village, to Antibes. You could even do a day trip to Canes. Saint-Tropez wasn't too far. I think it ended up being like an hour and a half drive. There's just so much to do. The water is so warm. You have like rocky beaches, sandy beaches. We have found a great place for families. There's so many families when we're in. I think Nice was our favorite so far. Now we are down to Saint-Tropez. So I'll see you guys there. We popped over to Port Renault for the day and it kind of feels like a mini Venice but way cuter. I feel like we're on right now is like it's a small world. Have you been there? Going through these little canals and a little boat and all these cute little buildings that are all super colorful. We went to Saint-Tropez yesterday and it was so bougie. It was quite a scene. Easy we gotta sit. And this just feels so much more quaint and quiet and low-key. We went to the market and the market here is really pretty. So many great vendors from food to clothing to jewelry to accessories. I think this has to be one of my favorite stops on our whole entire trip. And if you come down to south of France I definitely recommend Port Grimauld and renting one of these little little to cruise around in. They don't go fast at all. It's such a fun way to see the city, see all the cute little homes.