TIA HERE with a long video in which I attempted to include all of the pictures I took in the area known as Southern France (Nice, Fayence, Cannes, Monaco). It may not be the most professional video on the planet, but I thought it would be more important to showcase all of the photos, since below I'll only be including a few from the trip!
For those potential DIS students looking at optional study tours for their many travel breaks, I
highly recommend "Culinary Southern France." Not only were the people who led the group fantastic, but the experience was amazing and has completely altered my opinion of wine (from meh to YES). You spend the five days eating amazing food, wine tasting, olive oil tasting, exploring markets, and traveling freely. It's both a structured and casual program, with plenty of free time in addition to really neat activities (and meals). I'll try to break down the trip with some pictures!
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| southern france is beautiful! |
After having a brief meeting the week before to get to know one another, we met as a group for the first official time at 6:45 a.m. on a Wednesday. We flew to Nice, France, but then departed for Fayence, which was where we stayed for the first night. There was a wine tasting and group dinner and, despite the HUGE hill that we had to walk up to get to the restaurant (Fayence is not a flat area), the day was amazing and exhausting. It was a relief to have to sit on the bus for a few hours that day, just to get some sleep and relaxing music time in.
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| chateau de crémat |
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| a stray cat we befriended |
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| this is where chanel got her logo idea |
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| some food we sampled afterwards (with wine!) |
After Fayence, we headed out to two more wine tastings, making our way back over to Nice where we had another group dinner. As you may have noticed, DIS provides for one meal a day (plus hotel breakfast, so I suppose 2 meals), but the last one (often lunch) is up to you. Of course, because we ate so much at breakfast and throughout the day, it really wasn't all that necessary to buy lunch at any point, although the day that we were provided lunch, we
did feel a need to get some dinner!
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| macaron soap at nice's markets |
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| food at nice's markets |
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| nice's rocky beach |
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| exploring nice |
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| hotel breakfasts! |
On Friday, we went to Cannes to take a cooking class and explore the town, then went out to an olive oil place later on, where we had a tasting. The thing about tasting olive oil is that, if you're like me, there's only so much you can taste before you're just
exhausted. The olive samples, on the other hand, I could eat forever. That night we got dinner on our own somewhere in Nice.
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| where we had our cooking class |
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| the kitchen we cooked in |
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| part one of the meal we made (mushroom soup/cappuccino) |
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| part two of the meal we made (shrimp and cheesy risotto) |
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| part three of the meal we made (chocolate mousse) |
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| cannes' ladurée |
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| cannes' ladurée |
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| building where the olive oil tasting took place |
On Saturday, we were given the morning off. Pretty much all of us, in separate groups and excluding maybe two of twenty people, headed off to Monaco. Everyone wanted to check a new country off their list! (Plus,
Blair almost became the Queen of Monaco, remember?) It was, like Nice, Cannes, and Fayence, hot with a clear and general Mediterranean influence that makes me think "Italy" before I think "France." It was beautiful, hilly, expensive, and dominated by yachts and tourists (although not entirely). Afterwards we had a cheese tasting where we also tried out some unorthodox wines and, again, in our own time, visited an art museum. The day was topped up with a seafood dinner where I finally got to try oysters for the first time (which I loved), in addition to mussels, shrimp of different sizes, and snails. It was fantastic!
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| nice train station |
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| ready to go! |
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| the train to monaco |
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| a beautiful sight while approaching monaco |
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| arrived in monaco! |
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| a pomegranate tree?! |
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| that's where blair would be if she had married louis |
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| classy tourist shops |
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| the french riviera/mediterranean is perfect |
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| casino monte carlo |
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| the monaco train station |
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| back in nice |
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| our meeting point in nice |
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| musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain |
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| notable works at the museum |
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| love the colors! |
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| yum! |
Then, on the final day, we had a picnic on the beach, did some final shopping and exploring, and headed back to Copenhagen. It was a great (and tiring) expedition!
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| the (mess) of the picnic! |
Hope you enjoyed the photo madness, and I'll talk to you soon in the next post.
Much love,
T.
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