Nice in Nice, Not what we expected in St. Tropez, and the worst night train ride ever!

I warn you again to bare with me, since I am typing on my itouch. After Marseille, Tuesday morning we headed to Nice in the early morning, the tickets on the train were free with our eurorail pass so we decided to go to Nice, check into our hostel to get rid of our bags, then jump back on the train (towards Marseille) to get off at St. Raphael train station, to take a bus to St. Tropez. Our hostel seemed nice, very secure and had a kitchen (always a huge plus!). We jumped back on the train and then found the bus, only 3 euro, so it wasnt too bad. The bus took FOREVER though, almost 2 hours! The bus driver even took a smoke break at one of the stops, no one seemed outraged (as we were hehe) so we assume this is a normal occurrence, one passenger even got out to smoke with him. We finally arrived in St. Tropez and immediately saw the wealth in the area (tried to buy a towel.. 35 euro .. HECK NO!). we walked around and saw all the fancy shops, saw the Coach and Channel mansions and walked along the boardwalk to look at all the yachts. We searched for the beach and found out there is none! We found a tiny little one near the road and laid out there. We were pretty disappointed since we past 5 to 10 amazing looking beaches in the bus on the way to St. Tropez, I guess in the media they just group them altogether or the beach isn't public viewing. So we came back to the train and the train back to Nice a little rested from our nap on the beach but ready to really soak in the sun the next day in Nice.

We slept in a little since we had nothing planned for the day besides beach time (YAY!). The beach was very nice, but there was no sand but gigantic rocks that weren't too bad to lay on.. But they definitely left indentation marks in your skin. We hung out there fir about 5 hours.. Jumping and swimming in the water (the water was a little cold), then headed back to cook dinner and shower. The next day we checked out by 10am but left our luggage with them, while we went to the beach for a few hours. We cane back and cooked some more food, washed up a little and left for the train station around 330pm.
Our first of MANY trains took us to a little town in Italy, about 1.5 hours from Nice. Our first realization that we were indeed not in France anymore was that the exit sign didn't say "sortie" anymore, hehe. We jumped on our next train and headed to Milano. We arrived around 1130pm and waited about an hour for the train to Bologna.. Mind you if you look at a map, we are ZIGZAGGING our way through northern Italy! We can only take the regional trains for free and not the high speed trains with our pass. (it sucked) Got onto the train for Bologna and discovered there was assigned seating.. And spoke to the 3 other Italians for about 20 minutes to decide what to do.. It was like a movie.. We stood up, they said stay.. We sit down, they tell us maybe we should go. Well the decision was made once the train was moving and we were in it, hehe. We were a little scared we would get yelled at since we still werent 100% sure.. But when the ticket man cane by he didnt bat an eyelash when we gave him our pass. Seeesh. The trains, at least theses cheap night trains were hilarious. At each stop people come out for a smoke break and/or stick their heads out the windows (no a/c when the train is stopped) and proceed to stare. It seems the Italians do not think it's rude to stare because I felt like I was naked or something with how many people were looking at me and Kate as we tried to get on trains. Also the trains seem to be a free for all, sit in seats, sit in the hall when seats pull down off the wall, stand with your head out window, lay in the hall, or purely just wander! Haha it was pretty amazing. We arrived in Bologna around 245am (very tired!) and had about a half an hour until our train to Venice arrived. (oh P.S. The only burger king I have seen so far besides in London was at the Milano train station! Yummy!) we took off our the last of many trains and were the ones sitting in the halls with our luggage this time. We arrived to Venice ( after switch to a tiny train to take us to the city) around 545am and boy were we tired! We walked out if the train station and there was the water already!! It was pretty awesome, we then learned that I instead of a metro or a bus system they have boats that take you around! We bought a 24 hour unlimited pass and walked onto what we thought was our boat. Wondering when the driver was going to stop smoking and take off, something HIT OUR BOAT, OMG!!! (mind you we were a little delirious at the time).. We see our "driver" jump on to the boat that just collided with us to figure that WAS our boat!! We were just in the "boat station" hahaha. The boat was awesome we sat in the back (open to the air and got a little tour of Venice! We rode the boat for about 30 minutes to get to our hostel and checked in. :) we were offically ready to taken Venice by storm!


We are in Florence right now(free Internet yeah!). So I am taking a break d
From typing to go search for Italian crystal Aunt Teri wanted and walk around Florence. Promise to update you up to our current local later today/tonight! CIAO!