Côte d'Azur

    I finally arrived in Romania for the summer, after a long year of hard work and achievements. It's time to relax for a long, 3-month summer. I am already halfway through, by the time I am writing this article. 

After we arrived in Romania, I had another two weeks of online schooling, which was really tiring. But before we get there, I want to share some pictures I took in the airport and in the plane. 

    The plane we took was an Airbus a340-300, which is a four-engine aircraft. I was really excited when I found out about it. I had longed to go on a four-engine plane since I was little. When I was about 6 years old, I went on an Airbus a380, which is a beast compared to the a340, but I was happy nevertheless. 

    This is a photo taking from a seat next to the wing about 5 minutes after we took off. It shows New York and its beauty, along with the rest of the area around it. Keep in mind that all of the plane photos were taken with a phone, so they are pretty low quality.

    This is a night photo taken from the plane. I left the phone camera on long exposure mode, and held the phone as steadily as I could. I loved the way it turned out, since you can see the Milky Way, some other stars, and the plane wing, which really makes it interesting. I figured that the air was very thin at such a high altitude, and it wasn't polluted. Too bad the image is of poor quality, and it has a bit of reflection, because otherwise it would have definitely made it on my wall. 

    Our next flight was with a much smaller plane. I don't really know the model, but I think it was another Airbus. We had to stay 5 hours and a half in the second airport. That was a huge amount of time, considering that we had just come off of an 8-hour flight, and we were all tired. Here's another photo I took from the window.

   After we arrived, I had 2 weeks of school left. I was shocked that they didn't go easy on us at all, since it was the end of the school year. I even had homework in the last day of school! However, I think it was worth it, since I was accepted into four "Enrichment"classes, which I thought I'd never go to. 

    After I finished school, we did many exciting things, like going to a wedding, and a birthday party. But now summer is almost halfway done. We decided to take a 5-day trip to Nice, France, to explore a bit of Europe too. I wasn't so up to the plan at first, since I wanted to stay as much as I could in Romania and play with my friends. Even though I said this, I knew in the back of my mind that I would have a great time there, and take many pictures of the beautiful scenes. And it turns out I was right. The trip was great!

    We headed out of the house at 3 in the morning, to catch the plane in time. We traveled all the way to Cluj Napoca, which was about a 2 hour and a half trip. Then, we took the first plane, to travel to Bucharest (Romania's capital). We traveled over the Carpathian Mountains on the way to Bucharest. They were beautifully covered with snow.

    A phenomenon that amazed me occurred in the second plane. There was mist coming out of the air vents. Since this plane was newer, it probably had air conditioning, rather than just blowing the air around. The air outside and in the plane was hot, but when they got the air conditioning running, the difference in temperature formed a mist. I recorded a video to show the vapors, but it's kind of hard to see because of all the lights. 

    When we arrived in Nice, I was surprised to see all the palm trees outside of the airport. We took the tram all the way to the promenade, from which we took a left and continued straight to the hotel. When we got there, a lady came and gave us the keys to the room. The hotel had an old French-style elevator that went up to our apartment, which was on level one, and reached the end, which was level five. 

    The apartment was amazing. It had three beds, a nice kitchen, and it was pretty close to the sea, which is a big deal. It was also pretty cheap. Cheaper than the hotel we stay in when we go to Romania's side of the Black sea. Our sea is very different than the Mediterranean.  For example, the Black Sea is light green, has sand on the beach and has many little creatures. The Mediterranean is light blue, has mostly rocks on the beach and has large exotic fish. So, it was well worth it to stay 5 days there.

    Another thing I noticed was the style of the buildings. It was so different from Romania or America. I actually liked it. For example, the corners of those buildings were symmetric. I took some shots with the symmetry of the buildings.

    After we got accustomed to our apartment, we went a bit to walk and explore the promenade. There were big waves, suggesting that there had been a storm before we arrived. Of course, I couldn't resist taking a swim. The impact of the waves was hard at first, but then I went more in the open and it wasn't so bad. My dad was out of the water, watching me to make sure I was safe. 

    But then the trouble happened. I got tired of sitting in the water, and decided to come out. However, just then a huge wave came and took me in. More and more waves caught me as I gasped for air. The last one was so bad, that it even turned me around under water. I managed to leave the grip of the waves, with some struggle. Now I learned to never do that again. 

    After my unpleasant experience, we walked more on the promenade. At one point, far away from our apartment, we saw a man on the beach vomiting. A lady had just rescued him from the water, before he drowned. We stayed and watched. After about two minutes of vomiting, he laid his head back on a towel, and smiled at the lady who rescued him. He also showed a thumbs-up, concluding that he was ok.

    The next day we decided to visit Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, which is a little town on a peninsula closed to Nice. When we left the apartment, before going to the tram, we visited a small park with a beautiful fountain and blooming trees, which were perfect for a photo.  I waited a long time until all the people left the park, or they moved to some other side, so there was no one disturbing the scene.

    3/4 of the tram trip was underground. The tram came out at Port Lympia, full of big yachts, which was also the end of the line. You can imagine how rich the owners were. There was a Navy ship in the back of the port as well. Even the water in the harbor was extremely clear. If a boat leaked oil or gas, the fine would probably cost the owner a fortune. I snapped some photos, and then headed to catch the bus. 

    Google Maps said that the next bus to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat would arrive after two hours. But, we still stayed five minutes just to be sure. When we were about to leave and go home, the bus arrived. This one probably had a small delay, and came before the one that was supposed to come two hours after. 

When we got off the bus, we saw a nice beach below the bus station. We decided to swim there, since we had all our swimming equipment with us. When we got down, the water near the beach was actually quite dirty. More like our water at the Black Sea. However, it was crystal blue off in the distance. I hopped in the water, not knowing that a half a meter away from the beach, the water would be full of huge rocks on the bottom. As soon as I felt the rocks, I went back to our place on the beach, and got my shoes, that were specially made to go in the water with them. I could not film anything with the GoPro camera since the water was too dirty. However, I took a nice landscape photo by going in the water with my camera held above the surface. It was risky, but well worth it for the final photo. Also, we saw a huge bridge in the distance, with cars going on it. Imagine what a photo I could take from up there!

    After we finished swimming a bit in the water, we walked again up to catch the bus going to Eze, a little town up the mountains. Right when we left the beach, I saw a tiny lizard speeding on the road to reach the other side. People who know me also know that I love lizards, snakes, and other reptiles. I couldn't resist to catch it, take a photo, and then let it go back in its habitat. As I was moving to have a good position to put my hand on the lizard, a car came and went right over it. I was so scared that it had killed the lizard, but it still survived. I wasn't expecting to find lizards in France, but it looks like there are some. I struggled for about ten minutes to catch it and position it for its photo shoot. Finally, when I had a decent photo, I let it go back into some rocks.

    There were two options to reach Eze. The first one was to walk some time and then take a bus. The second one was to take a very long trip with a different bus. We chose the fist option. We gave Google Maps directions by using that option. After we walked a bit, Maps told us to take a left at some point. On the left there was a huge set of stairs. When we finally reached the end of them, we saw that there were more. We had to go up again, and again. Three times in total. The phone said that climbed an equivalent of 48 floors, and about 500 stairs. I couldn't complain, since I took a nice landscape photo towards the sea and houses. It really was a beautiful place.

From there we took the bus to Eze. The bus trip was not that long, but something amazed me again. We went right on top of the huge bridge that I saw earlier. The station where we got off was not that far away from it either. I couldn't resist taking a photo from it. It was a jaw-dropping scene. 

    Next we climbed up to an old city, that had a cactus garden in it. When we reached the top, the view was wonderful. I took some great photos with the sea and the boats. I also took many photos with the cacti. As I was photographing the sea, a bunch of tiny yellow cactus thorns were in my arm. They looked like hundreds of yellow spears. They didn't even hurt. I just felt them when I rubbed against a brick wall. I probably got them when I reached out to take a photo of the cacti.

    We had arrived just in time to catch France's national day (July 14). In the evening, we headed out on the promenade again. There was a concert in the distance, but we didn't go inside. At 10:30, we would see the fireworks. I spent half and hour preparing my camera for the big show. That included setting up the tripod, finding the perfect location, and punching in the correct settings. After I was done, it was time to wait. At 10:40, there were some tiny fireworks very far in the distance. There were literally 4 fireworks somewhat closer, but they were very tiny, and didn't look official. Those were most likely some people having fun. Something that was interesting, was the light show, which was right in front of us. However, the lights did not move at all, or change color. We waited another two hours, but nothing happened. All in all, it was very disappointing.

    The next day we visited Antibes, and then Cannes. We took the train, for the first time. In the fourth day, we wanted to go to Monaco, but they required you to have a Covid 19 test if you wanted to enter the country. This was kind of weird since me and my dad already had the vaccine. Luckily, there were test centers near the train station. I definitely didn't want another test, since I had to do them in the past, and it's not pleasant.

When we got off the train in Antibes, the first thing I noticed was a huge ferris wheel. I knew I had to go on it. Also, next to the ferris wheel was a boat harbor, and a stone wall on the other side. I took my camera with me on the ferris wheel, and the sight was truly spectacular. I didn't expect it to be like that. From about halfway up from the ground and sky, you could see the whole harbor, and the houses on the other side of the wall. I took some never-to-forget photos that I will, no doubt, hang on my wall when I get to America. 

    After the ride was over, we went to explore the little city hidden behind the wall. We walked to reach the center of the city. There was an antique shop, with extremely hight prices for everything. I love antiques, but I couldn't afford any of the stuff there. One stand even sold old cameras, but I didn't even bother to ask. It was nothing like the antique shops in Romania. We continued walking until we reached the beach. This one was much better that the one in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. There were even some fish, small and big. I tried filming them with my GoPro, but they were too few, that ran away quickly. 

    Now it was time to visit Cannes. We took the train again to get there. Once we were In Cannes, we just took a walk on the promenade. There were lots of police officers guarding the place. I figured it was from the festival the day before. Five years ago, there was a terrorist attack in Nice. That's another reason for the lack of fireworks. They probably didn't want too many people to group up, so there wouldn't be another attack. It was very nice in Cannes too. There were many restaurants, and there were people singing on the streets. 

    In the evening, we got our Covid-19 results, so we could go to Monaco the next morning. They were luckily all negative. To get ready for Monaco, we also searched city tour buses that we could take to ride around. The bus was 90 Euros of all four of us (me,  my dad, my mom, and my aunt).

    Day four had at last arrived. In two days, we would leave back to Romania. But there was still time before that. In day four, we visited Monaco. To get there, we took the train. My dad showed Monaco on Google Maps, and it's tiny size compared to France. Monaco is a completely separate country, but the people there speak French too. 

When the train arrived, we took the elevator to reach ground level. The first thing we noticed, was that, when my dad tried accessing anything on the internet, he couldn't. European internet services didn't work there. You needed to have a completely different service so you could access the internet. This frustrated us, because we couldn't access our bus tickets, and see where we were going. We finally reached a hotel, which had free wifi. We connected to it, and could now see from where we had to take the bus.

    One of the first things I realized, and probably anyone would see, is how rich the people there were. I heard that Monaco was one of the richest places on Earth, but I didn't expect it to be like that. Every car in five was either a Rolls Royce, a Bentley, a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, or a Lamborghini. Having one of these supercars in Monaco was very regular and normal. In most places, people would endlessly stare at one of them. In Monaco, everyone went on without even noticing them.

    We walked for some time around a harbor, until we found the bus station. Another sign the people were rich was the yachts they had. Some of the personal boats were HUGE. One of those must cost millions of Euros. While we were watching around, we saw the bus coming. It was red, and had two levels. One was inside the bus, and the other was on top of its roof. Of course, we stayed on the top, so I could take photos. It had a huge piece of glass in front of us at the top, so the wind wouldn't blow in our eyes. Also, we were each given headphones, since there was someone talking, and telling us what each stop was. We could also select our language. I selected English. I was a bit upset, because I thought that I would not be able to take any photos, since the bus would be moving too fast. But actually, that was not much of a problem. 

    The first stop was at the prince of Monaco's palace. We had arrived just in time to see the guard's daily routine. They would switch places from one side of the palace to another. Each of the guards was very serious. While that happened, a storm came in, and it rained for a couple of minutes. It doesn't rain very often in the south of France. It explains why they have vegetation like cacti, palm trees, fruit trees, etc. 

Before taking the bus to visit other places in Monaco, we walked around some more to explore the area. We headed down from the palace, and towards the next bus station. As we went down. we had a beautiful view of the harbor, as well as the amazing buildings. Then we reached a park, where we could see the bus stopping at the station. We walked some more in the park, and didn't take the first bus. 

    Another thing that shocked me in France and Monaco was the beautiful flower gardens they had. There were full of wondrous flowers, and I could test my new macro lens on them. Besides the park, there was also a huge church next to it. I could take a nice symmetry photo of it. In front of another church, was a beautiful red Ferrari. I kept looking at it, and when I got close to the car to take a photo of the church, it revved its engine very loudly. It scared me a bit, but it mostly surprised me at how powerful the engine was. 

After we finished walking around the park, we took the bus for another tour of the city. The bus went through many tunnels, and the views outside were absolutely stunning. We did another three tours of the whole city, and basically the whole country, until we got off at Monte Carlo's casino. We took some photos there, and then hurried to catch the bus going to Menton, a city close to the Italian border. We waited for the bus in another garden, that had a cute duck in a pond. The duck almost bit me when I put my hand to touch it. However, despite its attack, I took a nice photo of it with the water droplets on its feathers. 

    We finally got on the bus to Menton. One thing that really caught my attention when we arrived there was the style of the architecture. I have always seen photo contests with architecture, but never submitted any photos because I didn't have any. Well here, you could spend days just finding cool building positions and arrangements. 

After I finished taking photos of the buildings, we walked a bit on the promenade. There was another harbor, and on the land side were many outdoor restaurants. We were near the boarder with Italy, so we decided to stop at one of the restaurants to eat some Italian pizza. One thing I dislike about America is their pizza. It has loads of oil in it. Pizzas in Romania don't have nearly as much oil. This one here though did. 

    The next day we visited park Phoenix in Nice. We took the tram to get there. The park was very near the airport. You could hear plane land and take off every five minutes. We struggled at first to find the park entrance. While we were walking around, we saw a person cleaning a car of broken glass. We thought the car was in an accident, and the window glass shattered. But then we saw that one after the other car had a shattered window. Somebody must have come at night, and broke all the cars's windows. 

    When we finally found the park entrance, we had to buy tickets, and then go through security. They asked me to open my camera backpack. They looked inside, and let me pass. The park really looked beautiful. There were many animals in cages, including parrots, kangaroos, turtles, etc. I won't be mentioning all of them, since there were too many. One thing I did find fascinating was that the parrots could talk. I said hello, and one of them imitated me. They were so cute. 

One thing you do notice from the start of the park is the huge silo, which is also a botanical garden. It is said to be the biggest in the world. I could hear the plane engines much louder inside, because of the echo. The whole place was thriving with vegetation. It was a great place to take macro photos. I won't be putting all the photos because there are too many. 

There were only flowers and exotic plants at first, but there were even more animals later on. We could see alligators, lizards, and turtles. They also had a room only with creepy crawlies, like huge ants, cockroaches, and other bugs. But what really impressed me about the place was the flowers. I had never seen so many kids of them in my life. I will definitely never forget this park. 

    Next we took the tram again, but this time to port Lympia. For some reason I really felt connected to that place. I liked looking at the crystal clear water, the huge yachts, the perfectly arranged buildings, and the tram coming out from the ground tunnels. And of course, that it made a great atmosphere for photos. 

From there we took the bus to Villefranche-sur-Mer. We got off the bus in a station that was near the road. We walked down all the way to Villefranche-sur-Mer. The view from the hill which we were on was really spectacular. 

    We were near the city, when we saw a beautiful garden with cacti. We decided to stop and take photos. We walked through the city a bit, looking at the old buildings, and occasionally visiting a souvenir store. But we were still high on a hill, and we wanted to go down to the beaches and take one last swim. 

It was hard finding our way down to the beach. It would be even harder coming back up, but we would probably find our way by coming back the way we came. One thing I noticed about the water is that it was cleaner than the rest of the waters that we swam in France. 

    The beaches were crowded with people. Since the water was clear, I took my GoPro to film underwater a bit. When I put my head underwater, I was shocked. Hundreds of fish were swimming underneath me. And the water was so clear, that you could see several meters down without any problems. It was funny that the people in the water, didn't even know about the highway beneath them, since they didn't dive in. It was worth getting a real good GoPro, or an expensive underwater camera if you lived near waters like this. Sadly, there was no place in Romania that was like this. 

    I spent a long time underwater looking at the fish, and exploring some more. After I finished, it was time to go to Beaulieu-sur-Mer. We walked again the way we came down, but we found another road that took directly to the bus station. But this time I noticed something different. There was a small yacht leaning down on some stones in the water. A family in a kayak came to explore the incident. I felt guilty that I didn't go and explore it myself, and maybe film it a bit with my GoPro. I took a landscape photo of the area, and in the bottom right corner, you can spot the yacht leaning on one side. 

Beaulieu-sur-Mer was another city with rich people, sort of like a smaller Monaco. There were huge yachts, and many supercars. We stayed for a while in on a brick wall, from where we could see the sea, and relaxed a bit in the refreshing breeze. A cool thing I spotted, was that you could see the white dome (most likely an observatory) on the hilltop. It was the same dome we could see from Monaco. That told us how close Monaco actually was to us.

    Finally, we went home after that long day. Our time in France ended. It was a beautiful experience. I really didn't expect it to be that great. The experience, as well as the fabulous photos, will remain in our memories for years to come.