This morning I got up much earlier than I wanted and headed down to Nice's port. Did I mention it was too early? I would have really liked to have slept some more. I think I'm still sleep deprived from my hostel stays.



I got on the cruise ship with many other tourists and headed out onto the open waters. The views were, as always here, spectacular. The water is such an amazing color of deep cerulean blue in some spaces, glowing navy in others, and in the shallow parts, milky aquamarine. I've been to a lot of world class beaches (the Maldives, St. John, Bali, Phuket...), and I think the Mediterrenean here on the Cote d'Azur has the most striking color of all.

The way the rocky coast meets the water and then quickly rises into mountains upon mountains, slowly becoming more purple as they get farther away, then connecting with the bright crystal blue sky punctuated with perfectly puffy crisp white clouds, is just so big. Maybe I don't know the word to explain it - it's amazing, humbling, beautiful, everywhere around you, and also a feeling of being so lucky to be able to see it - is there a word that encompasses all that? The pictures don't do it justice.



I was trying my best not to be upset, just like I am now.

The cruise went down the coast stopping in Sainte Marguerite (where the man in the iron mask was kept I think?), Cannes, and finally St. Tropez. When we pulled into the harbor they played a little song about St. Tropez - so that was stuck in my head for the rest of the day.



I began by walking around the city and stopping into a Casino to pick up some picnic supplies. I then hiked around on the Sentier du Littoral trail, but only for a little of it. The total trail takes about 4 hours to hike (not including the return journey), so that would have been something good to do if you were staying in St. Tropez and didn't have to return to the ship after 4 hours. And you like hiking and seeing beautiful views like me.

After hiking a bit, I was starting to feel a bit woozy and getting dehydrated from too much sun and not enough water. That's something that it is really hard to be careful about here. You never know if there is going to be a water fountain available, which today there wasn't.

I parked myself in a shady spot with a pretty view and read some. I feel so silly reading on my computer - it's like I'm technology dependent. Which I guess I am...



Then I headed back, picked up some water, and got some ice cream. By this point I was feeling totally nauseous with a huge headache and I was just trying to hold it together. The ice cream didn't really help.

I boarded the cruise ship again, hoping not to be made even more sick, made a wiser seating choice in the lower inside level, and felt better, although the cruise was not the awesome experience that I had in mind. I actually think that's how I feel about pretty much every boat thing I do.



After I arrived back in Nice, I finished up gift shopping, and returned home to procrastinate packing and cleaning. Which is what I'm doing now :)

When you read this post tomorrow, I will be up in the air flying home! How sad! I am planning on writing at least one reflection type post tomorrow on the plane so I think I may put those up next week. See you on the flip side - of the globe that is! (dork alert)

A few more pictures are on Flickr - but I wasn't in a huge picture taking mood today, especially when I wasn't feeling well on the boat!