The trip from Barcelona to Nice was hectic. We got to the airport in plenty of time….too much time as it turns out. We had to wait 2 hours before we could get into the lounge. There was a restriction of only being able to go into the lounge no earlier than 3 hours before our flight. But it worked out. When we finally saw our flight posted and went down to get in line for group 3, we thought there’d hardly be anyone there…we were wrong, there must have been nearly 100 people already in line…only to find out that it was group 4 and beyond. We were standing in group 3 with only about 10 people ahead of us. Got on the flight and were whisked away to Nice.
The views from the air, flying into Nice were amazing. We landed and got an Uber to the train station…what a wild ride! Once there, we got all our luggage…now realizing even though we thought we’d packed light…we didn’t. 
The Train Station
Each of us had a backpack, Mom’s much smaller and lighter than mine, plus 2 additional bags…for me, the garment bag and my suitcase…for mom 2 suitcases, her big and little one. Too much stuff!. We got into the terminal and found we had no idea of how to buy a ticket for a train to Monaco. The kiosks didn’t seem to work, nor was there any language option as we’d seen elsewhere. Fortunately, a woman came up behind us and offered to help. She got us through the process of speaking English and we had our tickets. When I asked her where she was from…she said Albania! We thanked her, went through the gates only to not know where to get the train. The guard showed us and as we got to the platform, we realized we didn’t know which way the train was to go and didn’t want to go in the wrong direction. Again, fortune blessed us! The same woman who helped us earlier, showed up again, this time with her husband and child. They were going to Monaco as well and we got on the correct train with them.
Arrival
Once in Monaco, I knew from my research that the Hotel was only about a 5 minute walk from the Train Station to the hotel. But little did we know that where the train comes into Monaco is deep within a multi-layered train station and we had no knowledge of how or where to go to escape the labyrinth of the Monaco Train Station (find what they actually call it). So, we followed our new Albanian friends helping them when he tried to help us. I grabbed his stroller for his son as it slipped out of his hands down a set of stairs as he was helping us with our luggage. We finally got to the bottom and everyone was headed left…I saw a short hall to the right…where only this couple was headed…so we followed them to an elevator and up some 10 levels to an exit from the station out onto the main street. Turns out, I later found out that we should have gone to the left after all, because when we got out of the train station we were about a mile away from where the other exit was a beautiful building but not close to where we needed to be. In walking down a long path we looked to the right only to see a Viking Ship docked here in Monaco, but our ship was still in Barcelona…
…And so what should have been a 5 minute walk was about a 15-20 minute walk. When I saw the round about, I knew we were close and then I saw the Garda (Train) station sign and knew we were close. As I paused and waited for mom, I stopped in what turned out to be a small exit and caused a police car to honk and caution me that this was not a good place to stop. I apologized and got out of the way. Then we headed the short (original) distance where mom spotted the sign to the Novotel hotel long before I did, even though I knew where it was.
Finally, there, on the 11th floor…we relaxed and went down to the 2nd floor for dinner and a drink and later a good night’s sleep! Tomorrow – the Oceanographic Museum and the Monte Carlo Casino! Here’s a look out our window at the patio of our Hotel Novotel below.
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