Day 25 - Friday, February 21 - We travel from Montpellier to Nice, changing trains in Marseilles; adjust to our new apartment, and shop at the biggest grocery store yet. Montpellier: Cloudy 54°F (12°C) - Nice: Sunny 58°F (14°C)

Travel day! Today we are leaving Montpellier and heading to Nice via train. We have to change trains in Marseilles, with a 20 minute layover.

We packed up our things and headed out

It's about a kilometer from our apartment to the Montpellier Saint-Roch train station. We stopped for a quick selfie in the park.

At the Train Station, Jamil spotted an interesting political cartoon display

Waiting on the platform, we found out the train was running ten minutes late, which means our layover in Marseilles will now be 10 minutes. Yikes.

The train to Marseilles was crowded, but we had reserved seats and it was modern and comfy!

I spotted this weird building

After about 90 minutes, we arrived in Marseilles, still ten minutes late.

However, it seemed like most of the folks from our train were also continuing on to Nice and making the same connection. Also, the train we were catching originates in Marseilles, so it was ready and waiting. Before we disembarked the train from Montpellier, they had posted on the screens on the train the platforms of connecting trains (so organized!) plus we could see it on the SCNF app. Easy peasy!

Part of the stress of this stopover, apart from the shorter timeframe, was the fact that the Marseilles to Nice train did not have assigned seats, and the journey is two and a half hours. Which we definitely did not want to spend standing!

However, we made it to the train in plenty of time to score seats. But boy, this train was much older - to where it even had pull curtains rather than blinds! You can seem them in this shot behind Jamil:

We were tired! But so happy to arrive in Nice, where the weather was MUCH warmer. Well, not that much, but at least the sky is blue!

On the walk to our apartment, we spotted this jaunty procession:

Oh yeah, it's Carnival for the next couple of weeks we are here!

This will be the longest we've stayed in any of our apartments. Here's what it looks like:

It's really just one room and a bathroom - here's the main area:

And the bathroom:

Kitchen and entryway:

It's cozy!

We have a little bit of a "courtyard" view:

After unpacking and settling in, we headed to Asia Cook for dinner - it was right near our place, and delicious!

Excited to explore Nice tomorrow!