Until this past weekend, I've never been to a beach that hasn't been on the Atlantic. After an extensive journey via three trains, I made it to Nice and got to see the Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean Sea is definitely different. It is much clearer, and a lot of the beaches have rocks instead of sand (which will definitely burn the bottoms of your feet after baking in the sun all day). It is also much more salty than the Atlantic, which made it much easier to float.
Normally, I'm more into tanning than swimming. I love swimming, but I hate the cold. However, the water was so warm and almost effortless to stay afloat in, so I stayed in the water quite a bit. The water made me so flamboyant that I could just lay on my back the entire time. It combined the wonderfully cool water with laying out and soaking up the sun. It was pretty much the best thing every.
Nice is definitely a touristy spot, so the restaurants right next to the beach were pretty expensive, but there were some more out of the way ones that were a little bit cheaper. My second night there, a few of us went to some random restaurant on a side street. I don't even remember the name of it, but it was wonderful. I had mussels, fries, and white wine. This was another new experience for me. I've never had mussels before, but I found them to be quite tasty.
After dinner, we headed back to the beach. It was after 11 o'clock at night, but the beach was just as full as it was during the day. It was peaceful and a perfect ending to the day. We wound up missing the last tram back to the hostel, but even the long walk was nice.
Sunday morning, a small group of us went on a short hike to a man made waterfall. I could see it from the beach on Saturday, so it was cool to see it up close. The best part was the view of the city though. It was gorgeous. We took lots and lots of pictures. After going back to the beach for a while, it was time to head back home to Chambery.