TRAVELOG: Oh the beautiful French Riviera

A month ago, I went on a wonderful tour of the ?Côte d’Azur with a very small group of peeps. I have honestly never been on a trip with “strangers” (well, make that pseudo- strangers haha– because 3 of the people in our 7- member group are my friends). Nevertheless, I’ve actually never traveled to a “far” destination with friends before. You see, my parents forbade me in the past from traveling too far (like cross continental flights) with friends while I was still in school. And when I went to work, I traveled for work and not solely for pleasure. Pleasure trips have always been reserved for the famille.

So this trip got me all excited since 1. It was my first time to travel with friends (and haha strangers), 2. It was my first time to go to Côte d’Azur. Our tour package was unlike those big groups– it was a private one, which was pretty much the same way I had traveled with my family. I didn’t think I could afford to travel on a private tour since 1. DB had always been sponsoring DH and I on our Easter trips 2. To be able to travel “privately” and get your money’s worth, you should organize a group of at least 6 people or it will come out really expensive if you travel solo privately.

My groupmates and I were all on a shoestring budget *seriously, we all were– their priorities were to shop hahaha. My priority was FOOD!!!* , so it came as a relief when CV Travel quoted a very good, “recession- friendly” price for our tour. Confession: I actually asked my friend JC to have her agency quote us for a similar private tour package and hers came out more expensive. Plus I think their agency was too small that they don’t really have much experience yet when it came to arranging private European tours. And then the problem I’ve had with big travel agencies is they don’t really give two cents about you if there will just be 6 or 7 of you wanting to do a private tour. They always *and this was first hand experience*, always would prefer group tours of over 20 people. It gets harder to travel with a big group– it’s like you end up not enjoying your trip because either 1. You wait for everyone else if you’re either always early or on time (and others are not), 2. You don’t always get along with everyone, 3. You have to wake up super early, like by 5am– with luggage out by 5:30am to “maximize” the tours, 4. You can’t just dictate where you want to go etc, as you have to make a decision collectively or the others in your group would hate you *hahahaha*. Anyway, I wanted to make sure my friends and I make the most out of what we pay for, right? So we had to do a little “package tour shopping”, and again we ended up choosing CV Travel.

Of course this time I had to take coach (like I always do when I’m alone 😀 Unless some travel gods reward me with an upgrade hahaha). Taking business class would always raise the price (again, unless you get a free upgrade). The coach seats of Emirates weren’t so bad, and we were all so lucky to have gotten aisle seats (note, the plane was Fully booked!!!) as our travel agent actually prearranged our seating and had even checked us in advance before we even “physically” checked in. (See, this is why I love this travel agency. It’s all about the service– there are so many travel agencies in Manila, but why we chose CV Travel is only because of their excellent service. If you get the chance to have the owner, ClaraV * tel.(+632) 215-7761* manage your tour, you can be sure she’ll think ahead and get things done before you even realize it could actually be done. She is very efficient– and my friends *and their families!!* who’ve become her repeat clients can really attest to this as well).

We arrived in Nice, and were met by a very pleasant and very French driver named Jean 🙂 Since we were all not tired, he decided to take us to Cannes, from Nice!

I would love to stay at this hotel, the Carlton one day if I become rich. *Daydreams*Incidentally, if you watched the movie French Kiss (one of my all time faves), you will remember a scene where Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline stood outside Cartier, as Kevin had wanted Meg to bring the diamond necklace to them to sell. That photo above with Cartier? That’s THE Cartier boutique on the left 🙂