No, I’m not talking about the Italian spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood with that iconic music that I’m sure you remember.! I’m talking about the day we had yesterday in France.
I woke up to pretty sore feet from my blisters so while I was getting ready for the day I asked Richard to please take out our recycling and go to the pharmacy across the street to get me some hydrogen peroxide and some Betadine to put on my blisters. I gave Richard a picture of what the Betadine looked like so he could show the pharmacist.
Recycling in France is interesting. There is no recycling in the building we are staying at. We have a blue bag hanging in the kitchen that we put the recycling in and when it is full we have to walk to a nearby street that has these huge recycling bins and load the bin ourself. It is almost a deterrent to recycling to have to walk with your recycling to the bin on some random street, since there is no bin on our very fashionable street.
Richard returned from the pharmacy with instructions from the pharmacist to use hydrogen peroxide on my blisters and cover them with blister bandaids. She said NOT to use Betadine which I found strange since my good friend and nurse Sandy Glibota who was a travelling wound care nurse for all of the Sault Ste Marie region always says to use Betadine. I doctored up my feet for the day and we made our along Rue Alphonse Karr to Paganini Street to the Gare de Nice-Ville (or downtown Nice train station). There are 2 other train stops in NIce, but the one we are about a 10 minute walk from is the main train station in Nice.
GARE DE NICE-VILLE
We quickly found a SNCF ticket machine and easily purchased 2 one-way tickets to our destination. The ticket machines were a bit tricky to figure out with the roller ball type device trying to move the curser around on the screen to get the tickets purchased, but we figured it out. Our tickets cost 12.80 euros for 2 for one-way passages on the SNCF commuter train (which serves the French Riviera starting in Marseille and ending in Ventimiglia, Italy).
Gare de Nice-Ville inside. The train station opened in 1864 and was completed in 1867 by architect Louis-Jules Bouchot in the Louis the XIII style. Louis-Jules Bouchot also completed the train stations in Milan and Avignon so we will see his creation in Avignon next week when we take the train from Nice to Avignon, to board our Viking longship for our 15 day River Cruise.
We arrived about 35 minutes early for the train since we didn’t look up the train timetable online. At least we got seats on a bench while we were waiting for the train because the platform filled up for this train on a busy Saturday in Nice. I did actually look at the pictures of the newspaper inserts to see what they were selling to pass some time while we waited.
The train was pretty packed as we headed East along the train route but most of the passengers got off the train at Gare do Monaco-Monte-Carlo. Since we have been to Monte Carlo twice before we skipped this busy, expensive principality.
Our stop was the 9th for the train today to the lovely village of Menton!
We followed the crowds of people off the train who seemed to know where they were going until we saw the signs for Italie, Ports-Plages and Vieille Ville-Sablettes.
The beach and shoreline in Menton looking over the Baie du Soleil to Plage de Fossan (Fossan Beach)
The beach is a combination of sand and rocks which is different than Nice which is all rocks and Antibes which was all sand. Lots of families were out enjoying the beach on a warm 20C or 68F Saturday morning
Looking back behind us to Roquebrune Cap-Martin which was the train stop town before Menton.
There were lots of stalls at the Saturday market in Menton. Many were already starting to pack up before we arrived.
I had read that Menton had a market which closed at 1pm so before the market closed I wanted to explore it. I have been looking for some new scarves but nothing I saw at the market really appealed to me.
Maybe I’m getting too fussy, but I will just have to keep looking!
Menton has a permanent ‘Marche’ or market but we didn’t want to carry any grocery type items all day while touring, so we skipped the market. The Marche building was beautiful though and very colourful!
Richard had been asking if we could do a picnic in the park one day for lunch, so I had packed up a knife to go with us, cheese, ham, a baguette and we picked up a bottle of chilled rose and a cucumber and some sea salted butter in Menton and headed to a bench for our lunch.
Our lunchtime view from our park bench in Menton. Not a bad way to spend lunchtime overlooking the azure coloured sea!
A little baguette with butter, cheese, ham and cucumber…don’t mind if I do!
Richard enjoying the view. It sure looks like rain in the mountains though!
Of course who has to join our lunch party? We had pigeons too which I had to keep shooing away while we ate.
View over Menton to Musee Jean Cocteau-Le Bastion, with Italy in the distance
Remnants of the market in Menton. The yellow building to the right of the palm trees was our next destination
We knew there was a famous church in Menton which we had heard was worth the hike up to the top of Menton; so we set out to try and figure out how we could climb up to see the church.
Menton had a very nice pedestrian shopping area in the old town. There were quite a few stores selling items decorated with lemons and selling lemonicello which we had seen in Sorrento, Italy last year. We could also hear more Italian being spoken as we were so close to Italy now..
We had a lot of these gradual inclines to walk up to get to the cathedral.
Menton has done a good job preserving their history with these red and white plaques (on the left) next to murals which depict Menton’s history.
We also had a lot of stairs like this to climb too! Good thing we are still very mobile to be able to climb these steep stairs or else we would be restricted from visiting parts of this town.
And the steps up continue in Menton!
Another historical plaque depicting the history of Menton.
Almost there!
There it is!
Basilica of Saint-Michel Archange, Menton, France
The views from the church courtyard to Italy were stunning!
Club Nautique de Menton
The iconic picture of Menton! If you look up Menton France invariably this is the photo that you will see of the Basilica and the stairs leading up to the Basilica. I almost didn’t get this shot but Richard said “Hey, there’s a good shot with lots of leading lines!’ He’s learned a lot from me on what makes a great photography shot!
The Basilica of Saint-Michel-Archange of Menton is a minor basilica and a Catholic parish church which was opened for worship in 1653. The bell tower was erected in 1701-1702. In order to finance the great building the council of the communities voted an exceptional tax for twenty years hitting the 40th of the income from the harvests of citrus fruits, oils and wine. The interior of the church is done in the Baroque style but unfortunately the church was closed for choir practise, so we had to listen to the choir singing from outside the church. I will post a video I took on Facebook which has the audio of the choir. They were very good!
Beautiful homes scattered in the alley ways of Menton.
Menton was a photographer’s dream! Gorgeous meandering narrow streets with rarely any people on them! What a dreamy place!
We noticed the clouds had rolled in and were worried that the rain we had seen in the mountains might find its way down to the town, so we started walking back to the Gare de Menton to wait for the next SNCF train to Nice. We had purchased one way tickets thinking that if we didn’t spend the entire day in Menton we could perhaps stop off in one of the other small towns that we want to visit in the French Riviera off the train, but we were tired and had enough of walking and exploring for one day in Menton.
Menton train station
We managed to get two seats on the train when it arrived in Menton. The crush of people that got on in the train in Monaco-Monte Carlo made us glad that we had decided not to go and visit any other towns, as we would have been faced with a standing room only, packed train until Nice on our return.
We walked home from the train station and stopped at the Lidl grocery store on our street to pick up a few household items and some more groceries for our apartment. We had also picked up some Betadine liquid for me in Menton to use on my aching, blistered feet when we got home.
When we were unpacking our groceries I noticed that the toilet paper we had purchased was actually paper towel, so Richard went back to Lidl to buy more toilet paper as the 4 rolls that the owners agent had left us were quickly dwindling. I took the opportunity to take my bandaids off my blisters at this point to notice that my left foot was very swollen red and hot at the ankle. I used the Betadine on the blisters but something didn’t seem quite right to me about the redness, heat and swelling, which meant that the blisters were not only badly infected, but the infection was spreading.
When Richard arrived home with a Costco sized toilet paper haul (they didn’t selll 4 rolls of toilet paper apparently) I said we needed to get to a hospital to have my blisters looked at because my left ankle was very swollen, hot and infected. We quickly called an UBER and went to the 24 hour Hospital Pasteur a 13 minute UBER ride away in North Nice and checked into the Emergency area after going through an airport type security screening area.
The waiting area at Hospital Pasteur, Nice.
I was triaged fairly quickly although it did take 3 times to get my birthdate correct for my hospital bracelet. We were then told to go and sit in the waiting area where we would be called in to see a doctor. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally after about an hour of waiting to go to an examination room, we were called with 3 other people into the actual emergency ward.
We were shown to an examination room that did not have a bed or even a chair to sit on. What a strange situation! Richard kept asking for a bed for me or a chair but no one seemed to care. Finally after about 15 minutes a round stool on wheels with cracked leather upholstery was provided for me to sit on. And then we kept waiting and waiting. Richard caught the attention of someone who looked like a doctor and he went to what we thought was a doctor and asked him to take a look at me next. By now my ankle was really hot and the infection looked like it was moving further up my leg and down my foot. I knew I needed antibiotics and quickly, but I wasn’t sure if I would need them intravenously or orally.
What we thought was a doctor turned out to be a student doctor. He looked at my foot and said that the inflammation was causing the pain and that he wasn’t able to prescribe anything since he was only a student doctor but he would speak to the doctor and get back to us.
And we waited. And waited. By now we’ve been at the hospital for about 3 hours and 45 minutes when finally a female doctor arrived unannounced and started looking at my foot. She took my blood pressure and temperature (I was now finally on a bed with a thin sheet over me). I couldn’t stop shaking for some reason either and she asked me was I shaking because I was cold or in pain. I was kind of cold, but it seemed like an involuntary kind of shaking. Anyway, the doctor called in another doctor to look at my ankle and foot and decided that yes I needed antibiotics as well as some paracetamol for the pain and shaking.
The student doctor arrived with a cup for water and the paracetamol and said we were to follow the black line to get the prescription at a desk down the hall. Richard inquired where we could get the prescription filled and the student doctor advised we would have to go to the ‘night’ pharmacy or Pharmacie Riviera to get the prescription filled. Richard asked if there was any chance we could get one antibiotic now to have it start working and the student doctor went away to check. The next thing we knew the student doctor produced a packet of antibiotic like the prescription that I had been prescribed and I mixed it up in some water and drank the concoction which tasted very sweet, but was not offensive.
We headed along the black line to the check out counter and we were given a printed copy of a prescription and told that we were all done and could leave the hospital. As we were about to exit the hospital I said to Richard “Don’t we have to pay?” Anyway, he said the lady said we were done, so we left! A free hospital visit in France!
I called an UBER to bring us to the night pharmacy and we arrived at Pharmacie Riviera or the night pharmacy at the top of Jean Medecin (the main shopping street in Nice). At least we didn’t have too far to walk home after we got the prescription filled! We got some amoxicillin packets, paracetamol and some Betadine gel for 30 euros and were on our way. Four hours of waiting at the hospital but now we had peace of mind that the infection wouldn’t spread any further and that with time the infection would be eradicated.
What a mess! The good the bad and the ugly all in one day! Menton was a dreamy town to spend the day in and I sure have learned my lesson about comfortable walking shoes and fashion over function! I now only have one pair of shoes to wear until my blisters heal so lets hope the weather stays nice or I will be wearing socks with my Birkenstocks! At least we now know how the hospital system works in France! I am sure glad we didn’t wait any longer than we did and I should have made sure that I listened to my friend Sandy and not the pharmacist in Nice. Betadine to prevent the infection from spreading and use the Betadine as soon as the blisters popped. Yeesh!
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