Day 161: Goodbye Corsica – Hello Vence and Chateau Saint-Martin

Our original itinerary had us spending this weekend in northern Corsica, then flying to Berlin to check into an Airbnb this Monday 6/17. But there were no convenient flights from northern Corsica to Berlin so we decided to get off the island, flying to Nice this morning and hanging out around here for the weekend.

We asked our friend / lux travel agent Bobby Zur to find a place for us to stay and not surprisingly we’ve found ourselves in maybe the most fancy hotel we’ll stay in all year.

The Chateau Saint-Martin in Vence is about 30 minutes from the Nice Airport. It’s a gorgeous restored castle on a cliff with amazing views of Vence, Cannes and the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. The whole place smells like Jasmine and Lavender, the restaurant has a Michelin star, the service is exceptionally attentive and there is a kids club from 2 – 6pm every day.

Downsides: it’s a bit stuffy and of course, super eff-ing expensive.

Either way, we’ve agreed to live it up for our last two days in France.

We had lunch on the lawn while waiting for our room to be ready. The kids were antsy so we bribed them to go play in the grass with two boys who were running around near their parents’ table.

Turns out it was a family from NYC — not totally surprising since there were a lot of Americans at this place. Willa, James and the twin boys played tag while we finished lunch, then met again at the kids club.

Margaret took the opportunity to explore Vence by herself — excited for an re-do after the Bonifacio whine-fest yesterday. She reported that it was a cute little town featuring Europe’s smallest cathedral, a bunch of sidewalk cafes and surprisingly few tourists.

I hung at the Kids Club — James was nervous about my leaving so I didn’t fight it — then took the kids to the pool. By this time the kids were bffs with the twins Laughlin and Hugh and we met their parents, Phillipe and Heather.

On the way back to the room around 7pm we decided to stop for a drink and some kid dinner on the patio near the main restaurant. We ordered a cheese plate and a fruit plate. The kids had ginger ale, I had a beer from a local brewery and Margaret had a glass of white.

We’re all sleeping in one room with the kids on a pullout couch. The lights were out by 8:30.