Hi - Well we leave weds. for this long-awaited trip to the promised land! Thanks to you guys, we are fairly well prepared- However two concepts continue to evade me. Re: cell phones- the concensus seems to be- buy one over there for calling home. So- landing in Nice- do we a) buy one at airport;b) wait till we arrive at St. Remy and walk thru town looking for a cell phone store? And what should I ask for ? (need to be able to call NY, Maine, etc for 11 days)? Second- re: toll roads. We're driving to St. Remy from Nice-- should we just look for credit card lanes at toll booths (like EZ PASS here in east) or should I get a bunch of euros at airport or before? I understand that these are relatively insignificant questions, but suddenly I feel unprepared for the small stuff!thanks!

You can use a credit card at most of the autoroute toll booths.

I've never seen cell phones sold at the Nice Airport, but that doesn't mean they aren't available. That airport doesn't have much variety in the way of shops, however: mostly of the souvenir kind. What you could do is stop at the huge Carrefour Antibes shopping center, which has a lot of electronic equipment. It's easy to get to from the autoroute; just take the Antibes exit and follow the signs.

Just one question: if your destination is St-Rémy, why are you flying into Nice instead of Marseille, which is hours closer?

Take a quick look at this web site for renting a cell phone and just buying local calling cards:

www.cellularabroad.com/start.html

My husband did a lot of research on the best and cheapest method, and this seems to be it for us.

hi Underhill
When we bought tix in february, they were about 200$ less each to fly to Nice rather than Marseilles from NYC-. We were limited to Delta/Air France and we got great fares to Nice. We arrive at 9 am so hopefully the drive wont be too bad. Also- we're spending last 5 days in Cap Ferrat. So there arent cell phone shops all over the place like there are in my neighborhood here in NYC??<g>That's sort of a relief. There are guys in blow-up cell phone costumes all over 86th Street here<g>

lbrawer - haven't seen the guys in blow-up cellphone costumes, but agree that there's at least two cellphone shops on every block between 1st Ave and Lexington Ave. on 86th Street. But they must be doing something wrong as I'm probably the only person in the area who doesn't own (or need) a cellphone.

Why buy a cell phone to call home? Phone cards are much cheaper and available everywhere. You can also do as I do; use your AT&T pre-paid phone card from home. Cost to call to anywhere in the USA from France is 0.15 per minute.

Have a great trip. I'll be there July 15 myself.

Larry J

The drive from Nice to St-Rémy won't be at all bad, as you can take the autoroute nearly all the way and stop at one of the cafés along the highway for coffee.

Don't know if this will help you, but there is an Internet Cafe in villefranche-sur-Mer. It is behind the Hotel Welcome in the old town..english keyboards etc. You can pull it up via google search, or I can get it for you.

We have rented an apt. in Villefranche and I must be able to be reached from the US. The owners of our apt. told me about the cafe. I have the problem solved with a cell phone from Auto Europe with our rental car, so will have what I need for contact with the US and for our local calls. You can pick up all the info i received about that on my recent post re 10-10-297 phone service.

You will enjoy the area.............