Comfort Hotel Le Victoria Grasse

ok, it was more "collecting a new country" than being really interested in Monaco. Strange, when you go there from Nice airport by bus it costs you 18 € one way, when you go from Nice bus terminal it costs 1 € one way. Monaco is a very clean city. I have never seen so many big and expensive cars. I saw the casino and the castle. Nice, but not spectacular.

I know I always write the same...great weather, such a nice city, good food....but I have to say that Nice was a (very) big surprise for me, I can say that it is my favourite city in Europe (ok, number 2 after Lisbon). You have the mountains, the Cote dŽAzur (when you see the water you know why the name is Cote dŽAzur), the market with fresh vegetables, fruits, honey, oil, soap, you have great restaurants ...

... gesture. We can't change the world but we can change the way these children start off in life and who knows where that will lead....

It is less than 4 weeks now until I leave. There is much to do. I am trying to prepare myself for "teaching" 20 - 25 children. A bit of a challenge that. Much as I have known that I have always wanted to do something like this, now that it ...

... of the retired variety... nothing wrong with that, but even they are thin on the ground. Of course this has a lot to do with the time of year we are travelling and there is a festival van circuit the young antipodian crowd do each year, which is not really our thing. So it is our own fault for choosing this time and this route. The end result is that we tend to pounce upon anyone speaking English in the near vicinity. We haven't scared anyone off yet so we mustn't seem too desperate.

... at the Monte Carlo Casino. Mark was super keen on feeling like James Bond. He so wishes he was James Bond. It is kind of odd because once you are in the casino it is really quiet and not busy at all. Mark won about 300 euro so we were happy.

We checked out the start and finish line of the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix, along with the famous hairpin turn. Even the locals fang it around that corner.

We headed ...

... and Cannes. Dani was pumped for Cannes as this is where they hold THE Cannes film festival. Unfortunately, just as our luck would have it, the train we took was delayed by almost 2 hours, and we still don't know why. So it took us much longer to get to our first stop on our journey which was Antibes. We had been recommended to have some lunch there and apparently they have an awesome market. However thanks to the aforementioned delay, and our silly Dubcheck moves which will be revealed ...

The receptionist at Le Golfe Bleu asked if we would like a baguette and croissants delivered on Sunday morning for our breakfast, and we said "Ooh yes please", but unhappily she forgot to place the order with the bakery. So, when Alison went to pick up yummy bread and croissants, there were none, and she was, understandably, ****** off. Ah well we had intended to drive to Grasse and thought we would stop on the way for breakfast, but even the least ...

Got back to France, hit the bars- specifically a "Scandinavian" bar called Thors- met a Scouse bar man- he told me the only connection it had to Scandinavia was that lots of Norwegian girls sometimes went in, but I didn't see any, went to sleep after meeting a couple from Altanta, Georgia, a man from Alabama and one from Tennessee... Wokew up this ...

... are very clean and absolutely empty, without any kind of persons. They tend to be located in underground parking places. One of them was many mertes below of a nice japanese garden, were we saw a see of sand with stone islands, as well as streams of real water, full with grups of nice multi-colored fishes. Those fishes had been trained to understand the insinuations of the people: as soon as i crouched next to the water, the fishes in an obedient and united way comed there to be ...

... that she wears today. They had these neat little chapstick-like tins of frangrance in wax-form. Nice for taking in your handbag, and very unusual. Here I found a sports store that sold boules for petanque, so I bought some. And I thought carrying wine was heavy!