HOTES DU SOLEIL CLUB LES BERGERS Pra Loup

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 ...

... upon me it feels very strange and somewhat daunting. But to my knowledge no one has ever died from teaching children so I am sure I will survive.... My Amazon book order should arrive soon to inspire me. I am really looking forward to discovering the 100 things you can do with a paper plate. Life is never going to be the same!!

More when I start travelling...

... 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.

... the Contiki group in a local restaurant, followed by some drinking games in a pub! All good fun really. As it was getting quite late (and I need my beauty sleep) I went to bed, whilst Mark took a trip to another casino. He didn't get in until about 3.30am all drunk! He swears he got lost on the way home for an hour but I reckon he was just enjoying himself too much to sleep. He was a bit rough on the journey the following day!

... that we were still in french territory, we feasted on delish pastries galore. Dee sampled her first proper French choc eclair...OH MY GOD was her reaction! Lewey even had dessert envy, and we both laughed at the fact that our tea cost more than the dessert (so very cheap in France for the desserts, bad bad bad as we are rapidly tripling our size, wondering how we will fit on the plane home)!

Feeling a little too much like a backpacker, and needing a tidy up before donning a bathing ...

... or use the wide angle lens to fit it in. I devoted almost all of my time in front of the tower to photographing it to showcase it at its true angle! We'll see the results of my efforts once I upload the photos. The tower is in fact the free standing bell tower of the adjacent cathedral, of which it has now upstaged. I'd anticipated a beautiful drive to Monaco, along the coast, but sadly the rain started in Pisa and only got worse. To ...

... Disco Pub called Checkpoint Nice. This place was packed with kiwis! All middle aged kiwis drinking their misery away because France beat the All Blacks in the rugby quarter finals. They were all drinking and singing every drinking song they knew. They didn't even stop when the management turned up the bar's stereo in hopes of drowning them out. They just sang louder. So Braden and I had a pint listening to the Kiwi's and watching a boat race on the TV. It was a fun place that we ...

... and every inch landscaped. You can tell it is a place for the very rich. Both French and Italian are spoken in the city, and signs are in both languages as well as English. After lunch in the gardens we took a bus toward the Palace. Even the public busses were spotlessly clean! We walked up the long climb to the palace and old part of the city (my legs still hurt). It was well worth the walk, the views from up there are just ...

I was here on 01 January 1982. I went to the famous casino here to cash a travellers check as all of the banks were closed for the holiday. I got a good exchange rate because I guess they wanted to put me in a good mood to gamble my money away. One look at the beautiful ...