La Terrasse a Mougins

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...

... messy or smelly with is good since it's my job to clean Theo out. I have coined the phrase "Feeding Theo" as a euphemism for going to the loo which Kim thinks is gross!! But I'm sure she'll be using the term in no time ;-) Gas... not bad flatulence We filled up our two 4.5kg gas bottles before we left London. The rest of Europe do not use UK calor gas bottles so at some stage we will have to buy a EU standard gas bottle - the only standard bottle is Campingaz which is ...

On this morning we left Switzerland and travelled south into Italy en-route to the French Riviera. The scenery was pretty spectacular, with snow-white capped, jagged mountains that seemed to swallow the highway. Surreal!

When we arrived at our hotel we had about 30 mins to get ready for our trip into Monaco! On our drive to Monaco we crossed the bridge that Grace Kelly was killed on in a car accident. The roads are ...

... chick who looked after Dee was delightful and even though she also did not speak much English, Dee tried as much french as she could and of course those amusing hand gestures are always helpful, and Dee thinks that through this combination they were mostly able to understand each other.

Unfortunately our sun-bathing and pool time that we had put aside for the weekend didn't quite work out as planned as it was overcast and rainy (bloody weather report on poddie is not to be trusted ...

... So we were searching Street 20 September, but couldn't find it, and you know why? It was a one-way traffic street. So in the end they just drove away(((( unbearable, can't forget it(( the only thing we saw in Genova was Piazza della Vittoria with ark in the center. By the way cute ark))
At night we arrived to La Spezia and found out that there was a huge festival there which has just finished... So if we left Genova earlier we wouldn't miss it... again pity..

... with the other tourists). I did not have a flash car to park outside and I since my Tuxedo was at the dry cleaners my day attire would not have agreed with the dress code. It was a couple of weeks before the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix and Preparations were well under way. The pits and grand stands were all in place.

... to get a good look at them, however. After saying goodbye to our new US chums, we checked out the Uffizi gallery. This required a wait in line of just under 2 hours. The Uffizi contains a bunch of works by Bottecelli, DaVinci, etc, and turned out to be ultimately worth the wait, though sections inside the gallery required queueing. The next day we jumped on a train back to Arezzo to meet up with the US folks. They were staying in a villa in the hills outside the town, and we were ...

... my first chance to go snowboarding. We rented a chalet for a week in the mountains a few hours from Antibes. I say a 'few hours' since it was supposed to be 2, but ended up closer to 8 as we negotiated one closed mountain pass after another. The Smith family came out from SA to join us, as well as Ellie, my favourite builder in the world! We had 3 cars struggling along with kids, gear, food & cranky drivers. I think poor Skyla stopped believing us when we ...