Les Orangers St-Paul-de-Vence

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 ...

It is Sunday and very wet and miserable here in Antibes. Quite a change from the glorious day we had yesterday. Ideal for computer work in fact... (Except that then things didn't pan out as planned and it is now Monday)

It wasn't my intention to have an entry before my departure but the response to my initial circular has been so overwhelming that I feel it merited an ...

... 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 ...

... 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!

... at least 20) everything from lemon to vanilla, creme caramel, raspberry, nougat and fig! We munched on our teeny treats and decided we'd had enough sightseeing for the day and it was time to head home.

Although we would have liked to do a similar day trip to Monaco and Cap d'ail, the weather was a bit ****** the next few days and the majority of the sights at these spots were the awesome beaches, plus we needed some chill time too. Gotta save something for next time right? And of ...

... called it an early night (at around 5:00 AM), but the next day saw the videos of the Dutch dancing in front of Jimmy’s at 8:30 AM—like I said, the Dutch know how to party.

The day of the big race was everything Monaco: yachts lined up worth millions upon millions, glamorous people watched from designer sunglasses, and the Mediterranean stretching out beyond the coral-pink buildings. 

Everyone told me beforehand that the Gran ...

... had sent their boats in ready for the grand prix, so it was a perfect time for any boat lover to visit. Never saw one rich person, just deckies washing and polishing. Also lots and lots of flash cars, ferraris, rollers, mazerattis. Porsches are dime a dozen. We went and had a look around Nice, it too was traffic chaos; nice beach though, all stones! Anyway, we've decided we've had enough of cities, we're going bush!

... it to Pamps! The next day Mads got stuck into his starter motor as it had been making some terrible noises, and discovered that a part of it was badly broken, obviously we couldn't sort that out at the side of the road, so after a push start we set out to find him a second hand starter motor...by this time we were in france, and they too shut down over lunchtime, so we found a garage, waited for it to open again, and when they said they would do it we ...

... so it was a bit of a risk). Then we wandered down to the port to have a look at the uber expensive yachts moored there. Some of them are bigger than my house! With our new found daring from the restaurant, we were tempted to run aboard one and see if we could get invited to tea but the Mexicans tending to Starboard bough looked as though that might ruin their day a bit, so we decided against it. It started to rain anyway and there ...