French Riviera

(Nicky) Following on from the theft in our last blog we also had a disappointing  40 minute call to the insurers but will fill in the claim and have to wait and see.  It is bad enough getting your belongings taken, but to know the insurers aren't even on your side sucks as well.  I also go over and over again why we didn't return for Dale's camera.  We thought we would just be an hour and that we could use mine instead, but we really should have had safety in mind.  If we returned maybe we could have stopped the robbery, who knows?  The sun has also come out and it has been a warm 20 something degrees every day since the break in, whilst we stay in the van and wait for news.  I have two thoughts, one that I want to go home, and two that I want to keep going.  We had been on a good run lately and were looking forward to going to Morocco in December.  The prospect of returning to the UK in winter isn't appealing, and the van really needs some work done (hopefully in Morocco) before we sell next year.  We are thinking that we will have to get some sort of car alarm fitted so will be looking into this soon.

So next we went to a campsite which turned out to be near a major horse racing track at Villeneue Loubet.  Here we stayed for 3 nights arriving just 20 mins before reception closed PHEW. We used it as a base for visiting Monaco, Nice and Cannes.  This was good as it meant we didn't need to carry around our valuable items but it did cost a bit.  Day 1 we walked 15 minutes to the train station and took a 45 minute train ride to Monaco.  Monaco was an amazing place, clean, tidy, relaxed atmosphere, it just had a feel of wealth and for that matter safety.  I can imagine where people might want to live there even if they had to pay taxes.  However we happened across some real estate windows and it pretty much cost 1 million Euros for a studio so there are some barriers.  We arrived near the main marina so were almost immediately confronted by the super yachts, they weren't the first we had seen but they certainly were impressive and there were a lot.  One observation I made was that in these marina/ports in the Riviera almost nothing seems to happen, what I mean is that you never see boats leaving or coming in and most boats have noone on them.  Just beyond the marina we reached the tunnel famous from the F1 racing.  We continued on to the Japanese Garden and had lunch at the beach before heading up the hill to a main street that took us to tourist info and the Casino Square.  We also checked out the nearby area where in the F1 there is a hairpin turn coming down a hill.  We spent some time watching the goings on outside the Casino, unfortunately unlike our friends Matt and Sarah we didnt see Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond in supercars.  We did however see some Rolls Royces and a purple Lamborghini.  The purple Lamborghini parked up in front of the Casino so que lots of photos and people touching it (very rude I thought, I hate to think of people touching our van let alone if I had a Lambo).  One Russian guy had a kid and the kid was waving some toy car around right next to the car and naturally it came out of his grasp, luckily in the opposite direction, it could certainly have done some damage had it struck the Lambo.  The father remained pretty much oblivious.  I would note it would seem that this was the safest car in Monaco as someone was always looking at it!  After Casino Square we headed around the front/back (not sure, otherside) of the Casino, which has a very nice terrace where you get great views. Then we checked out some more of the F1 track on our way to visit the Prince's automobile collection.  The collection includes several F1 cars, Monacos Royal Carriages and a variety of other vehicles, over 100 in total.  We finished up by visiting the Old town area which includes the palace and we took a few photos of the city as it got dark.  We have just loaded the photos onto the computer and it turns out we took 170 in Monaco!

 Japanese Garden

 Monte Carlo Casino

 The Purple Lambo Owner

 After owner goes lots oh looking and touching (rude much)

The next day we took the bus to Nice, this took about 50 minutes even though Nice is really not far away (getting around on the roads is slow going on the Riveira).  In Nice we walked the waterfront, climbed the hill next to the old town getting views to both sides. At the top we spoke to a family from Yorkshire while watching a Sardinian Ferry dock.  Then it was back down and into the old town, we caught a look at a few of the flower market stalls before heading over to the train station to get a train to Cannes.  Turned out the next train was nearly 1 hour away so we walked over to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and sat there for a few minutes. Nice was not bad, the water looked good but the beach is large rounded stones and the whole area is developed and as it is notorious for crime against tourists so I'd recommend somewhere else for a long stay.

We arrived in Cannes at 4.25pm and went straight down to the Congress Hall where they have the film festival, then grabbed a walking route map from the info centre. We hit the marina, the old town and the main shopping and eating streets before catching a bus back to the campsite 2 hours later.

In the morning we went down for a swim at the local beach.  The water is unfortunately not the lovely warm Mediterranean you hear about anymore but you would be very happy with it in NZ and the air temperatures are good at the moment 20-24 degrees.  After leaving the campsite we stocked up on groceries and fuel before parking up along the beach where we sat out and had lunch.  In the afternoon we drove through St Maxime, St Raphael and Frejus before stopping briefly in St Tropez.  Our stop in St Tropez was brief as the parking rate was high and we are currently operating with a high degree of fear about the van.  In regards St Tropez for somewhere that apparently totally grounds to a standstill in high season due to being rammed with tourists and was busy the evening we were there I just wasn't digging it, I just couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Our next tale of woe on it's way soon (unfortunately we struck some more van related trouble).