Ah The French Riviera

Bonsoir

Sunday 19th July

We are definitely back in France and are struggling to find access to the internet. We have got into the habit of writing the blog out on a Friday/Saturday and then updating it from there – as you can see it took us over a week to post the last blog, however we are staying in a camping ground tonight that has internet so will write this and then update it straight away. We updated our last blog at McDonalds earlier today which is quite good as they have free internet – you just have to buy a drink. We have spent the last week on the French Riviera and we didn’t come across any McDonalds or internet cafes – guess everyone holidaying there have flasher means of communications than we do. So there are now 2 blogs to catch up on and we’re up to date for those that have been enquiring!!

What a week we have had – we have learnt firstly that is the European summer holiday - people, people and more people!

After we left Gruissan last Sunday we drove to Millau (inland). Millau has the world’s highest bridge. We stayed in the town below the bridge and the following day we drove up to the information centre. It really is an amazing piece of engineering. It took 2 ½ years to build, at the highest point of the pier it is 343 metres tall – taller than the Eifel Tower! The span from pier to pier is huge, there are 6 at 342 metres and two at 204 metres. It is 2.46km long and cost 400 million euros to build. We watched the video on how it was made – Rae had already told Brent that they would just dig the concrete pylons into the ground and then put the concrete bits in between and after watching the video that was exactly how they did it. Yeah right!!!

From Millau we headed back out to the coast to Carro and stayed with 70 other campers right by the sea so went to sleep that night listening to the waves crashing. From Carro we thought we might drive through to La Ciotat just south of Marseille and spend the day at the beach– it was about 10.45am when we arrived – couldn’t believe it when we got there – there was a place for Rae’s beach towel about 100 metres down the beach and then a further 100 metres there was a place for Brent’s towel – needless to say we hopped back in camper and drove through to Ramatuelle(10km from St Tropez) and stayed there for a couple of nights right on the beach! We spent a day just relaxing and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea – at least we could put our towels together on that beach. Amazing just camping sometimes, here we had Germans one side and Italians the other. Brent tries to speak French but then struggled with niceties to our Italian and German neighbours. He managed to borrow a bike pump (pompa) from the Italians though without too much misunderstanding. We went for a walk around the Aire (camping area) and saw German, Italian, Belgian, Finnish, Dutch, Czech, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, French of Course , and one Brit number plate. This time when we saw the Brit number plate Brent cruised over for a chat, ostensibly to query whether they had any English novels to swap. Surprise, surprise they were Kiwis. A few drinks and swapping of places to see/stay followed of course.
Brent commented that, not unlike NZ, other campers wave to us when on the road but when in camping they struggle to come near us to try to talk. In saying that we have a Brit number plate and it feels like sometimes once people find out we are Kiwi’s that they are more approachable/friendly towards us???Thursday had us up early to find a parking spot in St Tropez – what a place – we chose not to take the helicopter as most people seemed to, so had to find a big car park for camper. We then unhooked the bikes and had a great ride around the port – oh how the other half live – the most beautiful luxury launches we have ever seen. We had breakfast overlooking the port and watching the staff of these launches polishing, cleaning, and setting up breakfast tables and sun loungers for the rich and beautiful– just stunning. From St Tropez we drove up to Menton – on the way driving through Cannes, Marseille, Nice, Monaco right up the French Riviera – we had some of the most amazing scenery on the way – just clean blue sea, blue cloudless skies with all the luxury launches just out cruising.
Menton is on the French/Italian border so we went to Italy on Friday – they have a huge market there that we wandered around for about 3 hours before having a fantastic Italian lunch – this has certainly whet our appetite for Italy. We caught the train in as it only took about 20 minutes and would have taken much longer to drive and of course no stress on narrow roads!
Yesterday we were up and about early as we took the camper down towards the railway station so that we could train into Monaco – we thought St Tropez had the most wonderful launches – Monaco was even more amazing – these boats would have had to have cost $200 million or more – Monaco wasn’t only boats – there were all the flash cars driving around as well – we saw Bentley’s, Rolls Royce’s (Raes pick the styley white convertible), Lamborghini’s, Porsche’s, Ferrari’s, Mercedes, Maserati, to name a few. Monaco just oozed money and testosterone!! The bigger, the better in this country, especially if you can show it off. After a great lunch watching all the comings and goings of Monaco we had to head back to the camper as our necks were very sore after all the rubber necking!!
Saturday night saw us in gorgeous wee town called Annot. We were quite tired by the time we arrived but decided to head into the town on our bikes – we are so pleased that we did as it was the cutest wee town with really steep narrow roads/pathways (where Brent tried to ride up and failed , bruises of course), that were lined with doorways which led up to some old old stone little houses where the locals all lived. The town had a river running underneath it so every now and then there were pretty water fountains with fresh water running from the taps.
Today Sunday we have driven to a little place called Chabotte which is 250km inland N/NW from the coast. We are heading to a place called Annecy which is further north and has a lake – we have been recommended by a couple of people to go there as it is very beautiful. Annecy isn’t far from the Swiss border or the Italian border so we are undecided as yet as to where we will head.

Hope this finds everyone well and warm!!
Au Revoir, Dag, Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci, Adeus, Adios, Goodbye (for now).