The French Riviera

Tuesday 3rd of July

Feeling more coherent today! We spent today on the most amazing outing. Jimmy and Mairelle are friends of Mum and Roger who live near them in Brisbane. They both grew up in France and make regular trips back. Mairelle’s mother still lives in Menton, near Nice and they happened to be over at the same time as us. Soooo… they took us sightseeing. Our first stop was the village of Eze. It is about 20 minutes from Nice and was a medieval village, carved into rock overlooking the sea. The village is now a mixture of luxury chateau (starting prices E400 per night), little shops and restaurants. While we were in Eze, we stopped for coffee in one of the cafes. It may well have been the most expensive coffee I ever have at E9. I think the only possible response is oo la la!! I choose to believe that we were paying for the magnificent view and the outstanding atmosphere.

Next stop was… MONACO! My best story of the day starts “When I was at the Monte Carlo Casino…”. Actually, that’s about all there is to the story, as you have to pay to get inside the Casino, but I thought the beginning was cool J The array of cars around Monaco (and especially the casino) was astonishing. They were the kind of cars that you usually only see in James Bond films and you never see in New Zealand. It seems that the cars are quite a tourist attraction- all around the casino, people were taking pictures of them and hanging around to see the next flash car to arrive. Roger had a great time playing ‘spot that car’.

Final stop of the day was Menton. This was a particularly nice stop as it was where Meirelle grew up. She took us to several of her favourite haunts and was able to tell us about growing up on the Riviera. For dinner, Meirelle booked us into a restaurant that used to be owned by her parents. She has very fond memories of playing in the little village as a girl. It was a gorgeous dinner and a lovely ending to the day. Jimmy and Meirelle were extremely kind and really showed us a great mixture of the tourist sites and the Riviera that the locals know. Thanks guys!!