French Riviera part 4

Are you tired of reading about this? I just want to get it done!

Saturday 12 July we had a slow morning since check-out time was noon. We decided the driving was much easier with the kids because when we went out to explore places it just too so very long with them. We drove across the hills through two sister medieval villages Vence and down to St. Paul.

Then we drove further to Nice. After 2 nights in a comfy bed I couldn't bear to sleep again in the camper, so we went looking for the ETAP hotel. I knew that we were now officially in the window of the European 6 weeks of holidays where everything is packed--hotels, roads, resturants. The GPS took us to one right off the Riveria and from my post on 16 July you know what other fun thing we were on the door step for! Sadly we found no openings there or any of the other 2 ETAP hotels in the city. I knew we needed to move on since I get stir-crazy in traffic jams and around swarms (is that the word?) of tourists.

The beaches from Nice on do not have sand but pebbles--nice if you don't want to deal with sand in clothes but how comfortable can that be to lay on it?

After driving around the penisula we found a quiet village and let the kids play at their park.

It was HOT, so I was sure to slather the kids with suncream and made all of us drink lots of water.

Next was driving to the (smallest) country of Monaco and into Monte Carlo. We were like a sore thumb with all the ultra expensive cars and people with money to lose at gambling while living the high life at the resorts. It is not like Las Vegas either, you have to wear black tie and gowns to enter some of these buildings! Here are some photos taken as we drove on through (we never even step foot in the country).

It wasn't but a few more minutes and we were out of the city/country and we went to Menton--right on the border of Italy. It is famous for their citrus parade--with floats and such all made from lemons!

We found a nice park and let the kids free! The language of friendship is understood every where: play!

This is a picture of Lorenzo and his Grandmother. They were Italian and it reminded me how frustrating it is not to be able to communicate at all.

Of course in the hot weather we ended everything with ice cream!

From here on it is NOT the riviera but we drove north to the mountains again. I was a bit nervous about finding a camping ground. We set the GPS for the route back to Barcelonette and it took us through Sospel. It was getting to be around 6 pm so we decided to find camping there. As it turned out, this is quite a lovely village and Günter's former supervisor's favorite town.

the first place we found the camping cost 21 euros and it was getting late so we took it. As we went to explore the spot we were not fine with it. Cars were parked on the "lot" and it was crowded with youth groups doing adventure activities. We went back (I told Günter to let them know we would find another camp ground) but he came back and they gave us a different site--a quiet wooded area closer to the bathrooms. The spot was on a slope but you can't have it all!

Then we drove on and (depsite protests) I made Günter check out the other camp grounds. One was only a little better and the other Camping Municipal I would have liked much better. It was a walk to the city and flat and clean(er) bathroom/showers. Oh well.

We then walked to explore the village and find a resturant. I just loved the place. It had cobblestone narrow roads and unusual things like this:

Then there was the village fountain and clothes washing area--you really could imagine all the village woman scrubbing clothes while chatting away there.

There are a lot more pictures but I didn't want to format them. We found our resturant with our ears. There was a birthday party going on in the piazza next to it with a tuba player and the resturant had some awards outside. Even though it was late 9 pm we enjoyed our meal. The French and Italians eat quite late so it was not unusual for them. I already said we completely messed up their sleep schedules anyhow.

I got fish, but unfortunately it was smothered in sauce but the kids loved the noodles and sauce. We had some trouble getting the waiter to understand we wanted water with gas to drink--finally we got something, but not what we were expecting! Günter got a pizza and we were surprised to find a raw egg in the middle.

And that ended another lovely day of our holiday!

Posted by Krista at July 26, 2008 06:36 PM