Villeneuve Loubet Plage 2

Wednesday, 22nd October, 2008

Four weeks have now gone by.

Planning for an easy day. Catching up with some washing, maybe some swimming.

Pat bought some bread and croissants, from the little shop. I had a freshly baked, still warm, pain au chocolat, brought to me in bed. It was really good, with some coffee.

We did as planned. Not much. The weather wasn't quite as nice as it has been, overcast, but still about 20°C.

We popped along to the covered pool late in the morning, but it wasn't that hot so didn't stay long.

I bought some internet time and updated the blog. This technology business is incredible.

We had a bit of everything for lunch again, pate, cheese, ham, fresh bread, olives and fruit.

Pat caught up with some washing and I had a very lazy afternoon.

We didn't have any real food in the chalet, so decided to go out for dinner. Biot appealed because it wasn't far away.

It started spitting with rain as we left and when we arrived at Biot, the car park was down and Biot was up a mountain, so decided that the Italian restaurant around the corner from La Vieille Ferme, was up for a go.

La Toscana, turned out to be very nice. Moules et Frites and a pepper, chorizo, tomato and ham pizza, followed by a crème caramel and a piece of pear tarte. Filled us up nicely.

Unusually for us, we actually managed a late night out and got back at eight thirty! The gate was shut, so we had to use the code to get in. What party animals we are!

Thursday, 23rd October, 2008

Pat brought me pain au chocolat and coffee in bed again this morning, a great start to the day.

Plan for today, to visit another country, Monaco. I know technically it's a principality, but anyway.

We set off around 1030, and took the quick route via the toll motorway and got there in no time.

As always, we sort of headed for the centre and looked for parking. We found another underground car park, Le Jardin Exotique. No classical music in these ones. Because of mountains / hillside, you go in at the top by car, then even further down to come out by foot. The placed is absolutely jam packed with buildings and a lot of them fairly tall.

The place is riddled with public lifts and once we figured them out, we used them to descend towards the port area at a much greater pace. They definitely have hills and steps in Monaco.

As we walked down, we passed a Ferrari and Maserati, service garage, with loads of them being worked on and some for sale. Wow.

Again, as with a lot of these South Coast ports, there are a large number of very big and very expensive boats. We spotted “My Little Voilet”, which we had seen in St Tropez, recently.

Around the swimming pool, they were setting up a carnival / fair, I guess for the forthcoming French Holiday weekend.

We did the looking around for a while and stopped at a quayside cafe, Pattaya, and I had my first Croq Monsieur, even though we weren't actually in France, to have it. Pat had a Norwegian Club sandwich.

We then headed east and walked around to the beaches and then back into town to find the casino. Which we did, and the Hotel de Paris, with another lot of Ferrari's, Rolls Royce's. Maserati's, Bugatti's just parked around the area.

Pat spotted an Estate Agent and a studio apartment 90m² was 3.8 million Euro's. That's roughly 9.5 x 9.5 metres and is about twice the size of my patio at home! It did have two parking slots, which might have been more than the size of the studio, thinking about it?

We found the very swish Tourist information office and our usual map of the town.

The Palace was back the way had come and I had spotted a bus boat to get across the port, which for one Euro each, had to be done, just to do it. Several pictures were taken, of course.

Up the hillside to the Palace and we did the visit. A beautiful place, with lots of beautiful things and although not that big, was very much a palace. There was a lot more marble than I had seen in a long time. It didn't take too long, but I would say was still very much worth it.

By this time, it was about five o'clock the feet were beginning to ache and we found our way back to the car, which is easier said than done, and made our way home.

Stopped off at the supermarket, Geant Casino, and bought some dinner at the deli counter again, being a bit more careful what we bought.

Arrived back at the chalet and had dinner straight away, the food we bought was what we thought it was this time, meatballs in tomato sauce and with some pasta, went down very well. Dessert was some strawberry gateau, scrummy.

The weather was really kind to us today, and at one stage in the port area was 29°C, so very much shorts and T-Shirts all day long.

In some of the souvenir shops around Monaco, there was some Formula 1 stuff, but I did expect there to be a lot more made of it than there was.

We did walk through the tunnel that I am sure I have seen in the past on the telly, that comes out into the port area, where the cars go whizzing through.

Anyway, an early night, will finish the day.

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