St Tropez and Monaco

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We signed up for the St Tropez cruise on the Bus yesterday thinking it would be a good afternoon. Unfortunatley it turned into 2 1/2 hours on the bus from Nice to Port Grimaud (Frances' version of Venice) then we got onto the boat which took us around to Millionares Bay which is where the likes of the Heinekin family, Johnny Dep and The Hiltons have thier houses looking our over the water.

We stopped in St Tropez for some dinner then hopped back on the boat and back to the bus. Then another 2 hours on the bus back to Nice.

All in all it was good, the bus ride made it a bit shit (didnt really want to spend 4 1/2 hours on the bus but oh well).

Wednesday we decided to go around to Monaco and take a look at how the other half (well more like 1%) lives. We caught the train with Stu and Paul (the bus abour guide and driver). The train takes you past a bunch of "little" villas including Bonos "island" villa. Apparently to become a resident ot Monte Carlo you need to put in an application which costs a 1million Euro. They pay no taxes (apparently all the cities revenue comes from the Casino's) and from the look of the city, there is a LOT of revenue coming from there.

We had a wander around the city, walked parts of the Grand Prix Track (that was still being dismantled) and went to the Casino for a wander around in there, had a glass of champagne (there goes the budget ;-) ).

Then we caught the train back to Nice and went down to the beach for a swim, the onshore winds had picked up well and truly by then so we just wandered around the waters edge for a while (dam those rocky beachs are painful).

Decided to do dinner on the cheap so we went and got some Chinese takeaway and went down to the beach again and ate that as the sun went down.

Back on the bus and off to Avignon tomorrow.

John

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