Valbonne - day two

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Another rough day in the Côte d'Azur.

Breakfast was followed by a couple of hours by the pool but this time I read classic car magazines rather than property magazines. I had choosen a few vintage Ferraris and Porsches and was about to phone in the wire transfers but instead decided that it might be a better idea to visit Nice for the afternoon.

Nice is about 30 minutes from our hotel and while it was a lovely afternoon, I don't need to hurry back now that we've collected the fifth Hard Rock Hurricane glass of the trip. The beach front walk was nice(!) enough with some very cool Art Deco buildings, miles of beaches and a few mega yachts in the marina, but the roads were packed and the fenced-off beaches for each hotel were pretty unappealing. Maybe I'm just getting old, but this felt like a fancy version of Blackpool.

There was a lovely moment when we were starting the drive home and Carys exclaimed, "Oh, you can't do that mate!", and we then all saw what she'd seen. A fellow wearing just a speedo, a hat and flip-flops crossing the road. Very Euro and not something we're likely to see at home, thankfully!

The main autoroute home was blocked with traffic so we took the smaller roads along the coast and then up into the hills. It probably wasn't much quicker but it was much more scenic and took us directly into the village of Valbonne where we stopped for supper at an Indian restaurant. A chicken madras and a cold beer tastes good anywhere, especially on a warm evening. And the fact that our kids like Indian food makes us love then just a little bit more!

There is some kind of annual celebration in Valbonne this week so we joined in after supper and watched the local cover band in the market square. They're probably not the next big thing but they played songs that everyone knew and had a good time doing it, so it was fun to be there. I think we'll be back in Valbonne tomorrow evening hoping to see them again!

Tomorrow is the last day of our trip. The weather forecast is dubious again (it got very cloudy today but didn't rain) but we are thinking of heading to Monaco to meet a few F1 drivers and movie stars.

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