30/07 Italy to France

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After Pompeii it was time to head north to venture into France. We took our time exploring more little towns. We effectively found a road which we liked the look of and drove down it, until something else caught our eyes or we decided that it was time to stop. This method was great to see the countryside however was not very effective in traveling north, as we managed to do a massive circle. So we once again pulled out the road map and decided to travel north. We dropped back into sienna where we found out that the free/eagles derby was going to be played the following day. So we did what any good wa people would do, and found a hotel with wifi and checked in for 2 days so we could attempt to watch the game on the Internet. 
Luke set the alarm for 7.10am, unbelievable early for us. We huddled in the foyer, around our iPad with our beers, watching the derby. We were unable to pick up the radio broadcast, so we had to be happy watching little icons on the screen with text boxes explaining what had happened. We got lots of strange looks from people when we celebrated the goals. 

After our rest in the hotel, it was back on the road. This time we headed directly north, excited about venturing into a new country. We started doing our home work and revising the language, because we knew that French would be needed more than any other language. 

We crossed over the boarder near nice, along the coast. Which was probably a mistake, as everyone in all of Europe had flocked there for the summer holidays. We had to crawl along the roads taking 2hours to drive 40km. We decided to stop for coffee, and get a better game plan, so we found a multiple story car park in Monaco and parked. We ended up sitting in a park deciding a new route. Feeling refreshed and keen to try again we went to pay for our parking. The machine took the ticket and stamped it then gave it back, without needing money. We continued on, jumped into the car and drove to the exit, however it would not let us go. We attempted to pay again, however it didn't work. We finally found information, who was not helpful at all and told us just to pay the ticket. We didn't know what else to do, amiralee kept suggesting to ram through the barrier, but instead we decided to get out our camp oven and make a cup of coffee. After that we tried information again, but that was no good, so we got out the lollies and had lots of sugar. Our third time to information, and two hours later we finally got some help and were allowed to exit. It turned out our iPad kept wiping the card. The only bonus was that we didn't have to pay for the parking.

We got back on the road, and back in the traffic, however neither of us were enjoying France so we found the closest toll road and took the hoot for a fly inland.

 We have spent the past few days exploring the towns in the Provence region of France. We have grown the opinion that it feels like the swan valley, however it is missing the feral brewery and the rum company. On Thursday we came across  a town called Avignon and decided to stop and have a look around. It turned out that a massive theatre festival was on. So we spent the day watching street performers trying to encourage people to see there theatre production. We skipped the theaters seeing as though they are all in French surprise surprise and  ended up in an irish pub, when we heard two young fellas speaking in English, we got so excited that we had to investigate. We spent the rest of the evening getting to know two brothers from England who were driving south to meet there parents. 

The next day we moved on, and decided to head directly across France. We want to go to a water park on the east coast, just north of Spain. After that we are going to leave France and head to spain, where the people are meant to be a lot more friendlier.

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