South of France last day: Monaco

Some of the fancy boats 18 euro sundae and 4.50 cokes outside Monte Carlo watching the fancy cars! Outside the Casino On the water! Monte Carlo casino Church in the old town Changing of the guard at the palace Bay We left early today and drove to Monaco. We saw the sights including The Monte Carlo Casino – in fact I even won back my money plus 3 euro! We sat in the square having an overpriced ice cream and coke and watching all the people and the cars – Bently, Jaguar, Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo, Masaratti and of course the Mercedes – one after the other! We went up to the palace and watching the changing of the guard and enjoyed spending out last day of holiday relaxing – check out the fancy boats that where there also. Sunday we drove back to Nice (35 min away) and caught a midday flight back to London.

South of France Day 7: St Tropez and Cannes

Cannes Film festival - red carpet St Tropez

Josh having a swim lunch at the beach St Tropez - Port

We left first thing for St Tropez a supposed 1.5 hours but it took us 2 hours due to the traffic getting into St Tropez. It has an old town and port where we took a walk and looked at all the fancy boats. The beach stretches for 9km so we drove and picked a section. Since the sun loungers cost 14-euro pp and 18 if you wanted to sit on the beachfront so we decided to sit on the sand – the good old fashioned way! We did have a lovely overpriced salad at e café. The swim in the water after was great. Josh was feeling adventurous so at 4pm we drove to Cannes. Again the traffic got us and a 1-hour journey took 1.5 hours. We drove around the coast and saw heaps of lovely beaches. We took a photo on the red carpet when we arrived in Cannes (from the film festival held there every year). We had a wander around then drove back to Nice. More traffic meant we didn’t get back until 8.30pm. Despite being exhausted we had another nice meat in Nice.

South of France Day 6: Gorge Du Verdon to Nice

Nice a night Nice Beach at Nice Nice Gorge Du Verdon

We had a little sleep in today then drove through the Gorge Du Verdon (a rather long but beautiful drive – of which I saw a bit more than Josh!). We stopped in Catellone (at the end of the gorge) and had lunch before arriving in Nice at 3pm. We had a hostel booked so dropped the car off and went for a look around. We had dinner in the old town!

South of France Day 5: Provence

Moustiers St Marie

Cathedral at the top View from the top The cathedral at the top of the hill - we climbed up there! Check out the amazing lavender fields Roussilion Gordes Fontaine De-Vacaluse

The spring We dove today through the Provence region. We started with wine tasting at Chateauneuf De-Pape – wines from he Rhone region. We then headed to Fontaine De-Vaucluse – a village formed around an underwater spring. We ate lunch her b the river that flowed from the spring. We then drove to Gordes a village settlement in the cliffs – really amazing and crazy to drive up into. Then onto Roussilion – another hilltop village where all the buildings are red, as they are made out of the clay here (also red). We drove to Bonnieux then through Provonce to Valenside where we looked for accommodation but since there was no vacancy we continued on route - this is the lavender area – check out all the fields. We ended up staying in Moustiers St Marie, also a hilltop village, at the top of Gorges Du Verdon. I had a church up on the hill so we took a walk up there before having dinner. We slept with the door open (no AC) and woke up to the church bells and birds – so beautiful!