Sculpture in Monaco

I was missing the beautiful sculpture of Spain whilst in France and then we hit Monaco and e voila!

A painted end of a building to match the street front, keeping up appearances 

After a wonderful visit in Monaco, we went on to Menton via the coast road, stunning, and then on to San Remo in Italy and our hotel for the night at a seaside town, Diano Marino. Wonderful day, run out of steam, proofing and edits tomorrow, time for bed.   

Cannes to Nice to Monaco to Italy

Three countries in one day 

We drove from Cannes to Nice boulevard which was a bit of a pedestrian highway with Polish and Irish football supporters on the move, nice to see but nothing great and we wondered what all the fuss was about .....until we turned the corner and the French Riviera proper started....... spectacular .

 Old fashioned rummage sale on Nice waterfront, nice to see recycling in action.

Then the fun began, from Beaulieu Sur Mer to Cap Ferat ....houses tumbling down the cliffs to the aqua sea, bright purple bougainvillea and clear sparkling waters.

Then into Monaco for lunch. Monaco was immaculate, beautiful public gardens, no rubbish or graffiti. There was a big TV awards ceremony happening tonight and helicopters were dropping in the stars. We watched one land and they have gorgeous cars to pick up the stars and whisk them off, we walked the red carpet and saw all the paparazzi getting ready for the night , we were amazed to see people queued in the full sun...a long, hot wait.  The tunnels around the city are spectacular and you can see why they have the big car race here, glad I wasn't driving!

Montpellier, Saint Tropez and Cannes

Saturday 11 June

Over the top of a really interesting mountain range and down into Saint Tropez, we by passed Marseille as we will need to go there later to drop the car off and there was a big Euro football game, Russian Vs England, being played so the place would have been dire.

Saint Tropez, what a place, from the campervan park to the 'lives of the wealthy and 'wanna be's'....

Lots of floating gin places, French men with long flowing grey hair in khaki chinos and leather loafers,  stag and hen party groups and day sailors....but the dear little fishing boats still have a place, yay!

After doing the promenade we journeyed about 10 mins up the road, 

had lunch and felt like a swim, so quick change in the car into our togs and down a path to the beach beside a restaurant. The restaurant had the beach all closed off with guests lounging on chairs, smoking cigars and no one swimming. We jumped in at the rocky end  a smidgeon outside the fenced off area  and then swam into the bay....lovely and no one could stop us.....bliss, refreshing and a bit of a giggle as it was 30degrees and the lounge lizards were basting themselves on the loungers..........althougth the sun isn't as harsh as in NZ.

Back in the car, beautiful drive around the coast to Cannes and whoa Bessie......where does all this wealth come from, pics won't do it justice.

Bonjour France, Montpellier

Friday 10 June

We left our lovely country villa and set off for France.

We have loved Spain and all the wonderful experiences we had there. One thing we won't miss is the dog poop! It's everywhere! A lot of the Spanish people live in flats and they love their little dogs and they all walk them and don't pick up the poop....makes walking the pavements a precarious experience sometimes. In Barcelona a saw a very elegant lady with a spray bottle and after her precious wee pooch had lifted it's legs she very elegantly sprayed the post, nice one but this is the only time  we saw anyone attempt to clean up. 

Anyway enough about poop, we set off for the 'frontier' and were stopped on the Spanish side  by the Guarda Civilia who glanced at us and waved us on, they had a young man pulled over to the side and were searching his car.  At the French side again we were waved through without much of a glance. On either side of the border there is the biggest accumulation of trucks we have ever seen, an entire town for trucking business related activity.    

Wonderful road trip through little villages, fields and mountains.

Tunnels of trees and village folk just going about their day.

The odd industrial back road.

 Navigation challenge now and then

We stopped at Sete for a cuppa and ended up parking outside the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery so we walked through and it was sobering to see all the Graves so far from home.   Sete is on the seaside with waterways and channels like Venice. Guess what we found alongside the motorway....our lovely flamingos our bird of the trip.

Then on to Montpellier where we drove through  the old town with market stalls on street corners, crazy traffic and again amazing Roman ruins acting as traffic islands.

St Clement aquaduct from the 18th century, a great natural traffic flow stopper.

Found our hotel and had a quick dip in the pool. Bandito motorbikes in the carpark, apparentlly the national conference for bandito's is in Montpellier tomorrow and then there is euro football in Marseille, a busy time in this part of France!

Sant Pere Pescador

We had a great drive up the coast yesterday to Sant Pere Pescador, where we have spent the last two days. On the road up we passed through Tarragona which, because we left Oropesa early, we  hit the morning commute in Tarragona. This meant lots of 'hurry up and wait's as we navigated the old medieval town. Lots of coach buses spilling out tourists and you can see why, the  Roman forum is part of the traffic flow, the castle is spectacular and the 2nd century Roman arena,  facing the Mediterranean, sits alongside the high speed rail line!

All along the journey we pass beautiful churches, castles, buildings and scenery and we are still awed by what we see. We had our lunch in the deserted grounds of an old church, falling down and in a hay field, stunning.

We saw the serrated mountains 'Monserrat'  from the reverse side and they looked stunning. The weather here is really hot and there are warnings it could hit 40!

As we had visited Gerona on a previous trip we chose to scoot out to the small seaside towns of the Costa Beach, they are post card perfect little bays and it's interesting to see they are much more popular this year compared to three years back.

Sant Pere Pescador is a little rural town just outside Gerona and we are staying in an old villa on a wheat farm, it's a little bit off the tourist path, no TV, great Wi-Fi and it's peaceful and relaxing, we are the only guests!

As we get closer to France it is interesting to see the French influence in the small towns and even in the architecture to a small degree. France tomorrow!

Oropesa del Mar, a little more detail

It may not look it from the  photo above but compared to Bennidorm, Oropesa del Mar is a sleepy little resort that is not over built and with a horseshoe shaped bay which is lovely.....many of the playa here a long, flat beaches so this little bay feels cosy. 

 I forgot to say in the Bennidorm post that for the first time ever I saw a double mobility scooter with a couple of older ducks all dolled up for the beach and laughing their heads off as they zoomed a!ong on the scooter. No double mobility scooters in Oropesa de Mar, just Spaniards on holiday and very few English as there are very few bars, just quiet family restaurants and narry a disco to be seen. 

The Guarda Civilia (police) use all modes of transport here, mountain bikes, scooters, motorbikes and of course usual police cars. The ones on the mountain bikes get the raw end of the deal as it's blooming hot by 10am!

The color of the sea is beautiful, deep blue and the coast is dotted with historic forts and lighthouses up and down the coast.

On the way up here yesterday we had a picnic lunch beside the Albuferra salt rice fields. We visited here last time and loved it, the bird life is spectacular.  Check out the unique color of the water.

Sculpture of the day comes from Oropesa new town, a new development just up the road with block after block of beach side apartments. The infrastructure is all in, the parks and roads all look great quality, they have modern sculptures all around, the playa is groomed and ......the place is empty, 50% of the apartments have for sale signs....it looks very sad.