Aix-en-Provence to Nice — Sunday Escapades

We were due to leave our Airbnb at 1030am and had arranged for the owner who lived up stairs to pick up the keys. However, time went quickly and I accidentally let lewis sleep in till 10am. He didn't believe me when I told him the time it was when he woke up and exclaimed we would never shower, have breakfast and pack up within half an hour. I had kinda given up being on a tight schedule and was enjoying time by myself just drinking a cup of tea. We just messaged our host to extend the time but as it was she turned up at 11am on the dot and we were still trying to get the dishes done and pack the bags up. It was even more awkward due to the language barrier and she just ended up standing in the apartment watching us! We ended up just putting bags outside the door so we could give her back the keys and pack the car in our own time. We knew this would be the case since we were too tired the night before to do research but we sat in the carpark trying to figure out what we were going to do today. We had to ditch the walk up Saint Victorie that the guy from Hero 7 shop suggested to us since it was going to be about a 5 hour walk - add it to the list for next time. Plus we had Cannes and Saint-Tropez to visit on the way to Nice which I had totally forgotten about. That made our minds up knowing we did have quite the drive to Nice via these places. Saint-Tropez was 2 hours away in which we had to use the toll roads to cut off a large chunk of time (It would take us 4 without them or something rediculous). We arrived into this ritzy seaside town obviously heading straight down into some underground parking which we were surprised to find a huge amount of nice cars - Porsches, BMWs, Mercedes etc and we knew our car would be safe here! It was the most we have paid for parking at a rate of €3 ($5 NZD) per hour but I doubt there is much cheaper in town. The first thing we did was traipse all across town urgently trying to find a toilet for Lewis. We were considering even eating at a restaurant which were all horrendously overpriced just to use their bathroom! Luckily some locals pointed us to the paid one down on the marina but they are in a disgusting state often with no toilet seats. (Apologies for yet another toilet adventure! Promise you there will be more to come!) We had passed many nice shops including a few designer board short ones that I knew my dad would love. We didn't even bother going in to these places as we knew we wouldn't be able to afford them anyways. I had seen in a sign somewhere as we were entering town that there was a Porsche weekend on which explained why there was an abundance of them around. Most of them were pretty average but there were a few gorgeous 911 Turbos, all driven by old farts in their full Porsche get up.

The main thing we did was walk along the waterfront admiring the boats and there was a small cove behind the city. We were taking pictures of the coloured buildings in this cove and googling cheap eats in Saint-Tropez when this single fighter jet swooped up from what looked like the water but was probably the city across from us. He gave us a aerobatics show for a good 10 minutes with all sorts of stalls, spins and turns. It was very impressive especially with the noise of it breaking the sound barrier as it flew away from you and the dead quietness as it was flying towards you. To make it even more impressive the sound reverberated against the stone buildings projecting the noise even more. I really wanted to try and find a beach but the beach that made Saint-Tropez famous Pampelonne was half an hours drive around the coast in the wrong direction. We figured we should just drive up the coast heading to Cannes and see what else we could find. We needed petrol so pulled into a station only to notice a couple waiting for their Porsche as it went through the car wash! We were beyond horrified at this and thought dad would be the same if he saw it as god know how much damaged that automated thing could do. Infact if he was going to a Porsche event but had to drive his car there and it got dirty he would pull out his bucket, sponge and shammy and clean it himself! The next small town around the bay way Sainte-Maxime which was like a mini version of Saint-Tropez without so much of the glitz. It has lots of bays tucked into its coastlines that we were tempted to swim in but thought we didn't have much time till we needed to be in Nice and we still had to go through Cannes. We did pull over at one point as there was another aerobatics propeller plane doing similar tricks above the town and we were struggling to drive and watch it at the same time.

Cannes was another big city really and once again we found underground parking and walked along the promenade overlooking the super yachts in the afternoon sun. Lew was starving and McDonalds was the best option for a burger unfortunately but it turned out looking rather appetising compared to some in NZ we have seen. We walked back to the town through the old town district Le Suquet which was pretty but didn't have much open once again. For some reason when we went to exit the carpark it didn't charge us a thing despite saying it was €3 ($5 NZD) per hour and we stayed over an hour?! Certainly a nice surprise :)

It was an hours drive to Nice which is our final stop along the French Riviera and where we will be based for the next two nights. Our hosts name was Colette and she showed us into this gated compound where the apartment was on the fifth floor. Thankfully there was an elevators but it was the smallest one I have ever seen. It did fit all three of us in but it was quite a squish. The apartment was lovely with a kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom all seperate and it included a parking space which is the biggest stress relief of them all! Lew was keen to go walk around town and find a baguette but I was exhausted and still had to cook dinner so we ditched that idea. He wanted to help cook dinner but I told him to go research what we could do tomorrow in Nice. As it was I came into the living room with dinner and the poor thing had fallen asleep with the book over his face! Since he had a second wind (Pat Coats I'm sure you remember these!) after having a nap we booked some accomodation in Florence and decided to get rid of the 2 nights we have in Lake Como since it would be much better in the summer. We added a night into the Dolomites and also another into Bern. We are potentially planning on getting rid of Milan since we are over big cities and really would prefer spending more time in the mountains. Also to spend one night there is pointless as there is still so much to see that we should come back and experience it properly . Paul also suggested we need three nights in Venice instead of the two we currently have so we might fiddle around with the plans even more. So there have been some good and bad things about not having all our accomodation booked up, the bonus is that we can chop and change destinations but also have to spend nights after long days searching for accomodation where most of the best ones have been booked out. Tomorrows plan is to check out Nice! Goodnight xo