The End

Well, our fantastic holiday has come to an end. What a great month full of experiences that we will remember forever. Below is a collection of facts, figures, observations and ramblings which we will sign off on. There is no limit to the amount of time that women can look at shoes, handbags & scarves. We travelled a total of 2800kms in Pierre the Peugeot. Peugeot Eurolease is great to use. 46 hours from our hotel in Nice to the front door in Feilding. Just a tad tiring. Temperature ranged from 44 degrees in Dubai to 5 degrees up Mont Blanc. The Italians and the French were great people. Language barriers can be overcome. Lot's of useless little dogs and their not so little deposits on the footpaths. Watch where you step (eh Liz!). NZ doesn't have a mortgage on great scenery. Brilliant red poppies lining the roads and filling the fields. Helen Clark's anti smoking legislation hasn't reached France or Italy. Why are girls suitcases much heavier than a man's? Don't expect to get a flat white in Europe. Planning a holiday? Use Booking.com for your hotel bookings. Good savings, accurate descriptions and allows more time at destination. Stay off the motorways. Far better to travel the smaller roads thru the villages. Try different foods. Why can't we get veal in our restaurants? Don't travel without a GPS. The world is your oyster. Enjoy! Thanks for following our trip. We enjoyed bringing it to you. Cheers LIZ, ROSE & THE CHAUFFEUR

On the Way Home

Fri 1st June. This is written sitting in the lounge at Sydney, waiting for the penultimate flight back to the Manawatu. We took off from Nice on Wed 4pm and arrived in hot Dubai at midnight. We stayed in an airport hotel which enabled a few hours sleep before getting back on the bird for the long flight to Sydney. We travelled on the double decker A380 aircraft, a pretty impressive beast. Not sure what they are like on the bottom deck but we certainly had no complaints upstairs. Rose has made the most of her four upgrades and is smiling like a Cheshire cat. We get back to Feilding at 7.00pm tonight, just in time to watch the mighty Crusaders take on the Highlanders. The Chauffeur is looking forward to a bit of footy after a month away. Look for our trip summary, coming to this blog soon.

Nice in Nice

Tues 29th. Our final full day in Nice before jumping on the plane at 2pm local time tomorrow. It appears that the Chauffeur's brother has come thru and it looks like Business Class all the way home on the Emirates for the three of us. The extra baggage allowance will come in handy. As you can see from the photo packing the bags has not been the easiest of tasks. We have had a relaxing day in Nice, a nice seaside city. Not all of the sights on the beach were that great with some old leathery muttons not great for viewing. John Wayne's saddlebags is a description that comes to mind.  The Chauffeur dropped the car back to Peugeot this afternoon and the little scrape is covered by insurance. We off to town tonight for the finale dinner with the Chauffeur looking forward to his final meal of veal for the trip.

Cannes

Mon 28th. Today was our final travel day by road from St Maxime to Nice. It started off in brilliant Mediteranean sunshine and finished with a catastrophe for the Chauffeur at the end of the journey. The trip around the coastline was very picturesque and we stopped in Cannes on the way for lunch with our friends Lech & Lynne, who have a fabulous apartment overlooking the bay. They took us into town, which was still buzzing from the Cannes Film Festival finale the night before. Cannes was impressive, but not as impressive as the superb lunch provided by Lynne and the first class wine selection provided by Lech after our little sojourn into town. We were also shown around the amazing gardens of their apartment complex. A most enjoyable afternoon, with tremendous hospitality from our hosts. We left Cannes at 6.30pm for our short trip to Nice. It was heartbreaking for the Chauffeur that after 2800kms of travel on the trip without incident, and the day before Pierre the Peugeot is returned, an altercation with a concrete post as we descended into the gloomy, narrow catacombe like bowels of the hotel car park left Pierre with a scrapped mudguard. Bugger!!!!! We finished the day with another nice stroll along the Promenade d'Anglais to give us a bit of a feel for Nice so that we can explore it tomorrow.

St Tropez, C'est la Vie!

Sunday 27th.  Another experience of a different kind today with a ferry trip over to St Tropez, just 15 minutes across the bay. We docked amongst the super yachts. Some pretty amazing luxury gin palaces were a real eye opener. We arrived in ST early and it was quiet and peaceful, but after a walk into the old part of town, the Place de Lices and a visit up the hill to the Citedal for a view down on the town and out to the gulf, we arrived back at the waterfront to find things a lot busier. There were those who were there to see and those who were there to be seen. The pretty people were out and about and we sat in a cafe drinking our Perrier water and taking it all in. The Chauffeur thought that the two chicks from Feilding held there own in the looks department even though they aren't botoxed to the eyeballs.

Sunny St Maxime

Sat 26th. We started the day at a very leisurely pace with a bit of a lie in at our luxery Marseille hotel. To wake to the views out over the Old Port with the sun shining brightly, was magnified when we decided to treat ourselves to a breakfast on the top floor. The views were "magnifique" and the breakfast was delicious with plenty of fresh fruit and our first feed of bacon and eggs for the trip. C'est tres bon!  We were entertained by Buonana, a waiter from Senegal who thought the Chauffeur was an African chief, given the two "wives".  The trip to St Maxime was a nice easy drive of 120kms and took us thru a variety of great scenery, from rocky passes to vineyards and forests. We also took in the city of Toulon on the way. We now sit on our hotel deck looking out on the Med, sipping a gin & tonic and basking in a mild 26 degrees. We have another day here tomorrow and are planning to visit St Tropez, just over the other side of the bay from where we are staying. We are belatedly pleased to advise that Liz has lost her Elvis bouffant hairstyle that grew quickly on tour and is now sporting a sexy new French cut. Oh la la!

Marseille

Fri 25th. This photo shows the view from our room over the Old Port of Marseille. This is an historic fortified port with the first inhabitants of Marseille being dated back to the Bronze Age. That's pretty old. Our trip today was about 140 kms and first took us to Arles, and old Roman town and also where Van Gogh painted some of his masterpieces. We visited an old amphitheatre which is also used as a bullring. Lovely old buildings. Then we headed down thru the Camargue, a National Park wetland area. We saw the white horses, the black bullfighting bulls but didn't see any flamingos. A late lunch was at a little portside cafe where we enjoyed a meal of baby octopus and salad. It felt a bit funny chewing on all those arms and legs. Then into Marseille, a busy and congested city and France's second biggest. Another day on the big adventure comes to a close.