Matt and Lisa's Adventures

3 January 2023

Our first job of the day was to find a supermarket so that we could have some breakfast. We had more luck than the previous night and found one just a block away. The cereals were weird and we ended up with a crunchy one with chocolate in it. I enjoyed it, but not sure I need chocolate in my breakfast cereal. 

We had booked a “French Riviera in a day” tour and our guide picked us up just after 8:30. Our guide was Antonio who was born in Chile and worked in the South Pacific for the airlines. He had now been living in Nice for many years. We picked up our remaining companions, five Argentinians. This meant that Antonio had to explain everything twice, once in English and once in Spanish. He did this very well but I can imagine his job is a lot easier on the days he only has to do one language. I guess it could have been worse if there were even more languages to do. 

We started by heading up the hills on the way to Monaco. There were some amazing views over the city of Nice. There was also another tourist group at our first photo stop and one of the ladies was wearing an outfit that was literally a bra covered by a jacket. A weird choice but I chose not to complain. 

We continued around the hills with the ongoing spectacular views. We got to see the Beverly Hills of Europe where all the fancy houses of the rich and famous are, or at least their summer homes. This included people like Bono, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Elton John and Leopold the King of Belgium. We then stopped at the town of Ezra that was built on top of a hill. It was a very nice town but to get the full view at the top required paying extra so we didn’t do that. We then did a perfumery tour which was quite interesting. We did an activity to identify smells and I only got one out of eight correct (possibly all my years of pig farming might have affected my sense of smell). We sampled some of the finished perfumes but none of them were for me. 

We then drove into Monaco. Monaco is its own country but relies on the French for a lot of things (defence, post etc) which makes you wonder why France hasn’t just eaten the country yet. We timed it so that we could watch the changing of the guard outside the Monaco palace. This ceremony lasted about five minutes and provided a bit of pomp and pageantry. We grabbed a croq monseur to eat for lunch as we wandered around Monaco. It was very nice, traditional with small narrow streets and the distinct feeling of wealth. And it wouldn’t be a visit to a city without the traditional visit to the local cathedral. 

Next stop was Montecarlo which is the main commercial centre of Monaco. The main attraction there is the casino which looked very fancy. A lot of expensive cars outside, we saw three Rolls Royces (which are very ugly), a couple of Ferraris and a lot of Porsches. Antonio said with it being the low season that it was very quiet and there would be a lot more fancy cars in summer.  Surprisingly they let us in the casino but the gaming floor wasn’t open and so Lisa couldn’t have a poke, which was probably for the best. There was a carousel with a moose you could sit on but Lisa refused to do this. 

As we drove around Monaco we followed the path of the Grand Prix and Antonio pointed out the various parts of the track as we went. There were metal caps on the side of the footpath where they would put in poles for holding the barriers during a race. It was quite nice to drive the track and I recognised parts of the course particularly the section through the tunnel. 

We then travelled to St Paul de Venice which is an old medieval town up  in the hills. It is famous as an art town with many famous artists having lived there including Pablo Picasso. We wandered through the narrow streets and enjoyed some crepes as an afternoon treat. There are still lots of artists in the area and there was some really cool art works. Apparently the town is a major tourist attraction with crazy numbers of visitors in the summer months. 

We then drove on to Cannes, home of the famous film festival. We got to walk the red carpet, but other than that, there wasn’t that much to see here. The actual cinema where the red carpet goes into wasn’t anything special. There are some large, fancy hotels which looked good on the outside and a nice beach, but without the film festival I doubt many people would be heading there. 

Our final stop in the tour was Antibes which is a port town. It used to be a major trading port but has been overtaken by places like Nice and Monaco. It is still important for the very large boats which can’t fit in the other ports such as the king of Saudi Arabia’s yacht which is massive. We were pretty tired by this point and it was probably one stop too many on the tour. We tried to get a beer but the service wasn’t great. Instead we walked the city wall and saw a weird head sculpture. 

We then headed back to Nice which was a slow journey in rush hour traffic. Overall, it was a fantastic tour and we got to see a lot in one day which would have been hard to do in any other way. The Rivera is very nice and there is a very obvious feel of a lot of money in the area. It is defiantly the playground of the rich and famous. The trip also allowed us to get out of the city, see something of the French countryside and also experience French driving. It is fair to say that it was a little scary as a New Zealander. The road rules aren’t clear to us and it is a lot less organised than at home. On the city streets people tend to drive much quicker than we would but are then also very quick to hit the brakes when needed. Antonio’s driving had a few issues:

• Changing lanes would sometimes involve using the indicator but generally not
• The indicator would often be left on for extended periods of time
• There was a lot of weaving through traffic, a lot of which was unnecessary 
• Blocking intersections and sliding across lanes. There were at least two occasions I could see other drivers express their frustration at us. 

We had really enjoyed the south of France. Marseille was more interesting than I expected with the cathedral and port being fascinating. The museum was a disappointment but there were other museums (history of Marseille and Roman port) that looked better but were closed on the day we were there. Nice was nice, although we didn’t get to see much of the actual city and it was mostly walking to find dinner in the evening when it was dark. I’d come back but definitely not in summer as I imagine the crowds would be terrible. But a trip in autumn or spring when it was slightly warmer would be very nice.