Breakfast in Antibes, Lunch in Monaco and Dinner 3ft from Italy!

After brekky we left Antibes and straight away got stuck! We managed to pass each other after about 10 mins ...

We drove straight though Nice ...

We would like to have stopped but trying to find a park can be very difficult, so we carried on ...

Street side stalls selling huge clumps of garlic ...

We stopped at a lookout looking over Villefranche Sur Mer ...

What a view, it was stunning ...

We had a chat to an English couple and their friends who all came from Wilmslow near Macclesfield!  They had been living down the South of France for about 10 years; they said Elton John had a place near Villefranche. however they missed shopping at Macclesfield!

We did a bit of research the night before about motorhome parking in Monaco.  Apparently there was a underground carpark designated motorhome friendly.  It was correct, a nice man met us and gave us a spot,  even though we stuck out a bit!  We were there for 6 hours and it came to 12 Euros, not bad for the centre of Monaco.  It was very tight parking and we did have to take the bikes off the back but it was all good ...

What can you say about Monaco, once again we were covered in bruises from pinching ourselves ...

The yacht behind us was owned by Errol Flynn until his death.  It has a fascinating history, click here to read about it ...

It was a lovely timber schooner ...

There are some unbelievable cars being driven around the streets of Monaco, but how about this immaculate Mini Moke ...

A beautiful and very expensive place, but we did manage to find a nice place for lunch and a couple of drinks, all for just over 30 Euros.

Some pretty impressive super yachts tied up in the harbour ...

We had a chat to a crew member, apparently we can hire it out for 365,000 Euros a week  in the peak season which is $543,000 Aussie dollars or about £300,000.

It was having the crap pumped out of it whilst we were there!  Wouldn't you have thought they would have fitted cassettes ... don't they know that cassettes are much better than a holding tank!

Last boat shot ...

Having a pose in front of some nice building ...

I should add that it was a stinking hot day, to be walking around.

Sammie was most excited when he spotted some water outside of a very trendy bar ...

Whooska, he was in there, much to the chagrin of the security guards!  There was also a duck in there, much to his amusement...

Elaine took this shot of the casino reflected in a sphere ...

There she is posing with the doggies outside of the casino ...

No probs parking if you turn up in a flash motor ...

The Rainers pad perched up on the hill ...

After a thoroughly enjoyable but absolutely knackering walk around Monaco we headed off in the early evening, heading towards Italy.

As we approached the border point we could see vehicles parked up so thought that there must be some sort of checkpoint ...

But no, it had been turned into an unofficial motorhome parking area ...

We drove into Italy, did a U Turn and parked up in the old checkpoint ... 3 feet from Italy!

We stayed there the night, it would have to be the safest spot we have stopped at yet, as next to us was parked a French bus full of fully armed riot police!  They kept changing shift, one bus would leave and another one replaced it.   I don't know why therywere there, they stopped no one, they just sat in the bus all armed up and on their radios waiting for who knows what!  I got a friendly Bonjour from one of them this morning, I was walking the dogs and he was having a piss in the bush!

Elaine had to have the shot, half in France….

….and half in Italy ...

Then we were off!  We thought the South of France was busy, bloody hell Italy was mental!!!!  Thousands of scooters, pedestrians and motorists all out to put the fear of Christ up this tourist trying to thread his motorhome through the streets.  If we get out of here without a scratch we will be very lucky, but then again as Elaine will tell you I am the worlds best driver!  (Yeah, OK ... I will give him that one !  El)

We are now moored up at Imperia, on the Riviera De Ponente.  We will stay here tonight and then set off somewhere tomorrow!  While we have internet we will try to work out some sort of plan for our final 17 days in mainland Europe……Switzerland and the Alps are calling rather loudly!

Antibes

We had a bit of an eventful journey yesterday.  It all started well as we left the lovely campsite at St Tropez. We should have stayed for a few more days or at least till Monday so we would have missed the nutty French drivers who go extra nuts on the weekend.  I really don't know what their hurry is, they really need to chill a bit, but more of that later.

Our destination was the Cannes / Antibes area, so we plotted a course up the coast road.

I had an email from a mate in Oz who holidayed in the South of France numerous times back in the 70s.
He stayed at a place called   St Agulf.  Hopefully the next two pics are it ...

We carried on through some nice countryside ...

There was some low cloud around the Agar area, but still very warm ...

The road then followed the cliff face along the coast.  It wasn't as narrow as the Spanish cliff roads, but unfortunately the Frogs don't like windy roads so cut off every corner they can, which is all of them.  It was starting to really piss me off with cars coming around bends on the wrong side of the road.  Eventually it happened - some French twat in a motorhome of all things came round the bend on the wrong side of the road!  Bang!  The mirrors hit each other and mine folded in.  He started to pull in ... hopefully his mirror smashed - they are about £175.00 to replace!  Mine wasn't damaged so Elaine pushed back into place and we carried on. 

We decided to pull into the next campsite to sit out the weekend….the barrier was shut to the entrance to the campsite so we sat outside waiting.  A car came out so I drove in whilst the barrier was up.  The chap who ran the site was out in a flash with a mega attitude, telling us off for coming in at lunchtime!!!  We would have to wait an hour until he would be ready to serve us!   We had a look around the site and didn't really like it, but couldn't escape as the barrier was down.  A little while later his Missus came along and wanted to know why we were parked there.  I told her we wanted a spot for one night, she said they don't allow one night stops, super "we will go then"….we escaped.

There was a weight restriction of 3.5 tonnes on the beach front at Cannes so we had to use the back roads, which were rather grotty.  I should have ignored the the weight limit,we are only a bit heavier at 4.250 tonnes.

We found a site close to the centre of Antibes, but it was up a really narrow road, with loads of coaches parked up on one side and a ditch on the other, so not too much room to move!   Once again the barrier to the site was down, so I waited outside whilst Elaine checked in.  A coach wanted to get past so I moved up and squeezed onto a driveway.  I sat there waiting for Elaine to get the barrier opened, but within a couple of minutes some French women came out of her house screaming that I was blocking her driveway.  I said I wouldn't be long I was waiting for the barrier to open, but she went off on one.  She didn't want to go out she just wanted me to move I gave her the classic Gaelic response , I shrugged my shoulders!

Eventually the women from the campsite came and rescued me and opened the barrier.

It was not a bad site and we moored up right next to the pool. We decided to stay for two days, to chill a bit and in the hope that the Monday drivers would be a bit better!

We had a very lazy start today.  By midday we decided to walk to Antibes to check it out, but we had only gone about 1 km when it started to piss down with rain, so we decided to return to base and have a seriously lazy day.

Today's prom pose is by a drainage ditch just down the road from the site.  The site is located in a seriously dodgy area with a lot of pikeys down the road ...

  
Once back at the van we just lazed around and read.  I went for a swim later in the day as the sun returned with a vengeance.

This is our mooring, with Bombo trying to stop Elaine from reading, the pool is in the background  ...

This evening I went to the site bar to watch the Cloggers vs Mexico, I cheered on Mexico but was well drowned out by the squawking Dutch women!

The cloggers won…..it really wasn’t the best weekend!

Where we stayed:  

Camping Les Frenes, Antibes
Not a bad campsite - old style but friendly enough.  The road outside and the general area felt pretty 'dodgy' with lots of barbed wire and glass along the tops of walls.  There was a fairground going on while we were there, not sure if it is permanent or not, but pretty noisy.  In the ACSI book so it was 18 Euros plus 1.50 for the second dog!!  Wifi was 10 Euros for 3 days - or 7 Euros for 1!!

It was very rainy when we were there so we didn't do much but had we planned it a bit better we would have maybe gotten a train to Monaco ... we weren't sure about the dogs though, as Paul saw on an official website that they have to be muzzled !!!