Hello, here is a fine wel­come to you all from me in my latest jour­nal entry. In this par­ti­cu­lar epi­sode I shall be tal­king to you about my holi­day to the French Riviera. Thanks to an impres­sive holiday-package deal my mum is part of, both I and my girl­friend were pri­vi­le­ged with ‘free’ accom­mo­da­tion at a four/five star resort somewhere in the world, after peru­sing the cata­lo­gue we opted for “Le Club Mou­gins” in the valley of Mou­gins, an area in the south of france, 6km north of Can­nes. It’s a covey, remote, old and rural region with very kind peo­ple and the luxu­ries of French living; a bou­lan­ge­rie, a frui­te­rie and a poissonerie.

On Thurs­day, the last day of March, I pac­ked together my things:

and hea­ded to my girlfriend’s house:

from there we hea­ded to Heath­row, caught a plane and flew to Nice airport:

We were gree­ted by a taxi dri­ver bea­ring my name, we were dri­ven 40km or so to our resort where we were met by a lovely French recep­tio­nist, he pro­cee­ded to check us in, give us all the details and told us our room would be ready at 4pm. (The time zone issues were slightly con­fu­sing, nor­mally France is one hour ahead of England, but this par­ti­cu­lar week England had chan­ged their clocks to BST whilst France had yet to do so, put­ting us on the same time, we didn’t rea­lize this for a while, then after correc­ting our­sel­ves and beco­ming con­fi­dent of the actual time, the clocks chan­ged in the night. Yay for con­fu­sion!). Any­way, to make up the time until 4pm, we deci­ded to look around the little village, the medie­val village atop the hill and purchase some food for our star­ving bellies. This was the view from reception:

We purcha­sed fine cheese from the super­marche and baguet­tes from the bou­lan­ge­rie and enjo­yed our first French meal on a bench in the sun. Con­se­quently, every­day we bought crois­sants, pain au cho­co­lat and baguet­tes in the mor­ning for petit-dejeuner and ate baguette, cheese (camem­bert, brie and finer more acqui­red taste chee­ses), pork sau­cis­son and Pou­lain dark cho­co­late for lunch. Tra­ve­lling to the top of the hill we were met with breath­ta­king views, thin windy streets, posh res­tau­rants, art galle­ries and a view of the mountains:

Need­less to say, we were happy with our choice. After spen­ding an hour in a little shop while Samantha chose a water­co­lour pain­ting of the region and admi­ring a modern art gallery we were shown to our apartment:

A one bedroom, full bath­room, half (well-appointed) kitchen, tv, ste­reo, dining area and bal­cony apartment.

Our first full day in the resort was a Sun­day, so rather than trying to tra­vel to any of the local cities we deci­ded to trek around the local region and head up the hill across the way from us which loo­ked to have a castle at its mount. It turns out the region was a splat­ter with rich peo­ples expen­sive villas, laven­der farms, stun­ning view points and a strong wind. We found an extre­mely remote little area to enjoy our French din­ner, sit­ting on a crum­bling old wall amongst wild flo­wers we watched over a view of local town Grasse, it loo­ked a little like this:

On Mon­day (lundi) we navi­ga­ted via the bus rou­tes to Can­nes, the city famous for its film fes­ti­val. We sif­ted through the streets, pas­sing the Ferrari shop and the Cha­nel shop, we were shuf­fled away from the Palais du Fes­ti­val because they were set­ting up something big. We did get a chance to see all the famous film stars hand prints surroun­ding the com­plex, my favou­rite being Akira Kurosawa’s:

Dif­fe­ring from our weekly lunch time tra­di­tion only once, we ate at a Cre­pe­rie, first a fine salad, then a crepe filled with cheese ham and egg and to finish with a rich dark cho­co­late crepe. Here’s Sam enjo­ying her jam dessert:

After taking in more pic­tu­res­que views, the large docks and expen­sive boats, the blue peter boat and boat trip times we con­ti­nued upwards to the clock tower for even more views of moun­tains and the cityscape.

Tues­day was our day of quiet rest, we loun­ged in our room and enjo­yed the faci­li­ties of the resort, in par­ti­cu­lar the crazy golf course which had some impos­sibly dif­fi­cult holes, loop the loops and tun­nels. In the eve­ning we went for a spe­cial night out, dres­sing up we visi­ted the supre­mely posh res­tau­rants that could be found in the medie­val town of Mou­gins. We tried trans­la­ting the menus but soon just opted for the nicest loo­king, least crow­ded eatery with trees gro­wing through the roof, much like the image shown above. The meal was abso­lu­tely deli­cious and per­fectly coo­ked and pre­pa­red. Sam ate escar­gots (snails) in a gar­lic & tomato sauce with a lemon gar­nished salad for star­ter whilst I ate a crab and lobs­ter dish. We orde­red the dry white house wine and for the main course I had a knife-slices-so-easily-through duck that you wouldn’t believe was poultry with a fine sauce, cour­get­tes, cau­li­flo­wer, strange potato cakes, cele­riac and more tasty sup­ple­ments. Sam enjo­yed the best-cooked lamb she had ever tas­ted and was posi­ti­vely enth­ra­lled by it, indeed saying so to the wai­ters. For des­sert she enjo­yed a cho­co­late sponge thing with vani­lla ice cream and real vani­lla pods. I had the pear soa­ked in a red wine with added cin­na­mon crum­ble. Our very expen­sive meal was extre­mely deli­cious and well worth the money.

Come Wed­nes­day and with it our first big trip, we tra­ve­lled to Nice by train from Can­nes. French desk clerks and store peo­ples always seem so much more help­ful than their English coun­ter­parts. Our pro­blems and worries at the sta­tion were all kindly sor­ted by the French desk lady. We made it to Nice in good time and spent the day wan­de­ring their streets, loo­king through the flo­wer mar­ket, pas­sing by the open air thea­tre and sea front casi­nos, thro­wing peb­bles in the sea and spen­ding money to use public toi­lets. At the far end of the beach we tra­ve­lled up to the top of a cliff where an old castle used to stand. There were public gar­dens, water­falls, pano­ra­mas and a fan­tas­tic view­point for watching the pla­nes fly in over Nice and land in the airport.

On Thurs­day we had a lie in and in the after­noon tra­ve­lled back to Can­nes for a boat trip to the offshore island St. Marguerite.

It was a quiet island with the only buil­dings being an old fort and the cham­bers where the man in the iron mask was sup­po­sedly kept. We slowly wal­ked around the island, taking in the mag­ni­fi­cent Carib­bean like qua­li­ties and fee­ding three kind and non-begging cats some of our fro­mage. Eucalyp­tus trees and pine trees ador­ned the land mass:

It just so hap­pe­ned, that in the week I was in France both the Pope and Prince Rai­nier of Monaco died. This put a slight dam­per on our trip to the impres­sive city built into a rock face, as did the over­cast weather. Half mast Monaco flags cove­red the city which we reached by train. The weather put us off visi­ting the exo­tic gar­dens and caves of the region, yet des­pite cir­cums­tan­ces we still deci­ded to visit the prin­ci­pa­lity. Firstly we had to find a public lift down to the bot­tom, this was no easy task; finally we found a lift and it brought us to the entrance of the hos­pi­tal. From there we were gree­ted by whor­des (sic) of press, camera crews and pho­to­graphers wai­ting for the prince to leave the hos­pi­tal, here’s my not so good sneaky pic­ture of a few of them:

We pro­cee­ded onwards and reached the prin­ci­pa­lity after visi­ting the clas­sic car and naval museums, the zoo and the mas­sive under­ground super­mar­ket. The super­mar­ket sold everything from live crabs, lobs­ters, shell­fish and shrimps to deep sea fish, pigs trot­ters and octo­pus salad. This must be under­wa­ter love. With even more wal­king we enjo­yed the village and sce­nes of the ancient prin­ci­pa­lity of the Grimaldi’s. As the rain spot­ted down we chose to visit the aqua­rium and life aqua­tic museum of Cous­teau (with red hat). Here are some images:

On Satur­day we retur­ned home via train to Nice. We enjo­yed the medie­val city of Mou­gins one last time, took some more pho­tos and bought some more sou­ve­nirs. At the air­port we wai­ted 4 hours for our flight and were exhaus­ted after carr­ying bag­gage everywhere in the hot hot sun. But we were trea­ted with mind blo­wingly beau­ti­ful views as we left Nice in our 767 plane:

Ron English pre­sents “Popaganda”