The French Riviera
Bondi Tram
Peter Colquhoun and Sandra Colquhoun
Fri 6 Aug 2010 16:37
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Our landfall in France was at Villefranche Sur Mer, which is halfway
between Monaco and Nice. A much prettier
town than the photo below would suggest.
 The other side of the bay from Villefranche is Cap Ferrat, with
many very expensive villas.
 A number of cruise ships stop for a day in the bay, and their passangers
are ferried ashore for coach trips
to Nice or Monaco. We were shocked on our first morning to wake to
this.....
 A fountain in the back streets of the old part of town at
Villefranche
 The church at Villefranche...with the Mekong Vietnamese restaurant
halfway up the stairs.
 We took the train from Villefranche for the 30 minute trip to
Monaco. Here is a view of the harbour at Monaco..
...both the upper and lower roads in the bottom left are part of the Grand
Prix circuit. The last time we were
here we went round the circuit in our Kombi van!
 A sculpture of the Bugatti that won the first Monte Carlo Grand Prix, I
think in 1929.
 The park with a very large glass sphere.
 The famous casino at Monte Carlo viewed from the sea side...
 ....and from the park. You have to pay 10 Euro to go into to the main
hall, but there was no charge to enter
the poker machine hall, so I duly blew 5 Euro in 2 minutes. No sign
of 007 anywhere, but lot's of Aston
Martins, Bentleys, Lagondas, Ferraris and Porsches....truly.
 The following day we took the train in the opposite direction to visit
Nice, which is in fact the fifth largest
city in France. This is the main town square in Nice, with some
interesting sculptures on poles.
 Brand new trams.
 The promenade with palms extends along the coast for 3 or 4
kilometres.
 An antiques market was on in the old town.
 The old town of Nice was very quaint with lots of cafes and art
galleries.
 Sandra admiring a display of salt from around the world...
 ...including one below labelled "Australian Murray River". We
didn't taste any to see if there was a
difference, one salt to another.
 Amazing shop displays
 A statue of Garibaldi, not clear what his connection is with Nice.
 We thought Nice was nice and preferred it to Monaco. We sailed
further down the coast to St Tropez.,,,
 ....which was full of holidaymakers....and mega yachts
 and also the locals playing petanque in the park....so watch out
Peter has new strategies for the game.
 There was some good and also some lurid art work for sale around the
quay.
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