Big Adventures, Little World

After our short stay in Avignon we headed for the French Riviera, which is a spectacular place. On the way there we stopped at a perfumery and got a short tour of how the perfume is made which was quite interesting, but not really for me. We had the option of buying it direct from the factory as well for a fraction of the cost it would be in shops but after our samples there wasn’t really anything I liked too much so headed back down to the bus to eat our dinner that had been prepared for us in the car park. I’m sure some people think it strange when they see a couple of people in a car park with tables all setup preparing meals for a group of about 30 and then everyone standing around the bus eating it. Always fun nevertheless.

Back on the bus we made our way to Monaco where we had a short walking tour with our Tour Leader, Sam (or Hottie as he liked to be known), and visited the home of Prince Albert, and also saw some amazing views of the city and could even see Italy from where we were. We learnt some interesting historical facts about Monaco and how it was ruled before we went off on our own to see the city for ourselves.

Went back to the Sun Casino, which is not the best casino, but it is free to get into. There are 3 in total, the best one being the Grand Casino, but costs to get in and is where all the high rollers go. It has been used in a number of James Bond films. We had a look at it and stood out the front for a while admiring the cars. There was so many of them including Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Maserati, Lamborghini, the list went on. Then of course everyone else pretty much drove BMW’s or Mercedes. I think they were the poor people of the city. Bel, Jarrad, Lucy and I headed to the Sun Casino and put a few Euros into the pokie machines and even took a photo of us playing it which is completely against the rules but we didn’t even think of it when we did it. We got bored quite quickly, especially seeing as we didn’t win 14 million Euros which was our plan for the night, where we would then get rid of the bus as we would be buying a private jet for the rest of the tour. Alas it didn’t happen, so we left to go chill out.

Monaco is such a small place and there isn’t really much to do unless you have a lot of money. So a group of us found a bar and some stayed and had a drink, and me, Lucy and Jarrad went off to find ice cream which we eventually found after walking past some amazing car showrooms and wishing we had enough money to buy them. Walking through the city we also walked over parts of the Monaco Grand Prix track, where the red and white striped curbing can be seen. We sat around eating ice cream, having a beer and chatting before we had to head back to the bus and back to our campsite.

The campsite we were staying at was about a 2 minute walk from the beach, although the beach was nothing like the beaches in Australia. Instead of sand they have pebbles and stones, which makes it difficult to walk on and lay on, and even stand in the water, but it’s still a beach and a group of us went down there for a late night swim which was beautifully refreshing and just what we needed after a long day.