…but we totally held back.  It was mucus green and huge.  Not being in Texas (or even wearing the boots), James  quickly shifted into diplomatic mode, blubbering, “la voiture est trop grande” to the poor girl at Europcar.  In Rome they may well have brought out a Matchbox car for us and sniggered, arms all over the place, but in Nice we scored a near new Polo.  Vive la France!

But that was our second upgrade (potentially a requested downgrade, but we were happy) of the trip.  On arrival in Nice (our first stop in the Sud de France), when asked by reception if it was our first time here, we beam, “iit’s our first time in Fraaance!!!”  Instantly forgetting all the practice of “C’est mon premier fois en France”, and looking perfectly out of place with our backpack waist and chest straps still done up amongst a waterside medical conference….but nevertheless being rewarded with an upgrade to a water view room with balcony. Mon Dieu!!! We’re not in Italy anymore.

After a short time in our lovely room, with merely a hint of what to expect, by 8pm all we could see was a…sea(?) of black with illuminated white washing up on the cobbled shore.  We strolled to the old, old town to the East (which is by definition the Nice-Est part of town….) to find a late night dinner…on a Monday, so we found everything mostly shut down and were forced to opt for a traditional French, Asian restaurant (it wasn’t even Vietnamese) for…steak frites…mais oui.  Amazing.  (Top TIght Travel Tips: When you order Champagne and it’s not on the menu and the waitress has to check if they can accommodate, you might want to follow up with a “ça coute combien?” before confirming and most definitely before ordering another round.)

The following morning was spent drinking Champagne in bed, looking over the azure water lapping the long coastline, pondering where the French get their strange names like “la Côte d’Azur”???  But after an amazing swim in the Med, there was little time to discuss the subtleties of the French naming systems, it was off to Monaco…a place totally free of subtlety!!  We finally caught the bus there (after walking the streets for hours and were eventually helped by a man who when asked, “polly voo francy” replied, “no I’m very sorry sir, I only attended Oxford for three semesters and have been home for several months and hitherto am, regretfully, a trifle rusty”) and the view of the coastline was worth the extra effort, it lived up to the hype and really highlighted the unattainability of it all.

Monte Carlo is an interesting destination, if you wander for a while you can find hints of a beautiful city that within a few decades looks to have been swamped by 100.000 (100,000) apartments built by the same architects who “won” the bid for Perth’s (current) Telstra building.  WIth all the beautiful, secluded coastline we traversed in Dalmatia, people still preferred to stand on the stern of their multi million dollar “stink boats”, in their speedos, all so lonely with their supermodels barely able to fill the space, in an overcrowded harbour, surrounded by tourists in a town ripping off billions in tax from countries all over the world.  One down-to-earth yachtie even named his “Just another toy”.  Losers!! #wishitwereus…just noticed there’s more than one way to read that hashthing, you can all judge yourselves.

We forked out to enter the centre of the nation’s entire economy, the casino, and when one is solely dependent on a single source of income, one often stretches their own rules for even the plebs, as Lea’s beautiful dress and James’ dapper jacket were frowned upon by the sandal wearing and blue rinse brigades.  We could have been in any one of the many Crowns, apart from the opulence of the late 19th century artistic styling and the early 21st century flat screens showing Premier League or the…..who cares.  So we sat in the corner drinking champagne before hitting the roulette table to put €50 on red for Nan…who really bets red, Nan??  James, as always enjoying the  proximity to international gambling, sweating, smoke stained and space invading riff raff types, struggled to approach the table to change the cash and, alas, missed the first game (as one punter yelled across the room “there’s a bloody fly on 21!!” which I’m still not sure was a good or bad sign), as the ball thingy then landed surely on black!  Next game now, and we’re in….the wheel span in slow motion (although slightly off balance as nobody seemed to care about the fly, and the chips were now stacked high on 21)……..RED!!  Thanks be to Monnie and Saint Grace of Monaco.  We broke with family tradition and promptly collected our winnings and got the hell out of the casino and the “country”, with the night’s Champagne paid for, and Nan’s share still kept aside…10%. Family rates.  We feel confident that should we have lost the bet, the rest of the family would have helped cover the debt, being mostly Tasmanian the burden shouldn’t have been too great…per head.

After a balanced breakfast (we balanced the decadence of mimosas over the Med, by sharing a plastic knife to eat tubs of yoghurt we’d snuck in) we hopped in our Polo and hit the road.  No time (or driving demeanour) to stop in the Antibes, we “soon” arrived in St Tropez (after our navigation tool decided to check the boundaries of its internal maps).  Great town, tasty baguette, more stupid people on silly boast #ifonlyitwereus, before Aix-en-Provence.  A gorgeous hotel, with a claim to fame of having “not to have been blown up by the Nazis”, an honour we also share, but didn’t mention.  They at least did have a tree blown up, I assume in a vain attempt to starve the incoming Allies of oxygen.  The staff, again, were lovely, suggesting a number of restaurants to exhibit their local cuisine.  We wandered around the town past a number of the restaurants, Chez Pierre, Bistrot Francoise, la Petite Quelquechose, Frenchy McFrench’s, before landing on the quintessentially sounding…Chez Mitch.  The aussie came out in us as we initially thought they’d had the ampersand stolen in some prank (like taking the ‘S’ out of Red Rooster), as it was a Uni town, but it was not “Chez and Mitch’s”, but jut Mitch’s place.  We know because we nervously made a reservation en français, earlier, with who turned out to be none other than Mitch…the guy from the sign: MITCH.  One of the best meals we’ve had on our trip, not just for food, but the staff and Mitch himself!

Our first full day in Provence tuned out to be mostly a driving one…and mostly not in Provence.  After finding an olive oil tour we were keen on, for obvious reasons, we hit the road first thing, then panicked, cried, got rained on and somehow made it in time for the tour in a stupidement chouette town.  Phew!!!  Oh and by the way just cos the website was in English doesn’t mean the tour was.  However, knowing un petit peut de l’huille d’olive, we nodded and hor hor hor’d our way through and actually picked up on some things: the Spanish make crap oil.  Bon temps!  After stops in Arles and Nimes (birthplace of denim for those attending trivia nights or working for Levi’s), we visited the ridiculously impressive Roman aqueduct, le Pont de Gard.  Having been to the Forum and Colosseum a week or so before, this blew our socks off.  By far the most impressive we’ve seen, the French do Roman ruins so much better than the Romans.

A final dinner in Aix (a very nice town to stay in, and Jeudi nuit seems to be Uni night so that might be a universal thing), we had dinner away from the Uni bars (to James’ dismay) and ended up at a tiny place called “Le 18”, which sounds like a name for a TV show when only 18 people survive dinner, but the ones that do have a life changing experience.  James, full of confidence, strutted in and staggered, “manger???  ici??? s’il vous plaît??”   A beautiful husband and wife team awaited, with the gent running service.  We knew we may have been in trouble when he asked “parlez vous français”, to which we replied “un petit peut” and he replied “je parle un petit peut d’anglais” and the menu was 100% verbal.  Lips were read, franglais was spoken, but some signing and shadow puppets managed to get us through one of the most fun eating experiences we’ve ever had.  The food was great, but the whole was amazing.

On the way out of Provence, where we were charmed with the weather, we ventured to what we thought was a small winery, which ended up being a whole town and also a whole region…sacré bleu.  Turns out this is where we should have stayed.  We drank wine in a castle and walked around the village where every door front was in fact a cellar door, it’s our kind of town Chateauneuf du Pape is.  (Interesting fakt*”: this was the original working title to the Sinatra song until they changed it to 4:4 timing and couldn’t fit the whole town name in and tried Chicago instead, where he happened to have some mates).  Lea then clocked in at 0.04 to James at 0.022 (BAC) and they hit the road, past an interesting mix of vines, nuclear power stations and wind turbines…for decoration I assume.  But a sudden bit of research by Lea at 2.20pm had us realising we could make a 3.15pm steam train trip through l’Ardeche canyon, and the maps had us arriving at 3.20pm!  Physical challenge accepted, we made it with enough time for a QUICK WC stop off…although not everyone was completely satisfied with the latter.  A steam train? Yes, a steam train.  You’d be surprised (or most likely not at all) that they only sold tickets for Seniors, Children or Families.  Having never come across two adults, alone, before they were quite thrown, so they split the difference and let us on.  We were quite taken with the train and the trip, however, for the rest it seemed more of a nostalgic journey as they recalled the time they brunched with James Watt to discuss possible uses for his improved designs.  We can highly recommend it to everyone!!  From train enthusiast, right the way through to budding locomotive engineering apprentice.

*Fakts are perhaps being economical with the truth.  #obscurenewPMrefs