We always knew that as we headed further south things would become harder and busier but weren’t really prepared for what was to come. We’d decided to head to Ventimiglia, Italy and had the idea to follow the coast road into France, stopping and exploring on the way. We’d found a campsite in Menton, listed on a UK website, although it seemed that this was the only site between Menton and Nice that accepted campervans. As we headed south the colours of the buildings changed to yellows and oranges, with the distinctive deep terracotta rooves.

Once we reached Ventimiglia we soon discovered that parking a campervan near the coast would be virtually impossible. Most places we’d visited to date had dedicated spots but this part of Italy and Southern France was definitely campervan unfriendly. This was only May and it’s hard to imagine how mad it would become in July and August when the French take their annual summer break.

We decided to head directly to the site in Menton and took three circuits of the city’s narrow streets before we managed to find the hidden right turn into a hairpin bend just after the exit from a tunnel. It was signposted to “Municipal Camping” but the sign was completely hidden behind the bend.

The road then zig-zagged up the hill and became increasingly narrow. There were corners that could only be negotiated with three point turning  and we had to do much reversing  into wider spots to allow oncoming traffic to pass with inches to spare. Most people seemed pretty understanding though and when we finally reached the site at the top of the hill we both breathed a huge sigh of relief but dreaded the thought of the trip back downhill and felt sure there would be an alternative route out.

The relief, however, was to be shortlived as a young woman rushed over to us from the office waving a finger and saying “pas de camping car – c’est interdit!”. It turned out that campervans were banned from the site as the road had been deemed too difficult to negotiate. If they were hoping to avoid the sort of chaos we’d just been through it might have been better to have a camper-van forbidden sign at the bottom of the hill rather than a verbal message at the top!

The young woman was very kind and, seeing that we were a bit frazzled, directed us to a parking area where she said we could rest a while before going back down the hill. There was no alternative route out! The descent was worse than the climb although we had a better system this time whereby Neil went ahead of the van and checked out beyond the next corner and only directed me through once there was a clearing in the oncoming traffic.  As we approached the second to last corner, remarkably a single decker bus, about twice our length, was coming up the hill. Yes, this was a bus route and we witnessed the bus do a five point negotiation of the corner!

In our quest to find a site we decided to move inland and away from the coast. We drove about 3/4hr to Peillon, north of Monaco, only to find the site full. Maybe to be expected as it was the Grand Prix weekend, but we didn’t know that at the time! Eventually, five hours after leaving Olivetta St Michel, and what should have been an hour long journey, we found a site at St Laurent Du Var, just west of Nice.

It had a swimming pool which was great to cool off in and take away the stress of the day.

Sadly, we realised we had no photographs of the experience we’d just been through and agreed that next time we hit a stressful patch one of us should be taking photographs – just didn’t seem to be a priority at the time!

Next day we took the bus from just outside the campsite to St Laurent Du Var train station (about 15 minutes) and from there caught the train into Nice (10 minutes). The station at Nice is quite grand and the palms are so green you think that they have to be fake but they’re not. Once outside the station we took the Avenue Jean Médecin that runs runs down to the old town and waterfront. The Avenue is a huge wide street, with a tramway running along the middle. It’s lined with up market department stores and boutique shops.

We stopped at Basilique Notre-Dame, a Neo-Gothic Roman Catholic church built in the 1860’s and the largest church in Nice, and then headed further south into the Place Masséna. This is a large square on the western end of the Promenade Du Paillon – a large park and open space with fountains.

We then passed through the old town and onto the waterfront where we were interviewed and filmed by some school kids doing a project on tourists.

Next came Neil’s favourite part, a walk through the large open air “antique/trinket” market in the old town.

This was very busy and judging by the number of american accents we got the idea there was a cruise ship in town.

After a coffee and croissant in Bistrot Café we headed up the steps on the waterfront to the Tour Bellanda and the Colline du Chateau. On the way up there were various spots where you could get wonderful panomaric views overlooking Nice.

Once on top of the hill we crossed the park to the eastern side from where you could look down into the port and sure enough there was a cruise ship in town.

We stopped here to eat our packed lunch of “sandwich de jambon et fromage”. Dropping down the other side of the hill we passed the cemetry and then onto Place Garibaldi, a very impressive looking square and quite convincing, even though all the shutters are painted onto the buildings! By now we’d spent around 5 hours walking, in very hot sun, so decided to head back to the station.

Tomorrow we would head further west to St Raphael to meet up with some French friends I had met earlier in the year at Alliance Francaise in Auckland.

Nice a été fondée 350 avant JC. Pendant l’epoque vicorian elle etait une destination très populaire avec les aristocrats anglais et les monarchies d’europe. Maintenant, elle est la cinquieme plus grande ville en France et la deuxieme plus visitée après Paris.

Je remarque que les francaise protegent leurs vieilles villes. Ils ne laissent pas les developments que ne sont pas sympathiques à la ville. À mon avis c’est un leçon que Nouvelle Zélande devrait noter bien.