Written by Rod & Belinda

We are currently tucked up in the tiny village of Montazels, France in the Maison de Bowie (it’s JoBo’s house, of NHW ED fame). We’ve just eaten a delicious spicy Thai Red curry for dinner and now Rod and I have a glass of red to settle us in for the night. It’s taken us over 5 hours of driving to get here today and half of that was through heavy rain. I took the wheel for a few hours, at which Hamish stated, “oop, here we go, Mum will get a speeding fine…” Rude, right? (But fair.)

We’ve experienced heavy rain and storms in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, but here’s an overview of our 4 days there.

Thursday 24th October – Menton & Nice

Thursday morning we headed to the seaside town of Menton to print a document needed back in Australia. This is never an easy thing to do when you’re overseas and you don’t speak the local language. Thankfully the gentlemen at the store spoke excellent English, so it wasn’t too stressful in the end (even after Rod bravely said, “You ask…”). With our paperwork sorted, we headed to the coast to walk along the boulevard. It was OK, but is probably much nicer in summer. We walked through a small pedestrian tunnel under a trainline which smelled very strongly of pee – Hamish held his breath and practically ran through! We cut this trip short and headed to Nice.

Traffic was wild but we found an underground park which put us in a great position. We didn’t have a plan here, but as it turned out we covered quite a bit of ground and found some lovely sights, whilst walking along the Promenade des Anglais. These included markets, an amazing war memorial built into the cliff-face (where they kindly ask you in two languages not to play ball games) and delicious food from a local boulangerie (bakery).

Friday 25th October – A day in the Village

We’d planned to spend the day exploring the local village, castle and forest paths. The castle is closed on Fridays as it turns out, so we just pottered about through the narrow laneways of this medieval town instead. We found a tiny, and I mean tiny, restaurant for dinner that night and Rod booked a table for us. Interestingly, all the restaurants in the village had an Italian flavour and more interesting, is that the ratio of restaurants to residents was very high.

The forest trail had taken a beating from the storm the night before, so we didn’t get far. We spent some time in the afternoon working with Hamish on Maths and English, something we’re trying to do for the rest of the semester. He is taking this very well, and doing the work his teachers have set. He doesn’t trust my maths skills and is surprised when my answers are correct!

Rod and I head out for dinner, after providing Hamish with a supermarket pizza, baked in our oven – it smells divine! The restaurant as mentioned, is tiny, seating no more than 18 people. It is about 200m from our apartment in a straight line, but there’s a few hundred stairs (did I mention it’s hilly?) for our return trip. We walk in the door and are seated literally just inside the front door. We are closely followed by a group of 5 Germans who once seated, instantly start quizzing the waitress on every dish. They are keen to order (we are keen to order a drink!) and take up all her time (she is the only front of house staff member) for nearly 20 minutes. We eventually order a glass of Prosecco each and a shared Italian tasting plate for an entree. Rod orders pasta and I order veal for our mains and both are incredible. There’s no room for dessert, so we slowly make our way back home to Hamish.

Saturday 26th October – Rain Storms and A Castle

The weather is dreadful, so we pull the pin on our planned trip to Monaco. Instead we play card games, get lunch from a small cafe, do some school work and relax. Once the weather clears, we head to the castle. There is no doubt, we love a castle and this one was up there with the best we have seen: turrets, arrow slits, a moat, intact sleeping/eating/living quarters, corridors and incredible views. Again, visiting the lesser known towns and sites is worthwhile – 13 Euro for the 3 of us and 5 other people there during our visit.

The rest of the afternoon is spent wandering more hidden laneways. Rod gets a coffee. Life is tough.

Sunday 27th October – Day trip to Monaco (by Rod)

We awake to find that our electronic devices have lost an hour compared with the other timepieces in the apartment. Apparently we had been on daylight savings time here in France and it ended last night. Who knew?! Whilst sitting on our balcony and (yet again) admiring the view, I see a bus go by. Now I have been studying the timetable in preparation for our trip to Monaco and know when to expect a local bus to scoot past. This one is an hour early! Has it not been informed about the end to daylight savings? I quickly dash down to the local cafe to ask for (local) advice. They confirm the end to daylight savings and that the buses will now run on standard time. I am not convinced, after seeing that non-timetabled bus. I sprint back to the room and suggest we might only have about 14 minutes to catch the next number 24 bus. (And they only run every 2 hours or so on a Sunday.) Hamish dashes through the shower and Belinda dries her hair… but, alas, I see a number 24 bus go past. Now this is where it gets complicated (as I try to explain to Belinda.) As we are perched in a loop of the bus route, it is not possible to tell, from our (extremely scenic) viewpoint which direction the bus is actually going. It could actually be at the correct time if it is heading in the other direction. We have one hour to wait to find out. Fortunately, all of my anxiety proves baseless and we board the bus to Monaco at 11:27 am (standard time.)

It takes us a while to get our bearings in Monaco. The topography provides many height challenges and reading a map does not always help to understand where you are in relation to other locations. So it feels as though we are wandering aimlessly for a while. However, we eventually get orientated and manage to find many of the sights on our list; gardens, Oceanographic museum, Cathedral, Casino, Fairmont hairpin, luxury yacht viewing, the Palace, McDonalds for lunch (and wifi) and the Prince’s incredible car collection. All in all, a lovely day in our second micro nation.

We head back to the bus stop for the 5:55, which is the last bus back to our village for the day. We do not want to miss this, so I have a little more anxiety. Are we at the right stop on the right side of the road? (Our bus is not showing on the electronic schedule board at the bus stop!) However, Hamish notices that the family waiting at the bus stop was on our bus on the way in, so things are looking good! The bus duly arrives and it’s a fun trip home. We really are lucky that a bus 10 metres from our front door takes us straight to Monaco (and back.)

A note on neighbours and apartment living; they’re not shy in telling you when you’ve done something wrong. Things we were accused of Friday evening (from our French neighbour):

Singing too loudly at 8pm (Hamish)

Talking too loudly, walking too loudly, moving chairs too loudly (all before 10pm)

(Apparently it wasn’t us, it was “the building”) – he advised us to “take quiet steps”