After yesterdays rain we woke to find a stunning day and decided to head to France.

 

We drove down from Triora to Taggia where we got onto the motorway and headed for France. We paid our last Italian toll 4 Euro 60 cents just before the French border and went through a tunnel and a sign with FRANCE was shown and then everything was in French.

We bought fuel at a fuel station on the edge of the motorway and then found we had to pay a 2 EURO toll at the start of our journey in France. So unlike Italy where you get a ticket and then pay at the end you appear to pay at the start.

We drove into Nice, and found a place to park. We bought a ticket to stay there for 1 hour and left the car and wondered around the local streets – there was not a lot of see since it was just a city.

The prices of food seemed to be quite expensive, a roll with ham + cheese was 4 EURO. Simple meals in restaurants where 12-15 Euro.

We had a look at some fruit shops but the produce looked pretty crappy and old and stuffed.

Pears looked rotten to me and other vegetables did not look inviting at all.

We looked at a could of butcher shops and we ended up buying a rotisserie chicken for 4 Euro 50 cents. And a load of bread for 60 cents.

We went back to the car and looked for somewhere to eat our lunch – the city is quite busy and nowhere to park up so we left town and ended up being behind a tour bus. It was driving quite slowly and then pulled over – we also pulled over and it was a scenic view point (not of Nice) but the next bay around.

 

We sat on a park bench and ate our lunch which was very pleasant.

We cleaned up and continued on our journey to Monaco which is only just up the road.

We pulled into Monte Carlo with its steep streets and navigated to a car park building. 2.5 Euro per hour.

We have not had a huge amount of food while in Milan – we arrived early on Thursday morning and ate on the plane so we did not need too much food. We went to visit the Duomo and after that we went to a restaurant around the corner (in the view of the Duomo means you pay far too much)

Chris had a salad - very nice and quite large, lettuce, Radish, Olives, Mozzarella  and you just add Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar – cost 7 EURO

Pam had a Pizza, Milan style – pretty basic a very thin base which looked like a flour tortilla, with cheese and some tomato and basil – cost 7 EURO

A 1.5 litre bottle of water – 2.5 EURO

I think my salad was better value and I enjoyed it more than Pam enjoyed her pizza.

Coffee 

Well what can I say – great (but it still depends on where you get it)

We went to a little bar next to the train station and their espresso is 90 cents and is great. Basically an automatic machine (I may try to get a photo tomorrow before we leave), the man grinds the coffee and the just clicks a button to get an espresso.

I asked for a Cafe this morning in the hotel and they came back with crap American style watered down coffee. This is suppose to be called Cafe Americano so I asked for an espresso – but this was too hot and tasted like some in Christchurch- a bit bitter with a bad extraction.

Breakfast

I enjoyed the breakfast in the hotel this morning – basically as you would expect – bread, jam, sweets buns etc. There was also eggs (uova), cheese, salami, and luncheon.

There was a nice Pianoforte with orange which I liked.

Lunch

Pam and I went to the park today and had lunch there.

I had a Panini with Tomato and Mozzarella drizzled with Olive Oil which I enjoyed very much, Pam had just a Gelato.

Dinner

We went to a local restaurant around the corner from the hotel and had a pretty simple meal.

I had a Risotto Milanese – which was basically Saffron Rice and cheese – pretty basic and yellow – 7 EURO

Pam had a dish of Spaghetti and Clams which tasted nice to me but she said she preferred mine. – 8 EURO

A large beer (660 ML) – 4 EURO