Four Countries in one day !

It's 6am and I'm woken from my sleep by the shrill of my alarm clock. I always hate that moment, especially on a Saturday and I immediately wonder why I put myself through this. I've been setting the alarm clock all week for work and here it is making my head hurt at the weekend. However those thoughts quickly dissipate once I've stumbled, bleary eyed and blinking out of bed. I may be in the UK at this moment, but today I'm off to France.... and Monaco..... and Italy, making 4 countries in a single day. It's going to be tiring, I'm going to be spending considerable time on public transport but at least the weather will be nice and having learnt my lesson from the last trip, I've already packed my sunglasses!

I touched down in Nice on the French Riviera, the weather glorious as it generally is, blue skies and warm sun and very little cloud. Due to various logistical issues, I had agreed with Mark and Sheila that I'd meet them later in the day so I headed for the airport bus station to catch a bus (buses are becoming something of a theme aren't they?) to Nice itself. The 'airport end' of Nice is all concrete and graffiti but at the other end of the Promenade des Anglais lies the very attractive heart of Nice. The old town and the area around the port are particularly pretty. The warm aqua blue waters of the Mediterranean are always very inviting and the sweeping pebble beach attracts sunbathers in large quantities. As regular readers will know, I do tend to walk around and observe the locals, enjoy the cultures and take in the scenery whilst basking in the generally better weather. This trip was no exception. I walked The Promenade des Anglais (walk of the English) from the bus stop at Nice Ville up to the Port and back again and eventually found myself sitting on the beach itself. Despite it only being mid morning, the temperature was well into the 20s and I was still wearing my UK clothes. In my rucksack however I did have my shorts so as I was on the beach surrounded by practically naked bodies, I didn't think anybody would object to my changing out of my trousers and into my shorts. Besides the french change right there on the beach all of the time, so I thought I should do too. An hour or so later Mark phoned to say that he and Swedish family friend, Emily were at the airport having flown in from London and Stockholm respectively. I therefore boarded the bus back to the airport to meet them.




Once the three of us were all united, we boarded a bus to Monaco where we were to purchase our tickets for the Classic Monaco Grand Prix the following day. We duly arrived in Monaco, my third country of the day... and it was still only lunch time ! Monte Carlo was very busy with large areas of the town closed off for the motor racing and the population swollen heavily by tourists. Tickets were purchased and our next destination was to head further East and back into France to the seaside town of Menton where we would meet Sheila and the rinky dinks. This entailed yet another bus ride, my fourth of the day. And to think that before my weekend in Palma a couple of weeks earlier, I had only been on maybe 2 buses in the past 20 years !


Menton is a delightful town, sitting between Monaco and the Italian border. I've been here a couple of occasions before and always enjoy my visits. We weren't going to spend too long in Menton as we were merely meeting up here before travelling into Italy for the remainder of the afternoon. We did however walk along the beach before Sheila passed us in the car, the kids waving manically from the back seat.


I've made numerous attempts to get to Italy and all of them, to date, have failed due to various mechanical problems. On one occasion we broke down twice in 2 days, the second occasion being within sight of the previous days breakdown location. Passing motorists must have thought we were holidaying on the hard shoulder !






San Remo in Italy - my final country of the day - is only 60 Kilometres East of Nice and lies on the Italian Riviera. It is a typical Mediterranean seaside town but in my opinion had a different look and feel than the French resorts a few kilometres along the coast. Many of the buildings clearly dated back many years but were in the main,well preserved and freshly painted. We walked along the road that hugged the coastline and eventually found ourselves at the harbour which was populated with the ubiquitous sailing boats and motor yachts but also had many fishing vessels and industrial barges which is something that you don't really notice in the French marinas. We were heading for the restaurant where we were to later have our dinner. My nephew Matt is studying Italian at college and has subsequently been on an exchange visit with an Italian family which required him to speak entirely in Italian. I was amazed at how proficient he was. He's clearly fluent in English, his native language but is also fluent in French, his domicile language and is certainly now conversational in Italian and yet he's only 15.

Matthew managed to make a reservation for 6 of us on the terrace for 8pm that evening. Imagine the mayhem if I had tried to place the reservation in Italian? This reminds me that over recent weeks I have had to try my hand at French, German, Spanish and now Italian. For someone who can barely speak English, this is something my brain struggles to cope with and I have to really concentrate on where In Europe I am, and therefore what word I need to use. Is it, Yes, Si, Oui or Ja ? Maybe a lusty nod of the head in such circumstances would suffice?

We retired to the local street-side cafe. It was nice to just chat and have a beer in the sun whilst the residents and tourists of San Remo went about their business. As usual I just sat and watched and was interested to note how the Italians talk vigorously with their hands. Every comment is met with a gesture, often with arms outstretched and hands open wide. Many of the conversations were spoken loudly as if they were argueing with each other, maybe they were, but thankfully conversations generally ended with big smiles and that continental cheek touching these Europeans call kissing. The Italians, I also noticed, mirrored their stereotypical image of being largely well dressed, sporting expertly styled hair and wore dark uber cool sunglasses which sets them a good distance apart from the people I see back home in say, New Brighton on a sunny afternoon.

The meal on the terrace at our chosen restaurant was delicious. I, along with Becky and Matt went for Cotoletta alla Milanese, or Wiener schnitzel as it’s known in the UK... and presumably, Austria. Mark, Sheila and Emily went for the Sushi buffet. Much conversation & merryment was had as the sun went down over San Remo whilst we looked out over the Mediterranean Sea from our terrace table.

The following day most of our party were catching the train to Monaco for the Classic Grand Prix. I reported on this event 2 years ago in this post. We were located in stand K8 which was at the "swimming pool" section of the track and overlooking the giant super yachts of Monaco marina. The weather was cooler than the previous day and we were under cloud cover for the whole morning. However, the temperature was pleasant and the racing was excellent. The highlight of this meeting is always the Ferrari parade where, as you may have guessed Ferrari's F1 cars, old and new parade around the tight twisting circuit. Despite the name "parade" this is a competitive affair which was later proved when two of Michael Schumacher’s ex Championship winning cars from the early naughties, collided at the chicane as they exited the tunnel. Both cars suffered damage and one was immediately retired under a red flag and with the safety car deployed. It later looked rather forlorn as it was carried from the track by a pick up truck for some clearly expensive repairs.

In a later race featuring cars from the late 70's (think, 6 wheel Tyrell’s, John Player Specials, March and Lotus from your Scalextric's sets as a child) a couple of cars collided and one of them left the tarmac and rolled over. Luckily the roll bar and the air intake held firm preventing injury to the hapless driver inside. Mark and Emily left early in order to take their respective flights to the UK and Sweden. My flight was much later so I, and Matt, stayed until the very end of racing before catching the train to Nice Ville and then my 6th bus of the weekend, back to the airport where we met Sheila and Becky for dinner and good-byes. As always a fantastic weekend.



Until the next time....