Day 8 (Molly): Cannes (La Bocca) — Nice — Villefranche-sur-Mer — Monte-Carlo — Taggia

We woke up early and luckily for us, the storm had passed after such a windy, rainy night. James hadn’t slept much so we decided to have a little lie-in before a big day of travelling north towards Austria.

Once we got dressed and admired the view (the picture above), we went into a cafe in the market to have our standard breakfast, croissant and a coffee… the croissant was huge. It seems to get better the further south we go. Then we decided to get going and start our journey!

We drove through Les Maurettes on our way to Nice and the properties look like ships from a distance, which completely baffled us. At this point the heavens decided to open again.

Once we got into Nice we managed to park underneath a shopping centre. There were a variety of shops in there. Small businesses to your well known ones. It’s great to see small businesses thrive in France.

We decided to go out into a cafe (because we didn’t need to shop for anything) and have a quick drink. James had a cheeky beer and I had a lemonade. I even tried out my first peanut! It wasn’t a success.

We continued to explore Nice to see if there was anything different from your everyday shops. We came across Basilique Notre-Dame de l’Assomption which was beautiful…

and then the old town! Utterly lovely and had so many different characteristics about it. They sure do love having a variety of colour painted on their houses. It was around here that we ate at another cafe to fill up our bellies.

After this we got back into the car and drove towards our stay for tonight.

We drove through Villefranche-sur-Mer which was utterly beautiful. The sea was blue and the buildings lit up the small coastal town. It was easy to imagine what it would be like in summer. Definitely will be going back here!

We then drove through Monte-Carlo, a notoriously wealthy town part of Monaco, which was completely different from the places we had seen today. The area was filled with fancy cars, designer shops, luxury hotels and casinos!

Our next country was Italia!! We drove through some windy “spaghetti roads” and eventually found the accommodation we were staying in. Tonight’s location – Taggia.

We were greeted by the owner David (Dah-veed), who shook our hand and welcomed us in to the Villa. He helped us with our suitcases and guided us into our room. Very friendly man. The villa itself was the best we had stayed in thus far and had a view of the ocean on the terrace. We swapped mobile numbers and David proceeded to tell us further instructions about breakfast etc. He even gave us a list of the best restaurants by the sea. Perfecto!

After using a torch to navigate our way down to the coast (there were no streetlamps!!), we came to realise the restaurant he had recommended was unfortunately closed that night due to unexpected reasons, but we made do and had a meal across the street that overlooked the sea and a lighthouse.

After a long day travelling, we headed back to the Villa for an early night. It has given out clear skies for tomorrow so one can only hope 🤞🏻