Wednesday 29/7 Caitlin’s 6th birthday today!

Having decided to wake up in the same location twice (not really ‘cos we had to change rooms) we planned to do Monte Carlo from our base in Fontant. We then chose San Remo as a bonus waypoint, not realizing quite how much ‘fun’ the mountain roads were for the chosen route.

The Med looked brilliant as we came over the mountains, but probably the best view of this trip will be our first sight of the Bodensee with the mountains behind. San Remo was full of even madder scooteristi than Milan, and they’d dug up most of Monte Carlo in honour of our arrival. It was full of coppers, too, as was wherever we crossed into France – but the Froggies looked really ‘mean’ in a camp sort of way.

Pleased with our time schedule on arrival at the port in Monte, the day deteriorated when it took us several hours to get back to our Fontant base, from Nice, via Col de Braus (1002m) and Col de Brouis (875m). Although these were quite nice and flowing passes, albeit with beaucoup de lacets (hairpins), we were too hot and frayed to enjoy them, so they were just knackering. Still, Monaco has made it 10 countries now for Simon's tally.

Anyway, arriving back at the Hotel Terminus, we drank beer. There were lots of Germans there, which wasn’t so good. We both ate from the set menu: Simon had warm goat’s cheese on toast, as a starter, Rod had ravioli with Sauce Maison. We both had entrecote steaks and Simon had Crème Catalan (Crème Brulee) and Rod had Lemon Tart. It was all OK. Unfortunately, when we came to settle the bill, although the accommodation was cheap (45 euros a night) the total cost was over 280 euros for the two nights – probleme d’alcohol!