Be Wanderlustful: French Riviera and Monaco

September 19 - 22, 2008 In our last attempt to hold onto summer, Lisa Marie, Kari, and I drove to the French Riviera!! We left after work on a Friday with a campsite in the Ligurian Riviera area planned. I had been in touch with the campsite to make sure we could arrive as late as 11pm. No problem they said! Well...upon arrival their story changed and they said we could only set up our tent if we were staying for three nights!! Funny how they didn't mention that in the email - and yes, I made it very clear that we would only be staying one night. We looked for another campsite but we only found mobile-home sites and couldn't even find a secluded enough spot to set up our tent, so we ended up sleeping in my car! Not exactly what we wanted to do after a 7ish hour drive...but oh well! The next day we made our way down the coast towards Monaco!!! We stopped in San Remo for the Saturday morning market - a crazy place full of pashmina scarves, clothes, toys, shoes, purses, leather goods, etc. and a great fresh fruit and vegetable market including several bakeries with some of the best Foccacia bread! After San Remo, we found ourselves in Monaco...weaving in out of the Lamborghinis and Ferraris in front of the Monte Carlo Casino! Next on our list, a beach!!! anywhere! While driving towards Antibes (our destination for a campsite!) we stopped in Eze at a pretty secluded beach for the afternoon! Finally making it to Antibes we found a campsite and couldn't have been happier knowing that we were going to be able to stretch out our legs and get a good night's sleep! Sunday morning we were awoken by sounds of thunder!! Yes, a huge thunder storm was overhead and there was a torrential downpour in addition to lightening and thunder! Thank goodness the tent held up pretty well - better than most tents! Dreading leaving the tent, we mustered the energy and courage to face the rain and made our way to Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, and Biot, a glass-blowing factory city. Grasse smelled like perfume from the moment we stepped out of the car. We went to the Fragonard museum to see how perfume is made and then smelled lots and lots of perfumes - on a mission to find the perfect scent for ourselves! We walked around town to see what else there was but each ended up returning to Fragonard to buy a particular scent. I bought a fabulous scent called Miranda, a vanilla musk perfume. In Biot we went to the glass-blowing factory and saw 4 or 5 men work their way around the shop with hot glass. Upon our return to Antibes, we explored the harbor and were then at a loss for what else to do that evening - not wanting to go back to the campsite. We had just about given up on Antibes and were ready to go make PBJ sandwiches at the tent when we finally discovered the pedestrian area!! Alive and welcoming! All of a sudden we found renewed hope and were shopping and excitedly checking out our food options - crepes, gelato, paninis :) all sorts of good stuff ;) Dinner was spent on a curb, eating paninis and people watching :) Monday we began our long trip home but first we spent the morning in Nice! The fountains, the Antique Market in the old part of town, the Harbor, etc. Overall, we had a great trip! and even when the weather was less than optimal, we found plenty to see and do! more pictures