Susan and Tim Wright, Tracey Thompson and I left Font de sa Cala in the wee hours yesterday, Tim and Tracey took a bus and we drove (no room for four people plus luggage). We returned the car after finally finding an open gas station at 5am and arrived at the airport not long before Tim and Tracey…which turned out to be a good thing, since Vueling for the first time (I have flown it a lot) would not let me carry on my racquets, and my suitcase isn’t long enough for them. Tracey’s was though and she fit them in, Susan took my laptop (my carry on was over 8kilos…first time for that too) and we were on our way to Nice, France.

I had an aisle seat but my row was empty and I was fortunately on the left side of the plane so could see the coast for most of the trip and the Spanish and French Riviera from the air were gorgeous, the sea so spectacularly blue.

After getting the rental car, which was straight forward though a lot of walking, Susan drove (Tracey and Susan are the drivers and decided I should not be…but then I prefer to navigate so it’s all good). We are staying in old Nice where the street parking is scarce, our car is not tiny and the streets are narrow. I got information from our hosts about public parking garages, we found one and parked, rolling our bags over cobblestones to the apartment I booked. The only glitch there was that it had not been cleaned, but the owners quickly remedied that (with help from booking.com), while we went out to explore Old Nice. It’s a pretty town, on the Riviera, lots of twisty old streets, ornate churches and buildings and a promenade along the waterfront. On a Sunday afternoon it was pretty busy. We had an early dinner (sardines, yes!) and are off now to Monte Carlo and the changing of the guard and other spots along the Riviera.