Clearly, it's easier to go through the mountains than over or around them because we have also been driving through a ton of tunnels on our way towards the French Riviera. One tunnel, the third longest in the world, is over 16km long! I've been taking photos of it all like a Chinese tourist!
We had a quick stop at the border, where there still was no wifi! I'm going to start shaking or hallucinating or whatever addicts experiencing withdrawal have to endure. It's not going to be pretty!
Just beyond the border, as we made our way into Italy, we passed a very picturesque city on a lake where the rich and famous like to buy villas. Apparently George Clooney has one there too. We didn't get to see him, unfortunately, but hopefully I have an awesome secret santa that will go there to get him for me. Fingers crossed!
Between the border and our lunch stop, the sun came out for the first time on our tour, so Nicole and I actually got to wear the sunglasses that we packed! The Australians passed the time playing some card game at the back of the bus that had them yelling "OH!" and laughing every few minutes. The South African trio napped and listened to music on their headphones, which was loud enough for us to hear over the noise, so I'm surprised that they have any hearing capabilities left after that!
Jen spent the drive calculating how much we all owe her for the remaining excursions on the tour. It's coming to about R3500 for each of us, but at least we get to pay the full amount now to her to ensure that we get to do all the cool optionals that interest us and know how much we have left to spend. The New Years pub crawl will be setting us each back another R1200 if we decide to do it. We are putting some cash aside, too, to tip Jen and Joey, our coach driver, at the end of the tour.
We stopped at a service station for lunch where Joey worked at earning his tip by cleaning the coach's windscreen. It was so weird to see someone actually cleaning his own windscreen. You don't realise how spoiled we are in South Africa until you see how much people have to do for themselves in other countries. In Europe, they won't even take your credit card from you. You have to work the card machine all by yourself.
At the service station, we finally got to have the first really good coffee that we have had since coming to Europe (besides flavoured lattes, which aren't too hard to screw up). The best part is that a cappuccino here cost as much as it would in South Africa! We also each had focaccia for lunch, mine with pastrami and mozzarella, Nicole's with a veal schnitzel.
While the food and coffee were excellent, the service was significantly less so. When we walked in, there was a man and woman behind the counter, but pretty soon the woman left and the man had to take orders and payments, toast the sandwiches, and make the coffee all by himself. Excellent African-style planning, that. Moreover, he was extremely irritable and actually hissed at Nicole before telling her to get out of the way.
The public toilets are also a far cry from the super clean and classy Swiss ones, missing toilet seats, which is what the French public toilets were also like. To top it off, the toilet paper tears off in sheets the size of a tissue, so you need to take a few of them to be effective. It's a bit strange to be in fancy schmancy Europe and using South African toilets.
In Italy, the mountain villages look very different to the Swiss ones, but they are no less charming and the views are just as stunning. The drive along the Mediterranean coastline was especially gorgeous. It's just a pity that it is so difficult to take photographs from the moving coach, especially since there are often noise barriers up that block the view of the houses from the highway. On the highway, we already got to see our first Ferrari! Interestingly, it was black. I'm so used to seeing them looking very red.
As we were on our way, everyone had to suggest ideas for a tour theme shirt that we can have made. Nicole then collated those ideas into a design that was quite amusing, with "the world didn't end" written at the bottom! It's a slightly presumptuous design, though. After all, what if the world does end?
The sun is making such a big difference in terms of the weather. It feels so much warmer! It's the first time we have seen the sun since before we left South Africa (it was raining the day we left). Hopefully, the weather will help Nicole feel better, too. She started getting a sore throat a few days ago, and it has turned into a small cough now. She's started taking antibiotics, so hopefully it won't get worse. Quite a few people on the bus have picked up coughs, though.
We finally arrived in Nice and got to our hotel, which is a serious throwback from the 80s. Nevertheless, it was somewhere warm to spend the night. I was expecting Nice to be warm, but it was quite chilly. The funniest thing about our room is that it has these old lady looking quilted blankets and curtains in muted colours that is strongly contrasted with the garish carpeting. The walls are covered in fabric wallpaper, and the bathroom has shiny marbled tiles and powder blue basins, baths, and toilet.
I'd been planning to bare my legs for Monaco, but I ended up wearing tights with a dress I'd bought in Luzern the day before. Nicole looked amazing, and everyone was telling us how fantastic we looked, but she felt less glam than usual without her whole wardrobe at her disposal. Still, she looked incredible. If anyone was going to bag a billionaire in Monaco, it would be her.
The cobbled streets weren't too kind to our high heels as we headed to our restaurant for dinner. Monaco is very hilly, so there are a lot of steep ups and downs. We saw the church that Grace Kelly got married in to Monaco's previous prince - Albert's dad. Can you believe that such an unattractive man has Grace Kelly for a mother?
Dinner was very nice, with some great wines. We got a welcoming drink of Rose and then could enjoy red and white wines with our four course meal. We even got to choose what we wanted for each course. It has been quite strange for me to be eating all these multi-course meals without any sense of occasion to them. Often, we aren't dressed up, there are no speeches, we just eat and run. At least in Monaco, though, dinner felt a bit special. We sat with the South African Trio and even toasted to our fabulous night.
After dinner, we headed to the casinos, of which Monaco has plenty. The one we went to with some of the Australian girls was quite empty, though, and drinks were super expensive, so we hit the streets of Monaco and found a bowling alley, of all places, where some locals were hanging out. Even so, it was quite empty. Seems that December is a quiet time for the tiny principality.
When we finally got back to the hotel, Nicole wanted to go back to bed, but I succumbed to peer pressure in the lobby and dragged her off to Wayne's Bar with everyone else. The bar was very pubbish (the kind of thing we get in South Africa) and you get to dance on the tables there. Luckily Nicole and I had drinks bought for us, so we didn't need to spend any money. There was cover band that was really great and sang a lot of fun songs. Nicole got very hit on again (told you she looked gorgeous) so she is clearly a very big hit in Europe.
We ended up staying there quite late because we had no idea how to get home. When Joey, our driver, finally left, he set such a brisk pace that we really struggled to keep up with him, especially in our high heels. I stumbled at one point, banging my arm quite hard against some wrought iron fencing, which ended up as a painful and nasty bruise. Nicole actually fell and skinned both her knees. Needless to say, she wasn't impressed with me and my impulsive decision to drag her out.
It was 3am by the time we finally got our weary feet and bruised bodies into bed. As you can imagine, we slept like the dead that night, despite having a window overlooking a busy street. We're pretty much learning to sleep through anything, at this point.
No comments:
Post a Comment