The French Riviera

Last weekend we took a trip to the French Riviera. The main reason to go was the Monaco Formula 1 GP.
We started off Thursday morning headed for Marseilles, the great port city of France.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

Then we traveled along the coast towards St-Tropez, deemed to be the pearl of the Mediterranean. Well people who say that surely haven't ever been in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I'm not saying St-Tropez is not nice, but to be honest "the best beach on earth"... come on, we could name at least a dozen of beaches we personally have been on, which would come before the beaches of St-Tropez. It appeared rather that the cars:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

and the yachts:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

are what give St-Tropez its name.

Let us focus rather on the amazing views along the coast:

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

The next day we went to Monaco, see the dedicated post to the Formula 1 GP here.

In the evening we joined my brother who was attending the Cannes Film Festival.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

We had a nice evening together, Zsolt showing us around Cannes, knowing all the nice places since the Cannes film festival is not held without him for the last 7-8 Years.

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

Sunday we headed back to Zurich passing the most amazing highway we have ever seen: the A8 between Nice - Genoa"

From EUROPE - FRANCE - French Riviera

We have a challenge for you:
How many tunnels did we pass through during this weekend?
A: 0-10
B: 11-50
C: 51-100

the first to post the correct answer wins a 1965 bottle of Tennessee Bourbon.

See all our pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/zoli.gyenge/EUROPEFRANCEFrenchRiviera#

Weekend getaway to the French Riviera

This last trip was a great surprise from my wife. On my birthday all the information I had, is to pack my luggage since we are travelling to warmer places. I only found out where we are going on the airport, at the check in counter where it was already inevitable.

Thursday evening we landed in Nice, a very beautiful resort on the French Riviera.We have spent here the entire Friday and Sunday till noon. The weather was very warm, but unfortunately the water was still quite cold to swim.


















On Saturday we visited the glamorous Principality of Monaco. We arrived there in the middle of their preparations for the F1 Grand Prix. It is amazing that they manage to build the entire infrastructure of a racing circuit within a few weeks. We visited in turn the Marina region, the Monaco Ville with the Prince's Palace, and the Museum of Oceanography. After that we walked along most of the GP circuit with a detour at the Japanese Gardens, all the way to Monte-Carlo with its famous Casino and Cafe& Hotel Paris.


















On Sunday we spent a few more hours on the beach, after an unsuccessful attempt to go to Eze (a marathon in Nice proved to stop all buses in and around Nice, whose public transportation we found to be a total disaster thus we almost missed our flight).
In early afternoon we returned to Switzerland where we were glad to see that at least here all public transportation is reliable.




More pics:
Nice
Monaco