Home to Menton

After Max's morning training session we decide to leave a day earlier than originally planned. It should be a gentle ride to our first stop.

I call the UK to check that mum was ok. She wonders how we will get on now that the channel ports are blocked, silence.............Mum, we will not be going anywhere near the channel........oh, ok then, drive carefully.

Through Nimes and straight onto the autoroute, set the cruise control to 2500 rpm and settle back. France is one of the few places (Death Valley USA also springs to mind) where cruise control really comes into its own. With the odd exception it is a real pleasure to drive on French motorways. We sail through the toll booths, feeling quite superior not having to mix with the ordinary folk, using the reserved lane for Telepeage customers. With an attitude like mine , it's no wonder they had a revolution in France.

The towns we pass sound like a roll call of the faded past, St Tropez, Antibes, Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo. I have visited Cannes a few times, mainly to organise and run a tennis tournament as part of the weekend activities for the house party for a very wealthy man - don't we all? - you do have to mix in the right circles, don't you know. Anyway Cannes was vile and we couldn't wait to get out. It was full of obnoxious people (ok so I didn't meet everyone in Cannes) wearing leopard skin tights, white high heels, carrying small beribboned dogs and with bright red lipstick, that you could graciously say, had been put on in a hurry - and that was just the men!

Menton seemed quite a nice place at first glance but we didn't stay long enough to explore further. Trees, laden with oranges, line the route into town and the Hotel Paris-Rome, 79 Porte de France, on the sea front, was also quite sweet. The hotel had a restaurant downstairs and it was here that the disappointment began. The meal including one and a half bottles of wine came to 150 euros. The food, at best, was mediocre and our overpriced Corsican wine was very ordinary. As a general rule, run a mile when a restaurant serves its food on square glass coloured plates with jus drizzled around the edge. Far too much attention to how attractively the food is presented and not enough on the quality of the food. Hey ho.