As we decided to check out of this suite and move into another suite, we took advantage of the garden in the meantime.
Relaxing
Getting ready to wash the locally grown strawberries
We then moved to the new suite named after Jean Cocteau. Jean Cocteau, (born July 5, 1889, Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris, France—died October 11, 1963, Milly-la-Forêt, near Paris), French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter. Some of his most important works include the poem L’Ange Heurtebise (1925; “The Angel Heurtebise”); the play Orphée (1926; Orpheus); the novels Les Enfants terribles (1929; “The Incorrigible Children”; Eng. trans. Children of the Game or The Holy Terrors) and La Machine infernale (1934; The Infernal Machine); and his surrealistic motion pictures Le Sang d’un poète (1930; The Blood of a Poet) and La Belle et la bête (1946; Beauty and the Beast).
In France restaurants usually start service at 12 noon until 2:30pm then reopen in the evening at 6pm (varies restaurant to restaurant, but those the are general rough times)
So around 1pm we drove to Loving Hut in Menton.
A fantastic dish, that is why you do not see a single bit of food left!
Delicious vegan cheesecake
On the way back to Eze, we decided to take the middle corniche road.
Three”Corniche” roads, said to be “Lower, Middle and Upper or Grand” considering their different altitudes, lie between Nice and Monaco.
The Lower one culminates 150 ft above sea level and from Nice, leads to the little fishing port of Villefranche that boasts such a beautiful bay ; after Cap Ferrat, the millionaires’ peninsula, the road enters the little resort of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, that became very chic and fashionable at the Turn of the Century. From Beaulieu through the section of “Little Africa” at the foot of very impressive cliffs, the Lower road crosses Eze on Sea, then Cap d’Ail and its crystal clear little inlet. That’s the last French town before entering the Principality of Monaco.
More recent, the Middle road, offers incredible views at all the little resorts mentioned before and leads to the “eagle nest” village of Eze culminating 1200 ft above sea level.
The Upper Road, a strategic road and the older one, offers great views as well, but doesn’t cross any city center, except the one of La Turbie, little town just above Monaco, renowned for its Roman trophy : built in 6 B.C., this monument is unique among all the world’s Roman remains presently known.
The Upper Road leads finally to the perched village of Roquebrune.
We seemed to take a wrong turning at one point which was a blessing as we ended up on windy roads with stunning vistas and then onto a quaint windy road to Sospel.
The town dates back to the 5th century, when it served as an important staging post on the royal road from Nice to Turin. The old toll bridge used by travellers to cross the Bevera, built in the 13th century, still stands. It was bombed by the Germans during World War II to prevent contact between the French Resistance (“The Maquis”) and the Italians. Much of the town was destroyed. Renovated after World War II it now houses the tourist office. Ruins of a tower, part of a château belonging to the counts of Provence, are all that remain of the 14th century city walls.
On the way to Sospel
We wanted to park up to view the amazing sights, it ended up being somebodies garden!
On the way to Sospel I saw a snake crossing the road! It came as a bit of a shock.
Sospel
People here seemed very surprised to see us, it does not seem many tourists visit this place. They were very friendly and smiled and said bonjour! It was fun to watch a game of French Boules being played by the locals in the park.
Boules is a collective name for a wide range of games in which the objective is to throw or roll heavy balls (called boules in France, and “bocce” in Italy) as close as possible to a small target ball.
Boules-type games are traditional and popular in France, Italy and Croatia, and are also popular in some former French colonies. In those countries, boules games are often played in open spaces (town squares and parks) in villages and towns. Dedicated playing areas for boules-type games are typically large, level, rectangular courts made of flattened earth, gravel, or crushed stone, enclosed in wooden rails or back boards.
In the south of France, the word boules is also often used as a synonym for pétanque.
As Italy is only 8km away we decided to drive there.
An Italian village
We drove to Italy, down to Ventimiglia on the Italian coast then back to France.
Back to Menton
We decided to enjoy a takeaway in our suite this evening. Previously when entering Menton we saw an Indian restaurant called Indian Moods, we walked to the restaurant, as we saw it was a halal restaurant we decided to go back to Le Taj for a takeaway. On the way we passed a nice fruit and vegetable shop where we stocked up on locally grown apples and a fruit similiar to blood-satsuma.
We placed our takeaway order at Le Taj
Then went for a wander, since coming to France I have been wanting to eat fresh bread, the lady at Le Taj told us where we can get some so we searched for the boulangerie (bakery.) On the way we saw a live performance by a very good local band:
It was a fantastic and lively atmosphere, so good to see people dancing and enjoying themselves, without the need for drink!
The search for my bread continues!
Woohoo, found some.
On the way back to the hotel we passed Carrefour.
Carrefour S.A. is a French multinational retailer headquartered in Boulogne Billancourt, France, in Greater Paris. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world (with 1,452 hypermarkets at the end of 2011, the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue, and the third largest in profit (after Wal-Mart and Tesco). Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, Argentina, Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but also has shops in North Africa and other parts of Asia, with most stores being of smaller size than hypermarket or even supermarket. Carrefour means “crossroads” and “public square” in French. Previously the company head office was in Levallois-Perret, also in Greater Paris.
There we bought water, fruit smoothie and snacks.
Back at the hotel we ate whilst watching a movie called Short Cuts, wish I could tell you what it was about but whilst watching we felt sleepy, probably because the movie had a very slow start!
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