Road trip through Europe: Èze, France

In summer, we did a 10 day road trip through parts of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. Our itinerary was: BerlinWeimarHeidelburgFreiburgLucerne Lake ComoLa-SpeziaCinque TerreBussana VecchiaMonaco – Éze – Gorges du Verdon – Moustiers-Ste-Marie – Valensole – Chamonix – Tübingen – Swäbisch Hall – Berlin.

On day 6 of our road trip, we drove from La Spezia in northern Italy to the Mediterranean coast of southeastern France – the French Riviera – where we would stop for the night in the charming medieval village of Éze. Before reaching Éze, we drove through Genova, stopped for a walk in the artists’ colony of Bussana Vecchia and took a quick walk around the principality of Monaco. It had thus been a busy day and we were tired, but we perked up as soon as we reached the pretty hilltop town of Éze, with its cobbled paths and stone buildings. Continue reading

Road trip through Europe: Monaco

In summer, we did a 10 day road trip through parts of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. Our itinerary was: Berlin – WeimarHeidelburgFreiburgLucerne Lake ComoLa-SpeziaCinque TerreBussana Vecchia – Monaco – Éze – Gorges du Verdon – Moustiers-Ste-Marie – Valensole – Chamonix – Tübingen – Swäbisch Hall – Berlin.

Having left Italy and crossed the border to France on Day 6, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves arriving at the Principality of Monaco, a sovereign city-state with an area of just over two square kilometres. For some reason, Monaco has always been pretty famous where I’m from (South Africa), despite being on the other side of the world, and a lot of the magazines carry stories on the royal family of Monaco. This only increased when the prince of Monaco married a former South African Olympic swimmer. The royal family, the house of Grimaldi (of Ligurian origin) have ruled Monaco since 1297. At any rate, when I knew we’d be passing right by Monaco, I was curious to stop for a quick look, and my husband was equally curious because of the famous Monte Carlo casino and its association with James Bond (007).

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