Emily, Aidan's sister, had seen a few postcards, and decided that Nice would be a nice (pardon the pun) place to rendezvous with us and Aidan's folks. We had a few days between leaving Italy and meeting everyone, so decided to spend it in Cannes, which is just a few kilometres further south of Nice.

Cannes is home to a famous annual film festival, and seemed to us like the Hollywood of France. It was a reasonably big city, although the neat little area near the harbour made it feel much smaller. The perfect little streets were lined with high profile designer clothes shops, boutique patisseries and trendy cafes. The most attractive thing about the place though was the lack of tacky souvenir shops or sleazy vendors. We felt a little less like tourists and a little more like famous undercover movie stars. The only difference was that we couldn't afford to do any shopping or even buy a meal at a restaurant.

It was lucky for us that Cannes had an amazing fresh food morning market, packed full of flowers, delicious cured meats, organic fruit and veg, wild mushrooms and irresistible fresh seafood! For one of our days we loaded our packs with oysters and some gourmet baguette fillings, and boarded a boat out to Ile Ste-Marguerite.

This small island contains some beautiful beaches, a small inland lake packed with birds and even a strip of mature eucalyptus trees. We couldn't resist crunching a few leaves for a breath of that distinctly Australian eucalyptus aroma! It was great to wander around the Island away from the mainland crowds. We stopped in a little forest grove to enjoy our fresh oysters and gourmet baguettes, and had a good wander around an old prison yard. Apparently the 'Man in the Iron Mask' was incarcerated here a few hundred years ago, for all you Hollywood movie buffs.

Before we left Cannes to meet the family, we took advantage of a couple of free drink vouchers that we had picked up for the casino. We were surprised to have a choice of anything on the menu! Sipping on a very generous amount of some incredibly strong French alcohol that we couldn't pronounce, we thought about how no matter where you go in the world, Casinos are always exactly the same!

We met Em and the folks in Nice, and enjoyed a good stroll around the boat harbour and waterfront while we caught up with everyone. We were going to ride trains the whole way around France and Spain, but at the last minute, we decided to rent a car for the next couple of weeks, to save time and gain a little bit more freedom.

On the way down towards Spain we stopped over in Toulon. This city was recommended to Rosy by a good friend and after we eventually found a hotel to stay, we stayed a couple of nights. Toulon was a very multicultural city, and we found ourselves eating more Lebanese than French cuisine! We weren't really sure what to look out for there, so we spent a day wandering around in search of a particular boat that the Moroccan hotel manager had told us about. We were proud to eventually find the boat, although it was actually just a small part of a big marble statue!

We're crossing into Spain now, in a spacious German Opel Zafira that we've nicknamed 'Splendid', and preparing ourselves for another language to learn and some good tapas and sangria!