We left Italy on Chris' birthday after cooking a nice fry up in the van, and were booked into a nice hotel in Monaco to celebrate in style! We had the van valet parked which was quite amusing and when the check-in staff saw on Chris' passport that it was his birthday they asked us if we wanted a free bottle of champagne - well we couldn't refuse that of course! The hotel was great but Monaco is pretty ugly and built up. We had a look around at the huge yachts, but mostly enjoyed the sun loungers by the pool. We decided we would like to do some exercise before pigging out at dinner, and the hotel staff directed us to a tennis club down the road. They wanted to charge us 70 euros for the court hire and we needed to buy balls and hire reackets on top! We left pretty swiftly hoping this wasn't a sure sign of how expensive the rest of our stay would be, and used the gym at the hotel instead!

We got dressed up, drunk our free champagne and had a great night out, but ended up with 70 cents between us! We had enjoyed a nice steak dinner and a few rounds at the Monte Carlo Casino, but it's fair to say luck wasn't really on our side, and we learnt the hard way about gambling more than you're prepared to lose!

The next day we had a very expensive but massive breakfast, trying to get good value for money somehow! We eventually dragged ourselves away from the terrace, and enjoyed the beach for a little while before we had to check out. The concierge brought the van round and we headed 20k down the coast to Nice.

We were meeting Chris' sister Jane and her husband Tim here for the weekend and more celebrations. Nice is far prettier than Monaco, but sadly most of the roads were being pulled up and tram lines being put down, so it was spoilt slightly. We enjoyed some nice meals out, an expensive cocktail in the famous and bizzare Negresco hotel, and some time in the sun on the beach. All in all a fairly relaxing couple of days and a nice social weekend without too much of a hangover to show for it!

We had our last croissant in France, and headed to Antibes for a spot of lunch. The main draw here is the marina with yet more ridiculously supersized yachts, most with their own geeps which were running erunds around town! The old town is far more quaint than Monaco though, and we had a look around the market, gathering a few supplies for more van-cooked meals.

It was time to follow the sun further south, and we made a stop at Palavas where Chris got a surf in; From there it didn't take long before we were baking in a small town called Roses in Spain. There was a lovely long beach here, which depending on conditions was set up for various watersports. The camp site we wtayed at was right on the beach and had a lovely pool and tennis courts. Unfortunately, the water and the heat also attracted the mosquitos, so one night was all we could handle! We were also squeezing in two days in Barcelona, so it was time to move on...

On arrival in Barcelona, we realised we were staying nowhere near the centre, and it was almost dinner time when we arrived and decamped, so we decided to stay local for the evening. We found a couple of locals tapas bars where you could get good local red wine and a tapas dish for a couple of euros. We didn't spend much and walked back pretty late and pretty merry!

The next day we got the bus in to the centre which took about 40 minutes, and so we were prepared to spend the whole day and night exploring.

Barcelona feels a lot like London, but has much Gaudi inspired architecture, and more informal bars. We walked everywhere, taking in the La Segrada Familia; a Gaudi gothic looking cathedral half of which is still a building site, the huge park in the centre, some shops of course, and I even got Chris into the Picasso museum! We stopped for plenty of refreshments along the way and Chris enjoyed reading the newspaper while I did a bit more sight/shop-seeing!

We changed tack about 5 o'clock, found a nice bar serving cava (the local champagne - very yummy) and oysters, so we took advantage of their special offer. This set the tone for the evening nicely but we really fancied a curry, and we'd had our fill of tapas the night before. We had a quick look on the internet and found a place just off the main street La Ramblas, run by Indians seemingly mainly for Indians so the food was great! We'd also found out about the flamenco shows happening nearby, and went to a small club afterwards which was putting on a show. It made us tired just watching it, and was very impressive, so once the show was over and we'd had a few more drinks, we declined the dancing lessons as the students filed in! We just about felt better by the time we checked out at midday the next day!