We arrived in a caravan park situated about half an hour south of Cannes and from here we could easily explore the French Riviera. We arrived at the caravan park around lunchtime, set up and then headed straight out to start exploring. We drove up the freeway to Cannes had a look around the town and then drove back down the coast road to the caravan park. Cara fell asleep on the drive so we didn't get a chance to get out and wander around too much. The drive along the coastline is beautiful.

The next day we drove up to Monaco, and saw all the sites - the casino in Monte Carlo, the marina with both very large and very small boats, all the fancy sports cars, Maseratis, Ferraris, Porches, Aston Martins, Bentleys, (Loche also wants me to add in the Range Rovers). We parked near the marina and had a walk around. Nearby there were fair stalls set up and Cara was the first to spot the boat rides so we gave her a ride on these, which she loved. We had a walk around the shops then back into the car down the coast road to Nice. On the way, we stopped at the top of one of the headlands to get some photos and found a track down to some hidden beaches - they are hidden, but everyone knows about them. There are people everywhere here, you can not find a secluded beach anywhere. The beaches are generally full of stones, not sand and wherever there is a spare patch of stones, there will be a body (or 3) lying on them.

We kept driving and soon arrived in Nice. Loche was quickly able to hone in on the marina, where we managed to get a park and had a walk around. Out of all the towns, Nice was our favourite, maybe because it wasn't as crowded. We found a pub and sat down to have a glass of wine overlooking the water.

One the way back to the caravan park we saw a roadside takeaway pizza (out of a van) and decided to have pizza on the beach. We picked up our pizzas and drove to the nearest beach, just expecting it to be like home - find a nice park overlooking the beach with a picnic table to eat our pizza. We got to the beach and found a very busy, crowded esplanade buzzing with life. The streets and pathways were lined with market stalls, there were no picnic areas at all and no car parks. It was about 8pm and the markets were just coming to life. We found a car park further up the road that was right next to a sailing club. We sat on the jetty overlooking the water and ate our pizzas in relative peace. We drove back through the markets to get home and they were even busier and it was by now about 10pm.

We were due to leave the next day but decided to stay a few days longer; we'd been going at a fairly fast pace, either moving caravan parks or out sightseeing. We really needed to give Cara a day or two rest from the car. So the next day we didn't do too much at all - went for a swim, caught up with family on Skype and generally had a laze around. The following afternoon we went for a drive down to St Tropez, the traffic was start stop most of the way with everyone heading in the same direction. Sometimes it's good to be here in the busy season because everything is full of life and the atmosphere is great, but other times you just get over the crowds.