Southern France, Monaco, and Andorra (23 September - 4 October 2008)

Who loves road trips?! I sure bloody do! With the French Riviera and the Mediterranean Sea on the east, the beaches and wine of the west, and the Pyrenees mountains in the middle, the south of France is an awesome area to hire a car and screw it from coast to coast! And to add to the fun, Monaco - the second-smallest country in the world, and Andorra - the sixth-smallest country in the world, are also squished in there. I work with a few Frenchies (being a French company and all), and there was no shortage of tips and must-sees to squeeze into the 11 days Katie and I had to go nuts. Starting in Nice (pointed out) and finishing at Bordeaux, our approximate route is below...

Count 'em, four countries in 11 days: France, Monaco, Andorra, and Spain. It was going to be five (Italy - just east of Monaco), but due to circumstance time didn't allow.

And this was our weapon: a Volkswagen Golf Plus. I'm not sure what the difference is between the Golf Plus and the boring old Golf, but according to VW's website the Plus has 43 storage compartments hahaha (which would make it a great car for smuggling stuff across international borders!).		All of Europe (the UK excepted) drive on the right-hand side of the road, which I've done a few times in the US and Canada. But what I hadn't done before was to drive a manual in a left-hand drive vehicle (the hire cars in America are all automatics). I took to it though like a pro...		...while Katie had a somewhat more difficult time adapting hahaha! :)

Can't really blame the girl though. First time in a left-hand drive vehicle (a manual one too), first time on the right-hand side of the road, somewhat ambiguous (and sometimes just nonsensical) road signs...				...and farmer Brown creating obstacles with his pollution mobile etc.

Could be worse though, we could've hired a truck hehe.

One of my favourite things about travelling: the weird and wonderful food, and France is no exception. We couldn't find snails or frog legs on the menu of any of the restaurants we went to though (possibly because we're cheap and went to the wrong restaurants).

Food aside, they also love their plonk...		...and their ice cream. Oh man just look at that stuff - every flavour under the sun!

Click a link below to check out each region we visited...

		Nice
		Èze
		Monaco
		Cannes, St Marguerite, and St Tropez
		St Croix Lake, and Verdon Gorge
		Gordes, Avignon, Pont du Gard, and Montpellier
		Andorra
		Pau, San Sebastian (Spain), and Biarritz
		St Emilion, and Bordeaux

We arrived at Bordeaux airport to find the friggen plane was missing and were soon told we'd be delayed by about 90 minutes. I passed the time by attempting to scare little kids who kept playing with the vending machines, and Katie made origami out of an M&M wrapper hehe.				Eventually we were off and an hour or so later we were back in the land of consistently shit weather and disappointing summers.

In total we clocked up well over 2,000kms in the Golf Plus with its four million storage compartments and new front tyre, but in the process one of the rubber nose cones on my sunnies went missing, and my yellow board shorts completely vanished after I last wore them in the Caldea Spa in Andorra (probably those bloody gypsies in one of the camp sites!). Nevertheless I recommend you all go to France and hire a car (and try finding some snails or frog legs, and let me know how they are).