Nice & Lyon

After a blissful few days in the tiny village of St Jeannet, we headed for the big city of Nice,negotiated our way to Nice airport (3rd biggest in France) to pick up Michelle & Zane who flew in from London to spend the week with us.
The weather here is superb, around 25°c and the beach was only a 5 min walk from our hotel.Everyday here is market day and the stalls are amazing, you can buy just about anything here.We found an ice-cream parlour called Finnochios which has 99 flavours of sorbet and ice cream.It was heaven on a hot day- although the cactus flavour sorbet was not the greatest taste experience.
So many great restaurants and cafes to go to made for a very cruisey day and evening.
A day trip to Monaco and further on to Menton was a real eye-opener. The money in Monaco spent on the super-yachts alone was enough to buy several small countries. None of us really liked it there as the city had no "heart"and it was all about looking good. The beaches there are great and Zane & I went swimming, with the locals having to don extra heavy duty sunglasses for glare of the kiwi boys with no tans.
Menton was less like Monaco, although very pretty and a real tourist town.
Back to reasonable reality in Nice Annie & I were in need of rest so spent the next day chilling out and doing something close to nothing. That night,well rested and rearing to go went wandering the city for food and entertainment. There were street artists everywhere but two proved to be exceptional and captured the attention of most passerby.One was a classical guitarist dressed in a bright coloured robe and wearing a venetian mask- who played the most amazing appegio (Spanish style) music. the other was a painter who used spray cans and torn cardboard,newspaper & plastic disks to create fantastic, surreal landscape portraits. We got there just as he was setting up, so got in early to order a painting that he made for us while we had a drink.
What a way to finish our stay in Nice.
Next day our journey continued north toward Paris, stopping in Aix en Provence (called Axe by the locals) for lunch. Ax is a beautiful little town, and like most french cities, steeped in history, but with little time to explore, had lunch wandered the markets and continued north. From here it was all A-roads (130 kph)to Lyon where we would stay the night. This was 4hrs of cruising at 130+ only stopping for the odd toll booth. All of a sudden the 130kph traffic would slow to 110 and the lanes would disappear with up to 20 tollbooths, some open some not, some reserved some not. It was like a free-for-all and the airport runway with cars, trucks & buses ducking & diving for their respective tollbooth. No-one in France seems to know how they charge at the tollbooths, so cost at each one is a complete mystery. One the other side the free-for-all starts again, much like a grand prix start, except no one wants to get behind a truck-or anyone else for that matter, so the sprint is for the outside lane 130kph ASAP. The little diesel Peugeot got bit of a workout here and gave some BMW's something to consider.
At a truckstop while getting diesel a couple tour buses came in loaded with very quiet Kiwis. Most still traumatised from their experience in Wales. As one guy said "it was an edge of your seat game... but I really didn't need that shit..."All in all they were in pretty good shape, bearing up to the rest of their tour.