I just got back from holiday in France en famille, where we stayed in a bizarre kind of resort complex in Cap D'Ail - that's between Nice and Monoco on the south coast for those whose mediterranean geography is a little under polished.  I say bizarre because the whole complex (which was made up of a load of 2, 4 and 6 people apartments) is like a kind of concrete stilted village set into the side of a very steep hill:

Costa Plana

We chose the site for the simple reason that it had a pool - Georgia decided that she wasn't happy staying in a hotel that only had access to the sea - cuh! - kids today...

The site was very French, and wasn't really geared up for people turning up sans voiture, but for me that was one of the fun parts of the holiday - having to negotiate public transport to get around.  Taxi's were hideously expensive and so were only used when essential - like getting to the site from the airport and taking our bags to the station on the way back.  We used trains to go to Italy for the day and also to travel back to Nice on our way home, and buses to get to both Monaco (twice) and Nice.  Out of the two modes, buses surprisingly won out on the basis of being air conditioned and reliable. 

There was definitely something odd going on with the bar on site though - this seemed to be run for the benefit of the bar manager's family and friends, and ran out of beer, coke, red wine, sprite and pizzas in the middle of the week, and the whole thing was locked up on the day we left.  I have a sneaking feeling that the bar manager had fallen out with the resort management. Ho hum.

Cap D'Ail is basically the next town along from Monaco although there is a very obvious border between the two, so a 15 minute bus ride meant we could (ok  I could ) indulge in Ferrari spotting from the terrace overlooking the Monte Carlo swimming pool complex in the very sunny weather that was happening at the time.  I even saw an Enzo being blatted round the corners, the driver clearly having decided that speed limits were not for him .  One thing that struck me was exactly how small the roads are - and how many concrete buildings sit right on the edge of the F1 circuit.

We stayed in and around Cap D'Ail for a week and then had an additional night in downtown Nice before flying back last night.  If that sounds a bit odd too, it was basically because the EasyJet flights were so much more expensive on Saturday, we could afford another night in Nice (this time in an air conditioned apartment ) and still have change out of what we would have spent returning a day sooner. 

After a week of scorchio temperatures of around 30-34C it was almost nice to get back to the drizzle and 17C of Liverpool last night. 

Oh and I finished Harry Potter in a day and a half