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Waving good to Nice and France we boarded the Venice Express train with a full day of travel ahead of us… oh dear.  Comparing a French train to an Italian one is like comparing an award winning dentist and a guy with a hammer: they can both remove teeth but there are varying degree’s of cleanliness and pain one might think about before choosing.
Not knowing what to expect we had paid the extra Euro’s an opted for first class.  Turns out on Italian trains that baggage is more for hand luggage then suit cases.  The only place to store luggage is above your head, and now I’m glad we stayed under the 20kg limit set by our International Airplane restrictions.  A Japanese couple sharing the 6 seater-cabin didn’t dare put their luggage on the racks and instead opted to squeeze them between their legs.

For those that are keen on bringing their pooch, First class in Italy allows you to bring dogs with you;  I was wondering why there was so much hair on my seat until I found a few Germain Shepards eating some Salami a few seats down from us.  Don’t worry, you only have to pay a third of the seat price for your K9 companions.

Cara was a bit annoyed as she was looking forward to viewing the Italian country side as we power through on the train, but alas the Italian’s think dust is a protective layer and is best kept on.  So we had a view kinda similar to a cataract ridden 70 year old with Vaseline smeared on their eyes.

The people on the train though were fun to listen in on.  A bunch of Americans sitting in a nearby cabin were postively HOLLERING and were speaking to some Kiwi’s. 
I tried my best much to my amusement to speak the little Japanese I could to our cabin buddies.  Unfortunately the only thing in memory I had was Nils’ youtube videos of Jnglish speaking girls saying the rudest things. 

We changed trains in Milano to head over to Venice with the second train being a lot newer and quiter then the previous one and watched a movie on my Macbook called “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.  I didn’t realise the context of the film nor the darkness of it, but i was glad I was travelling to Italy instead of Germany watching it… 

Eventually we arrived to a slightly chilly Venice and grabbed a public boat to take us near our hotel.  I didn’t realise that cars/bikes are almost non-existent here due to the lack of space and water.  Boats are the way to go, and we met some lovely Americans spending their short holidays in Europe. 

Dragging our bags around the bustling streets we shortly found our Hotel, and here’s a piccy of the reception.

Don’t worry, the room is actually pretty spacious!  The biggest room so far we’ve had in Europe.  My only complaint is the lack of elevator and three flights of small stair cases.  Poor Cara is going to have to take some more pain killers for her hips… or just drink enough until the pain goes away.

In any case… WE’RE IN VENICE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Ding ding, we woke up in Nice again and luckily the bed bugs didn’t bite. Not so for some guests a floor below us however as I overheard in the lobby an Indian lady complaining furiously about ‘insects biting me on my bum at night’… I just hope the sheets from room 318 get mixed with ours…

Revving up the Citeron C3′s diesel engine we shot of to Europe’s second smallest country Monaco. Taking a long windy and leisurely way via the sea was enjoyable. The C3 doesn’t offer the best driving experience but it is a car and I was so happy to be driving around again with my partner (err, Wife!?) through these foreign roads.

Monaco has one of the highest amount of police and it shows, as soon as we entered the city/country we noticed quite an influx of coppers. We did a ‘slow’ lap around the famous hair-pin turn and followed around the Monaco F1 track. After cruising the streets for an hour or so we found a park in the centre of Monaco, the Casino.

The first photo above show us as we were about to head towards the Casino and the latter is looking back towards the mountains surrounding Monaco. Apart from gambling and spending copious amounts of money there isn’t that much to see here. So we did as the Monacians do and spent an insane amount of money…. on ICECREAM!

The above photo show’s that Cara’s eyes are bigger then her stomach. It doesn’t give a good perspective here on how big these deserts were, safe to say that they had enough calories to sink a small ship. But tasty…. oh so tasty….

There is one other thing that Monaco has and that is ludicrously expensive cars parked in front of Hotel’s as badges of honour. Lambourgini’s Diablo’s, Ferrari’s from the 60′s, Ford GT’s, Porsche 911′s, you name it and it was there. I was surprised people were so brazen with touching and leaning on these insane machines, but then again I suppose the owners don’t mind showing us mere mortals there wealth.

Searching for a different High Life, we shot out of Monaco in search of a mountain. It has been Cara’s dream that we find a quite little place somewhere to share a bottle of Vin together. What we found was a town called Eze, and on top of that a Castle that was even older then Gourdon. This castle has approximately a bazillion steps, and the further we climbed through it’s streets the more in love we fell with it. It was around 6pm when we arrived, so by then the Castle’s shops were closed and most of the tourists have left.

Perfect for us honeymooner’s to loose ourselves inside the castle walls.

I’m so happy we’ve found these little Castle’s, even though there’s really not much to ‘do’ in there we can soak up the atmosphere and awe of how people lived in the past. That and sneak in a kiss or two looking out to the mountains below. If I ever come back to France I want to spend a night or two in one of these relics.

We never did find a mountain to have a little drink but we did have a nice view of the city of Nice during sunset on our way home…

Tired and hungry we found a small Restaurant with a bit of character to it that suited our stye; a nice escape from the endless Cafe’s and Pizza joints in the area. I ate an -awesome- Beef Stew ‘Nice style’ that was like a slow cooked meal there! There was a form of Karoke there as well, with a musician playing on a keyboard offering people to come up and sing. We both declined not wanting to damage the Patron’s ear drum’s with our out of tune melody’s… but after a wine or two we were quite applauding of the efforts from others.

The keyboardist noted our nationality and in response to our drunken claps managed to play a ‘version’ of Advance Australia Fair! Our job is done, Cara and I managed to sing the Australian Anthem in a little old bar in Nice.