Day 1 – Flying Bristol to Nice

We had been feeling guilty that our kids were the only ones in their class who had never been on a plane! We had travelled around the UK but had never taken them abroad so this year we booked to go to the South of France.

We were flying with Easy Jet, from Bristol Airport and our flight was super early so we had to be at the airport for about 5am which meant setting an alarm for 3.30am!

^{Arriving at Bristol Airport in ‘the middle of the night’!}

We had given ourselves plenty of time but the queues to check in were horrendous. By the time we’d got through security there was barely time to get a cup of tea before we had to be on the plane!

We arrived in Nice around lunchtime and went to pick up the hire car. Everyone else on the plane had the same idea as it took about two hours. Once we drove off we couldn’t get the Sat-Nav system to work so ended up driving around the one-way system about 4 times!!! We finally sorted it and headed towards our property.

We stopped at a service station to pick up some lunch but the thunderstorms came in and we had to shelter as the rain was too heavy to run back to the car.

It cleared up pretty quick and we made our way to our holiday home. We’d booked it on ‘Cottages For You’ and it was a beautiful villa with a swimming pool and boules court outside. There was an outbuilding with a BBQ and sound system that we connected to our phones so we had music at the pool. The kids also found some pool floats in one of the sheds which they loved.

^{Our holiday home for the next week}

Day 2 – Promenade des Anglais

Today we headed into Nice to the Promenade des Anglais. Stu and I had visited before the kids were born and had stayed at The Negresco so wanted to show Tom and Izzy.

At the end of the Promenade there was a hill which we decided to climb. We walked past a waterfall and from the top there were the most beautiful views over Nice.

^{Views over Nice from the top of Castle Hill}

If we looked over the other side there were views of the neighbouring Port Lympia. You could also see a pier which we decided to go for a walk along.

^{Port Lympia and the Pier}

Day 3 – Verdon Gorge

Someone Stuart had been working with recommended we visited the Verdon Gorge – which was an area we had never heard of before. We did a bit of research and learned it was a huge river canyon and had been described as the ‘Grand Canyon of Europe’.

We planned a route and headed up into the mountains. Our first stop was a town called Castellane. We arrived mid morning so had to eat our lunch although the bread we had bought was really tough. There were kids playing in the river and we thought it would be lovely to come back and spend some more time here.

^{River at Castellane and a church which we didn’t climb to!}

We drove for a further 20 minutes and found a stopping place so Tom and Izzy could go and play. They got really excited as we found a lizard!

We then carried on to a small hillside town called Rougon as we had heard you could spot vultures and there was a viewing point. Rougon was full of narrow streets and pretty buildings. We looked for the viewing point and followed a path which led us to a cliff edge – we knew we’d made a mistake when we saw all the warning signs and went back through the town to find the proper viewing point with the help of a small child.

We then picked up the main road and headed along the gorge to Pont de Saunte Croix. There were lots of viewing points along the road and you could see vultures circling in the air along the cliff faces.

^{Verdon Gorge}

At Pont de Sainte Croix the gorge opens out into a lake. The water is so blue and the lake is full of people boating and kayaking. We had a quick paddle in the lake before heading home.

^{Sainte Croix}