FRANCE – 2002

This July, my family and I decided to get a taste of French life as we had only seen small parts of France before and had never been there as a family. We took 3 weeks off to tour the country and our aim was to see the main places in that time. We decided it was best to drive so we could then go where we wanted. It took 6 hours to drive from my house near Wrexham to Dover where we took the ferry across to Calais. Very boring! We then drove to Paris which took about 2 to 3 hours. We stayed in Paris for 3 days and in that time saw many great things. We took a tour bus around the city visiting such things as the famous Eiffel tower which was spectacular, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Arc de Triomphe. My favourite part of the tour was definitely getting off at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees because it was full of designer shops and exciting restaurants.

PARIS – The Eiffel Tower MONTE CARLO MONACO

(View from the tour bus) Me standing in front of the famous casino My brother and I just outside the palace

After Paris we began the drive down towards the South. We left a couple of days so we could take our time and we stopped off at some small towns on the way. When we finally arrived in the south we stayed on a caravan site in between Monaco and Cannes. We stayed there for about 6 days and during that time we visited local towns, Monaco and Cannes. My favourite part was seeing Monaco as it was a gorgeous town. The weather was excellent and there were great things to see. Monaco is a very wealthy town and it showed. It was very clean and everything was beautiful. While we were there we saw the Palace of the Prince and Princess of Monaco, the part where the Le Mons Grand Prix is held including the Olympic sized swimming pool that is situated right in the centre which we swam in and Monte Carlo, a part of Monaco that has a famous casino, expensive restaurants and designer shops. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about Monaco so I definitely enjoyed visiting it. Another place we visited whilst staying at the caravan site was Cannes. It didn’t help that the weather was dreadful on the day we went there but apart from that I wasn’t impressed with it. I suppose I was comparing it with Monaco quite a bit but it was dirty, there were hardly any good shops and not many exciting places to eat.

Postcards from St Tropez + Cannes

After that caravan site we stayed in another on the Cote d’Azur near to St Tropez for about a week. The Cote d’Azur is a beautiful coastline that has many small sandy beaches along it which we visited. We drove along the coastline on our way to St Tropez and Port Grimaud. St Tropez was a nice town with good shops and restaurants and a beautiful port. The beach just outside the town was also very beautiful and the weather was great. Port Grimaud was also another beautiful place that resembled Venice as it was a town on water. Overall I didn’t like France as a country but preferred certain parts like Paris and Monaco and I think I’d go to those places again. Have you ever been to France? If so, what is your opinion of the country or certain parts of it? Where did you go and would you go again?

Let me know on clairelouise8@hotmail.com By Claire Watkins – Bishop Heber High School