Today is our last day with the rental car. Tomorrow was supposed to be the last day with the rental car, but the rental car has proven to be quite a hassle between parking fees, a scolding and near-ticket event in Monaco, a broken window, 877 roundabouts (after today), and a lot of “rerouting” on the navigation systems. We’ll just take busses and trains for the rest of the trip, thank you very much.

Today we drove to Eze-le-Village to start the day. We started early enough that we were able to find parking easily at the Tourist Information center. We parked and started up the mountain to where the Chateau (castle) previously stood. All that remains of the castle now are ruins, but the Old Town that surrounds the ruins is very pretty and was similar to that of St Paul De Vence that we visited yesterday.

We stopped for a petit dejeuner (breakfast) – which in France seems to consist of bread with a side of bread and some coffee. In this case, it also included a chocolate chip cookie – figure that one out. About halfway up the mountain, we started to wonder if we weren’t supposed to have paid for parking before we started up. So far, we’ve been accustomed to parking decks in which you take a ticket on the way in and settle up on the way out. You normally can’t get into the parking lots/garages without first taking the ticket. This parking lot was different in that you just went on in and parked.

By this time, after having stopped for breakfast, we were an hour into our visit, so decided that if we were going to be ticketed or towed, the damage had likely been done. Charles suggested we enjoy the rest of the tune before we faced the potentially harsh reality of paying the piper, so we finished our hike up the mountain.

We stopped partway up to check out another cathedral (the highlight of which were the pilasters which we could tell apart from columns thanks to James) and cemetery, then continued on up the top of the hill to where the chateau once stood, stopping along the climb at various lookout points to admire the view and check to see if our car was in the parking lot below (unfortunately, our spot was nearly always obscured by trees, keeping the mystery alive). In the place where the chateau stood is a cactus garden, which you can view for 6 euros per person. We were both a little hesitant at first, especially considering the potentially expensive fate that might have been awaiting us in the parking lot. However, we paid the money and it turned out that the garden was beautiful, but the view was among the best we’ve had during our trip – well worth the money.

After enjoying the garden, we went back down the hill, choosing a different path that we thought would let us see more of the chateau ruins. What it actually showed us was the back side of Old Town, which was very pretty, but involved a lot of going downhill only to go back uphill again. We eventually made our way back to the parking lot to discover that we were, in fact, supposed to pay for parking. Fortunately, our car was still there and there was no ticket on the windshield or boot on the tires, so we peeled out of the parking lot and giggled halfway to Monaco…

… until…

…  we found more roundabouts. We had a heck of a time trying to find the parking deck recommended for the Prince’s Car Collection, which was our intended destination as we’d not had a chance to check it out during our previous visits to Monaco. Eventually, we found the parking deck, but once parked could not seem to find our way OUT of the parking deck on foot. “Where’s the daggum SORTIE in this place?” Then once out of the parking deck, couldn’t seem to find our way through the shopping center to the museum.

Eventually we did find it and were not disappointed. Even I enjoyed myself, despite not being particularly interested in cars. Each car was marked with the make and year, so I found it interesting to watch the car styles evolve over time and try to guess which decade each car was from. We also noticed that there were almost no cars in the collection made between 1941 – 1945, during the heat of WWII.

After finishing up at the car museum, it was lunchtime. There were several options in the shopping center, but Rick Steves had recommended in the book to eat lunch in St Jean Cap Ferrat, which was our next destination, so we decided to wait and eat there. We wandered through the parking deck until we found our way back to our car, then went back and forth between a couple of roundabouts until we found our way out of the loop and on to Cap Ferrat.

In Cap Ferrat, we eventually found public parking, got out of our car, and began our march to Captain Cook, one of the restaurants recommended in the book. Halfway up the hill, we started to wonder if we were supposed to have paid for parking. This time we decided that we SHOULD turn back around and make sure and sure enough… SO we paid for parking and then retraced our steps back up the hill.

We got there – only to find out that they were no longer serving lunch and would not open back up until dinner. The Frenchies outside of Nice are pretty strict about meal times, which we confirmed today. We headed back down, since there was a grocery store near where we’d parked. We figured we could buy supplies for a picnic lunch on the waterfront. But alas, that too was closed.

Around the corner was a restaurant – which appeared to be our only option if we wanted to eat lunch in St Jean. It marketed itself as a “French Restaurant”, advertising full menus at a price that was a bit steep for lunch prices, but we figured the cost of a “plat” (main course) by itself would be more reasonable. We were both pretty hungry by this point, not having eaten since our bread-with-a-side-of-bread many hours ago, so we decided to give it a shot.

Charles had some very rare steak and I had octopus spaghetti – because those were the advertised specials and the only reasonably priced items on the menu. I’m not sure how French the cuisine was – as the restaurant played only American jazz classics and served us complimentary sushi upon seating us. Both meals were enjoyable, though – and we dined al fresco with a pleasant breeze on the waterfront overlooking the harbor and the mountain on which Eze is situated.

After lunch, we went for a short walk along the waterfront. And I do mean a short walk, as we only had 20 minutes until our parking ran out. On the way back to the car, we discovered that the grocery store was now open (of course), so stopped in to grab some supplies for the apartment, including this “roadie” of wine.

We drove back to Nice and mostly ignored the navigation systems’ instructions, making the ride home much more pleasant than was the ride there (or maybe it was the wine roadie). Charles dropped me off in old town to go drop off the rental car so that we’d only have to pay for one tram ticket back from the car drop-off. I was a little worried about him making it to the rental car drop-off without my indispensable navigation skills, but it turns out my nail-biting is more dispensable than I thought as he made it back without incident.

We were both too worn out from our lunch experience to make it through another formal French dining experience, so picked up a pizza and took it to the beach to eat at sunset. Tonight’s ice cream flavors: orange and vanilla.