We got up this morning for one last car trip to Eze, Monaco and the peninsula of Cap-Ferrat. We decided first thing to eat breakfast at Eze so we got out pretty early and headed to the (intact!) car and took the Moyenne Corniche again to Eze-Ville. We found a parking spot this time and headed to the Tourist Info center close by to get a map and get oriented to the direction to the hilltop village. This is a similar village to St. Paul de Vence in that it was a medieval walled city on a hill but the biggest difference was its commanding views of the riviera below from Italy to Nice. We mad our way up the steep hill to the entrance to the city and just inside the walls and only gate was a little cafe with a breakfast special so we stopped and ate. Being early we spent most of breakfast watching workers bringing in the supplies for the stores above in the village. Unfortunately though we beat most of the tourists to the town while eating lunch the first bus loads of cruise tourists arrived. When we finished breakfast we decided to basically head to the top of the town and work our way down. We went straight to the cathedral which was built in the 1700s and was a very nice cathedral and very pretty on the inside. We strolled quickly through the cemetery and about this time Becky realized we hadn’t paid the fee in the parking lot below. Being lazy at heart I convinced her to just let it be and we moved on up the hill to the chateau ruins and the Jardins Exotique which cost 6 euros to enter. At first seeing the cacti planted about and the steep steps still leading up I wondered for a few minutes if it was worth the cost but upon gaining altitude especially when we arrived at the top the view was worth every penny. We spent time looking around all sides and taking pictures and then headed down to see the other sites. We did miss a turn somewhere and missed another overlook but having come from the ultimate overlook at the top we decided we had seen enough and headed down to the car. Becky was very relieved to find no boot or ticket on the car and we quickly headed out and on to Monaco.

In Monaco our goal was to see the Prince’s car collection museum so we tried to use Google to find it which had mixed results so we decided to just park at a likely garage and look around. After figuring out that the museum was indeed in the “mall” that we found above our garage we wandered a bit through it and finally found the right elevators to get to the museum entrance. The car museum was amazing. He had all sorts of luxury cars from all makes and models and ages but the highlight for me were the race cars. He had several cars from different racing disciplines but again for me the several F1 cars he had were the tops for me. After seeing everything in the museum we decided to head to Cap-Ferrat and eat lunch in St. Jean Cap-Ferrat before looking around and driving around the peninsula.

After a bit of a “big ben, parliament” moment on a couple of roundabouts in Monaco we got on the right road to head to Cap-Ferrat which is the Basse Corniche (Lower Corniche) which was the only one I hadn’t driven yet so that was another off of the checklist. We arrived in St. Jean and found parking (and paid this time after almost forgetting) and headed to a recommended lunch spot only to find it was closed until dinner (it was about 2p). We headed back up the port area and found a cafe and grabbed a quick lunch. After lunch we walked around the harbor area admiring the view and the boats then headed back to the car and drove around the Cap. After finishing our circuit we went back to Nice where I dropped off Becky at old town to take most of our stuff back to the apartment and I went to return the car to the rental agency.

After returning from returning the car we rested for a bit then went out for a walk and dinner and decided on  a little take out pizza place near our apartment and took the pizza to the beach and ate and watched the waves. We finished our walk with a visit to the ice cream place and then turned in for the night.

Tomorrow the plan is to head into Italy and the town of Ventmiglia on the border then if we have time we will likely go to Menton another coastal town between Monaco and Italy.