Di and Cam

We had planned our trip to Marseille before we even left NZ so were filled with anticipation at the chance to watch the All Blacks play away from home. Luckily, our rugby tickets arrived safe and sound at Cam's parents' house and Ron kindly brought them over for us on one of his London trips.

Our 'summer holiday' kicked off with a very early start (4am) and we only just survived the trip to the airport with our crazy taxi driver. We flew to Nice with the extended Steven family and stored our bags on arrival to spend the morning exploring the city. After walking through the city and along the waterfront we headed to the train station and jumped on a train bound for Marseille. Unfortunately we both slept for most of what was a beautiful coastal trip, but we did have the opportunity to see it again on the way back on our way to Italy.

We met up with Jo and Dan (recently engaged) for a look around the old port of Marseille and enjoyed dinner of moules and frites (mussels and fries).

The next morning we explored the port area by day and then traipsed up to Notre-Dam-de-la-Garde, an amazing church overlooking the city. After soaking up the views from the church we headed back down to the port and caught a bus around the waterfront (quite similar to St Heliers - Mission Bay) and promptly found a small man-made sand beach (all the natural beaches along this part of the coast are pebble and a bit rough on the feet).

Laura and Mark arrived by train that evening, and we had dinner together and watched the RWC Opening Ceremony - terrible! - and Argentina beat France in the first game - excellent!!!

Up early the next day and off to breakfast in the hotel having donned the All Black supporters' "uniform". We met the Stevens in at the port and stopped for some photo opportunities on the way to the game...

The crowds arriving at the stadium were huge and we battled our way into the grounds having met up with Alan to give him his tickets. The atmosphere in the stadium was awesome and there was live music, singing etc. You can see for yourselves...

A boozy night followed and we said our goodbyes to Chris and Gill (who are now making their way back to NZ, via South Africa, for their wedding in March next year). It was a slow start the following morning before heading down to the beach with a picnic lunch. Jo, Dan, Laura, Mark, Cam and I had a fantastic meal on the last night together before they all headed back to London...

Cam and I moved to a hotel closer to the port centre, caught up on some laundry (yawn!) and wandered about before meeting up with Cam's parents (Barb and Ron). Another walk up to Notre-Dam-de-la-Garde and our stay in Marseille was almost over.

Barb and Ron had driven a rental car from Marseille airport, so the following morning we headed North to a small town, Aix-en-Provence (recommended by my workmate Kirsten as her boyfried Billy had spent his gap year there after school):

After a Movenpick icecream and several postcards we were on our way to Nice via Toulon, St Tropez, St Raphael and a number of other small seaside resort towns in between. The Cote d'Azur is an incredibly beautiful and varied area. Each of the resorts that we passed through had its own character and we could have spent weeks exploring. However, we had accommodation booked in Nice and a lot more to see so we battled our way through the traffic out of St Tropez and made it to Nice just after dark.

The next day was spent exploring Nice and we had a beautiful drive around the coast to Monaco . After parking down by the harbour we walked around the bay to Monte Carlo - stopping to check out the famous casino and, of course, the Grand Prix race track!

Then it was up early again the next morning to check out the local market, grab some breakfast:

And finally, after dropping off the rental car we departed by train on our way across the border to Italy...