The only 'must do' we had in what was really a traveling stop, was to visit Monaco.

This entailed a quick 20 minute zoom down the expressway, followed by a slow 40 minute crawl to find which parking area we should be in.

Monaco is small (only 0.75 square mile) but is jammed packed with what looks like circa 1960's luxury and new boats. There were only 3 really big boats (apparently Antibes is the chosen place now) but the boys were amazed to see how big they were.

The one place I wanted to see was the Cousteau Aquarium, and the one place Anne wanted to see was the Palace.

After lunch down in the centre of town at the recommended 'Huit & Demi' on the rue de la Princesse Caroline (which we eventually found after a bus ride), we went back up the hill and visited the Cathedral where Princess Grace and Prince Rainer are buried, along with a number of other significant people over the years.

The only disappointment really was the Prince's Palace, which only looked interesting on one side - the original medieval setting - as the main part had been extended (probably several times). We had enough walking anyway, so was time to retreat to the hotel, and dinner!

The shortest stay on our trip was to be at Antibes, on the French Riviera. Our hotel, the Hotel Pension le Mas Djoliba was this rambling old building, full of character where no two rooms were the same. We had the 'Penthouse' which came with two rooms, ours with a small eating table, the boys with twin beds and a view over the gardens, plus a large outdoor sundeck with views to Cap d'Anitbes on one side, and Nice to the other. All this came at a price however, especially in a hotel with no lift, and the room had the narrowest set of stairs to get to it that I've seen - the bags had to go sideways to get up and down them!

The hotel staff could not have been nicer (a real change after Italy!) and we decided to take the 'Half Board' option which includes dinner as well as breakfast. Dinner in these hotels is more the boarding house thing, when everyone eats the same thing at the same time. The food was fantastic, and even the boys tried thing they would not normally have tried (like vegetables ...), and it was not until we checked out that I found the charge for the dinner was only 14 Euro each (about $22) - not bad for a 3 course gourmet meal!

The Aquarium was a short walk from (and closest to) the car park, so it was first. Housed in a huge sandstone building, the displays were definitely the boys favorite. The main tank was somewhat like the Sydney Aquarium, a big glass housing which ran over a couple of floors and you could walk around it. It had lots of large fish, including sharks, plus a turtle in a semi natural setting.

There were a lot of smaller exhibits, including a series showing the different life at different depths. There were moray eels (yuck) plus a whole range of 'exotic' fish, such as the one that lays its eggs inside a large sac attached to a reef - you can see the little fish swimming around inside the sac, which splits eventually releasing the new fish. Other fish included ones that 'walked' over the ocean floor (guess it mush live in still water).