19.10 - Day 278 - Bottarone, ITA to Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, FRA

Saturday 19th October - Bottarone - Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France (Day 278)

Today we leave Italy and enter France (just). 

We’re soon on the motorway and we can see on the screen a number of dark shadings indicating tunnels. Our guesses of how many - each one with a sign of its name and length (some as little as 70 m, some as big as 7 km) - are significantly out; we finish at 134 tunnels. 

The drive is also accompanied by another familiar sound - the audiobook. Another David Walliams number, this time “Slime”. 

After we hit the Mediterranean it’s due West until a stop at Savona, which says Italy on the map, but has a decidedly French feel to it. 

Up into the Priamar Fortress we head, renovations on top of ruins on top of older ruins - a man is panning soil into a bucket next to us as we eat our wraps for lunch, whilst on the other side of the bench, three labourers are splashing down grey concrete making the life of future archaeologists much trickier. 

We stumble into a Bonsai Tree Exhibition where we're all asked to vote for our favourites. We skip the sparkling water and focaccia on offer at the end instead heading for a final Italian gelato, again pushing Sienna forwards to ask in her best Italian, Seb repeats, replacing chocolate with mango and strawberry. 

Whilst eating at their tables we spy a bookshop next door which Sienna and Seb very sweetly approach, find a (Italian) book outside and sit on the shop’s doorstep where I find a couple of English books inside. 

Continuing West for another two hours we drop down off the motorway into Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, where everyone is happy that tonight's accommodation - Residence Bella Vista - has a large indoor pool. 

Of course we’re immediately in the pool covered by a retractable glass wall and roof. Out of season there’s only two other families as the kids splash, scream, swim about until we’re all hungry for dinner cooked up in our two bedroom apartment.