Yup – after four days, Vanessa has returned to the UK. We spent a lot of time recounting ‘the old days’ in BT and all the people we used to work with. We actually called a couple up on Skype and they were so surprised we’d called them that they could hardly utter a word! After several years, disappointing or what?
We went to Tourrettes but had such a long lunch that we couldn’t actually visit the medieval part of the village. We ventured into Vence and spent some time in the cathedral which is built on Roman ruins dating back to 239AD and then had dinner one night in the square overlooking the ancient church. Unfortunately, the food wasn’t quite as good as the view but it was still nice to chat. On Friday we hit ‘old Nice’ where we managed (after an hour or so) to find the famous Socca Shop. Socca is a north African dish made from chick-pea flour and water and when cooked in a wood oven is absolutely delicious. Afterwards I insisted we do something touristy so we got on a tram and just sat there as the rather seedy parts of Nice went past at an incredibly slow pace – we’d actually gone in the wrong direction - but I’ll know next time! We also motored down to Antibes, the largest yacht harbor in the Med, but as most of the mega-yachts had left for the winter season in the Caribbean, we had to hunt for the really big ones – but we weren’t disappointed. There were a few moored at the far end of the harbor but one stood out by a country mile – Anastasia.
The fact that it was dark blue and white immediately attracted me but it was the vast swathes of polished wood and it’s sci-fi look which convinced me that that was the one I would have if I won the lottery, until I looked up the website - $200 million it cost! That’s twice the cost of the most expensive house in London, and I suspect, New York, and it’s only a bit of fibreglass and shiny chrome!
Now I know a few mega-yacht captains down here and they tell me that it generally costs around 10% of the purchase price to run one of these things for a year so this piece of flotilla extravagance would cost about $20m a year just to sit in the water – but, by God, it looked magnificent. Look at the spec on the URL below (under ‘Toys’), it has 2 x 32 foot speedboats (what’s wrong with one?), another 2 x 22ft speedboats (tenders they’re called – I suppose having 4 x speedboats would be a bit too much?), 4 jet skis and a myriad of other ‘toys’ for the rich and famous who charter her. There are no prices quoted – at least you’re not allowed to access the ‘charter information’ page without some sort of password but I reckon you’d get little change out of $500,000 a week and that wouldn’t cover fuel! Just like a hire car I suppose?
So – Vanessa and I had a good week. We drank a few bottles and covered the good old times ad nauseum. Vanessa also brought me up-to-date on her new career (probation officer) and we jointly agreed that it was a good job I wasn’t one of her ‘clients’, or offenders as she’s been trained to call them, otherwise I’d be banged-up…… for a long time for misdemeanours in the past.
C’est la vie as the funny locals out here say.
http://www.yachtanastasia.com/
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