There is nothing that beats actually being at a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and you can't describe the feeling to anyone. This in mind, we jumped at the chance to tag along with a gaggle of kiwi's going to the Monaco GP. Jerry and Elly had it all organised and it was simply a matter of going to the websites they'd recommended to book it all in.

To keep costs to a minimum, we flew out of Luton airport (about 1.5 hrs on the train from our house) and into Nimes airport. We then picked up 4 rental cars for the 14 of us and drove the 3 hours to Nice. Monaco is about a 15 minute train journey from Nice, so we were sorted, or so we thought. When we arrived at the hostel, Nat and Shan's booking hadn't come through the internet booking system and they were short of a room for the night. We pulled together and found them bits of floor in various rooms and it was fine.

Went out for a few drinks and a meal on Friday night in Nice. Nothing too eventful, but we did end up getting stuck on a street corner for a couple of hours at 1am waiting for a night bus that had been diverted.

Saturday we headed to Monaco to scope it out and watch qualifying. A stunning day of mid 20's, and Monaco was sparkling. The city is beautiful, and you get the feeling that it would quite a relaxing place to wander round if the buzz of F1 wasn't in town. Some of the boats in the harbour were amazing and we walked past a couple of real estate agents where prices started about €300-400K for a 5×5m studio flat.

Saturday night, everyone was shattered from a day in the sun, so it was a quiet night in at the hostel cooking supermarket pizza's in a frypan (very amusing, especially when Jerry flipped his over).

Up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to head for the train station and off to Monaco to join the swarms of GP fans and secure our spot on the bank (well, cliff) that was the General Admission area. The General Admission area overlooked the pit straight, pit entrance and start of the main straight and the 2 associated corners. As far as the GP, it was a pretty exciting one. Kimi led from start to finish, unchallenged, but all the action happened over the next 7-8 places. I won't give you a blow-by-blow account, there are professionals that will do it better, but highlights were Alonso running wide and losing about 6 places, the stunning dives happening at the chicane, and the most exciting last 20 laps of just about any Monaco GP. Top 3: Raikkonen (McLaren), Heidfeld (Williams), Webber (Williams).

After the race, everyone ran for the train, but we chilled out in the sun for a few hours and had a few beers while we waited for the track to open. Then headed for a walk around the full track and past the Monte Carlo Casino (with some very expensive cars parked out front), which was pretty cool. The track is really tight and narrow, much more so than it looks on TV.

A few drinks in a local bar, and a streak through the Monaco square (not us, others in our group), we headed back down to the track and checked out the boats in the harbour before heading back to the hostel, then home again on Monday.

Aaron is now a F1 fan, as in he knows all the cars and drivers, which is quite impressive considering he was just going along for the ride. Hopefully we can target another GP sometime next year, some of the same group are heading to Turkey for the Turkish GP, which would be great, but not quite in the budget at the mo.