It is precisely 24 hours since the Emirates B777 departed Adelaide and I am now sitting in the Nice airport, for a 5 hour wait till the flight to Toulouse with EasyJet. The universal aviation rule is that the flight opens 2 hours before departure, including bag drop, so I sit forlornly in the domestic terminal with my luggage tightly held between my legs – no such thing as an airline lounge in Nice.

Clearing customs and immigration was a true French farce. The immigration gendarme opened my passport at a blank page, stamped it and passed it back – taking less than 10 seconds whilst eyeing off the attractive young Emirates stewardess in the adjacent queue.

It’s 5 am in Toulouse waking up in a very basic but clean Airbnb, whose only redeeming attraction is that it’s 340m walk to the railway station. I slept well for 7 hours.

The taxi ride from the Toulouse airport to the city gave me a brief look at the old town and I hope to explore it a little on the way back