June 3-7 Nice

This was sort of a vacation from our vacation. We wanted to slow things down a bit, so we headed to the French Riviera. A couple days we went to the market to get food for lunches. We got fruit (mainly oranges and apricots), breads, cheeses, olives, and some wonderful sundried tomatoes with herbs and oil. Delicious! We also has some wine and watched the sunset over the beach in the evenings.

The highlight of the trip (and the most exciting) was renting a scooter for two days. One day we drove up the coast to Cannes and later that day we drove up to Eze. Eze is an old medival village on the top of a small mountain. It is closed to all vehicles since the streets are so small. It was fun losing ourselves in the windy streets filled with artists, shops, and restraunts. It was so beautiful with ivy and flowers climbing up the walls. The next day we drove to Monaco. This is the 2nd smallest country in the world, next to the Vatican City in Rome. Monaco is only a little over .7 square miles but has 32,000 people living in it, mainly wealthy foreigners. It is known for it´s casino and the marriage of Princess Grace Kelly to Prince Ranier III.

Riding up the coast and taking in the scenery was absolutely breathtaking, however it was also scary. Once we were in the cities, we had to try to figure out what the signs said in French and frequently got lost. More than once we accidently turned onto the highway and the little 50cc scooter could barely make it up the hills. People were passing us on all sides and the roundabouts were pretty scary. Once we accidently turned onto a toll road and couldn´t turn around. The toll was 40 cents and my purse was under my seat and Joe only had 20 cents in his pocket. He asked the toll lady if that was enough. She looked thoroughly disgusted but let us through. We had a good laugh later and made sure we carried enough change with us after that. However, scary that was, those were two days that were very memorable.