We've been wanting to visit the French Rivera, so we used Ellie as an excuse to travel there :) The above is the view from the balcony of our rental apartment in a little town called
Cap-Martin (20 min outside of Nice).
The medieval town of Cap-Martin was way up on the hill where this castle is. We walked (yes, walked!) up there our first night to have dinner. The town was really cool - lots of twisting streets, old stone buildings and roads, and a feeling of being from another time. We forgot the camera, so no picts of it :(
Welcome to Monaco! One of the smallest countries in the world with an area of 0.76 sq miles (D.C is huge in comparison at 68 sq miles). We were just a few minutes from here, so had to take a day and explore the country. You could tell it was a very affluent area (not a good place for me to go shopping), but fun to walk around. It turned out that the next weekend, Monaco was hosting the start of the Tour de France, so it was good we went when we did.
In front of the Monte-Carlo Casino. We didn't go in, but enjoyed looking and watching all the
really nice cars drive by.
The Prince's Palace where the royal family lives which we got to take a little tour of. We even managed to time it to see the changing of the guard. If you are a fan of Grace Kelly, you'd have plenty of company here - she was well loved and you can find her likeness everywhere.
On the other side of the bay after looking out on a lot of nice yachts.
Our second day was spent mostly in Nice. It was a hot day and crowded as the Ironman competition was starting there the next day. We had fun spotting all the competitors walking around the city - many were quite obvious :) We took went up to the top of a hill and got a great view of the city where we took a break from the heat with some ice cream - yum!
Later in the day, we took to the beach. The beaches there are all very rocky, so it was a bit hard on our feet, but nice all the same. Ellie and Tom got in and did some swimming, but I was a wimp. After being hot all day, it rained as soon as we got to the beach just enough to significantly cool things down. I did get in up to my knees, though.
On our way back we stopped in a little town called Eze where we were planning on having dinner. However, we soon realiezed that we were a little out of our league. On our way up to the village, we saw the valet parking lot of one of the hotels. It had an 1930s Rolls Royce, an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, 2 Porche, a Mercedes and an Audi. Then we saw the menu prices - 100 Euros a plate - so we made other dinner arrangements. It was a fun town to walk around in and that part was free!
On our way back to CH, we stopped in Avignon. We had lunch within view of the famous Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) and did some shopping. I was in heaven with all the cutsy little shops and didn't have nearly long enough poke. It was enough though and it was fun to be able to talk to the store keepers a little. It was actually really nice to vacation in a French speaking region. Our French is still far from fluent, but it is good enough to get by, which is better than I can do in any other language!
The well-known Avignon bridge. There's a song in French about this bridge which we sang some at the daycare, so I had to go see it. Right behind us is a beautiful, fragrant field of lavender.
We took Ellie to the climbing wall one afternoon. After one false start, she climbed right to the top like a spider. It probably helped that Tom was a good, patient instructor!
Just having a little fun.
At the top with Lake Gruyeres in the background.
Just because she's cute.
We've been wanting to visit the French Rivera, so we used Ellie as an excuse to travel there :) The above is the view from the balcony of our rental apartment in a little town called Cap-Martin (20 min outside of Nice).
The medieval town of Cap-Martin was way up on the hill where this castle is. We walked (yes, walked!) up there our first night to have dinner. The town was really cool - lots of twisting streets, old stone buildings and roads, and a feeling of being from another time. We forgot the camera, so no picts of it :(
Welcome to Monaco! One of the smallest countries in the world with an area of 0.76 sq miles (D.C is huge in comparison at 68 sq miles). We were just a few minutes from here, so had to take a day and explore the country. You could tell it was a very affluent area (not a good place for me to go shopping), but fun to walk around. It turned out that the next weekend, Monaco was hosting the start of the Tour de France, so it was good we went when we did.
In front of the Monte-Carlo Casino. We didn't go in, but enjoyed looking and watching all the really nice cars drive by.
The Prince's Palace where the royal family lives which we got to take a little tour of. We even managed to time it to see the changing of the guard. If you are a fan of Grace Kelly, you'd have plenty of company here - she was well loved and you can find her likeness everywhere.
On the other side of the bay after looking out on a lot of nice yachts.
Our second day was spent mostly in Nice. It was a hot day and crowded as the Ironman competition was starting there the next day. We had fun spotting all the competitors walking around the city - many were quite obvious :) We took went up to the top of a hill and got a great view of the city where we took a break from the heat with some ice cream - yum!
Later in the day, we took to the beach. The beaches there are all very rocky, so it was a bit hard on our feet, but nice all the same. Ellie and Tom got in and did some swimming, but I was a wimp. After being hot all day, it rained as soon as we got to the beach just enough to significantly cool things down. I did get in up to my knees, though.
On our way back we stopped in a little town called Eze where we were planning on having dinner. However, we soon realiezed that we were a little out of our league. On our way up to the village, we saw the valet parking lot of one of the hotels. It had an 1930s Rolls Royce, an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, 2 Porche, a Mercedes and an Audi. Then we saw the menu prices - 100 Euros a plate - so we made other dinner arrangements. It was a fun town to walk around in and that part was free!
On our way back to CH, we stopped in Avignon. We had lunch within view of the famous Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) and did some shopping. I was in heaven with all the cutsy little shops and didn't have nearly long enough poke. It was enough though and it was fun to be able to talk to the store keepers a little. It was actually really nice to vacation in a French speaking region. Our French is still far from fluent, but it is good enough to get by, which is better than I can do in any other language!
The well-known Avignon bridge. There's a song in French about this bridge which we sang some at the daycare, so I had to go see it. Right behind us is a beautiful, fragrant field of lavender.