Hey all!

Sorry to not post until today, but we are back in town.

Everything went well and we are happy to be back in town.

Update: I recently discovered dodo.com and they are doing a great job starting up a travel site.

Chris and Joan

Hey all!

We're winding down here. Spent time around town Friday and at the beach.

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Then we went to the old town and wandered around.

There are lots of these Honda 70s and clones thereof around. Scooting around the streets. Quite the urban weapons.

We fly out Sunday after lunch and arrive late afternoon in Montreal. We probably won't have Internet access until we get home so no more updates until then!

Hope you are all well. We've had a great vacation. Our French is not much better but we made it through and I only had one freaky meal because of it!

Today we are planning on doing the beach again. High of 21 and sunny. We might buy a villa this afternoon. To put that in context; a smallish condo that is well located is 1.2 to 1.8 million euros.

We have a little doggie for Dan and a scooter for Andrew .. we'll ship them somehow ..

See you soon!
Chris and Joan

Hey again all!

Another beautiful day here in the Cote D'Azure and we went for a car ride up into the alps.

As you can see from these pictures, the roads are amazing! Twisty as all get-out. Perfect for motorcycles, but if you had a problem you'd be dead dead. Take a look at the GPS screen to get an idea of the roads.

We went up to Berre les Alpes and wandered around. A most amazing and ancient feeling place. Feels a thousand years old. Pictures can not give you the feel of the place.

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Here we are approaching the town after driving uphill for half an hour.

And here we are on the town wall looking over the valley.

We had a great lunch .. in Contes

There are lots more pictures in the gallery so you should go there for a look. I put captions on most of them so there is a sort-of story there too.

See you!

Chris and Joan

I was warned that coffee here is not what we are used to. I have not seen that kind of 'coffee' available at all. When you order a cafe, you get an espresso. So I order a double-cafe and get a big one. They range from 3.20 to 4.50 euros.

You can see my little cup there on the table (and that is a ). It's tasty stuff for sure. I don't normally take very much sugar in my coffee but I load this stuff up like dessert.

c

Monday morning we went down to the old part of Cannes to look around. It was a cool morning and we were able to look at the classic boats visiting for the Cannes classic yacht races.

Along with this is a Dragon class series of events going on. We were able to get up close to Shamrock 5 .. a boat that we had seen from another sailboat that we were on in Newport harbour in September 1993; 15 years ago.

Nearby were two older 12 meter boats, the Kookaburra III and Challenge. They were out mixing with the other boats but were likely doing match races.

MH warned me before the trip about baguettes being carried under men's arms. This is the closest that we came to seeing that. This guy was riding around one-handed with five of them.

Tuesday we took the train to Nice. It is a lot larger center than Cannes. Beautiful old town and lots of interesting stuff to see. It is obviously more full of tourists than Cannes as well. We had not seen
any blue-jeans here at all. In Cannes everyone is wearing them. This could also be a function of the age of people here in Cannes (read: old).

Lots to see in Nice. Here is a fish from a stall near the outer wall in the old town.

We climbed up to the gardens at the east end of old-town.

And got this amazing view back along the beach.

Hope you are all well. We are having a great time here!

Cheers,
Chris and Joan.

We are w4ll and having fun but limited internet access. Standing outside a closed bar right now to type this. Will try 2 post first-thing Wed am with details. Took train 2 Nice .. was very nice..

c&j

Hi again,

We've been asked about bicycles after our recent comments about motorcycles.

There are some but not many. Although people seem able to take their lives in their hands to scoot around here, they seem too sane to ride a bicycle in this environment. Mostly in any case. We've seen a few, but they just can not keep up with traffic so it's kind of crazy-like to ride here. From what I can see. Even a low-powered scooter looks suicidal to me.

c

Hi again peeps!

Here is Joan sending an email to Andrew from our Internet bar. People stop at the light here at the corner and a passenger runs in for smokes.. They are so efficient that it works!

and here are some random thoughts:

• There is a lot of dog-poo around. But there are manynice dogs, primarily Yorkies and Silkes. Also some Chihuahua and Poodles with the occasional Frenchie thrown in (for some reason)
• Lots-o people smoke. And smoke.
• People are skinny and we mean thin. In the land of croissants and sauce, what do they eat?
• In this land cream, croissants and wine are king. How do they not get fat-fat here?
• They do not smile. The women especially have a poopy look on their fases all the time. Joan thinks that they hate us .. but it's just part of the shtick.
• Dan: How did you do this for seven weeks? It's complicated and a lot o work. Finding accommodations and the right train whew.
• The people here are not only skinny, beautiful and immaculately groomed, but they are quite nicely dressed as well.
• Key: fly from Montreal a Nice and take the train to your apartment as necessary. No need to rent a car.Trains run every 20 minutes.
• We miss the livestock and love our kids (all three of them)
• The weather here is amazing. It has rained at night the past couple .. days are around 25 degrees.
• There are many great things to buy but very expensive: beautifully designed, manufactured and with top quality materials.
• The wine is extremely affordable to excess. We'll need a dump-truck for empties. We have tried the 'cheap' wines up to six euros and really, we can not tell the 'better' stuff, so we're buying the 2.50 euro stuff.

Here is Joan on the number 8 bus as we head back to our little place:

c&j

Hi all!

We're having a great time here! I can't put all the pictures in the blog so you should go to the gallery and look there.

We have to keep buying drinks and we're getting kind-of hammered here!

Here is Joan in the backyard. We are spending most of our time outside when at the apartment.

Chris is cooking on the gas hob and having a great time of it. We are eating most of our meals in. Breakfast is cereal and each afternoon we go out and shop for our supper to cook.

We took the train from from Cannes to Antibes today at around noon. It is only a 15 minute ride. Way faster than you could drive. The bus takes an hour and a half!

Ok, a couple of you asked for the nudie pics and there will only be one and here it is. Lots-o topless here ..

We walked all over Antibes. It is a beautiful town. Founded a billion BC and all. Makes all our 'old' stuff look new.

Go look at the gallery for more pictures.

Hope you are all well. We're having a great holiday!
Chris and Joan

Hi all!
We made it to Cannes, driving along the coast to see as much as possible. The road certainly rivals any of the best motorcycle riding locations that I've seen. And the riders here make the most of what is available to them! They will pass on the line around a curve; splitting between cars like they are not there.

We stopped for lunch at one of the small resort-feeling locations along the way. Joan had an excellent omlette and fries while I had penne with meat sauce. This spot had a couple of motels and a beautiful beach. Most of the towns have a few stretches like this anchoring their place on this beautiful water.

I finally have a full collection of Euro coins so here they are for your enjoyment. From left to right (I only had one penny and one 2 euro coin, so the rest show both sides) are a penny, nickel, dime, 20, 50, 1E and 2E. There are 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 (don't know how high
they go ;^) bills. (Dan told me then I later discovered that there is a 2cent coin as well. So that is missing from this picture .. sorry ;^)

Our little apartment is nice. Not as high-end as I had hoped, but kind-of how a middle-low income couple or single person might live. What I liked about it was that it had parking and an outdoor area. Here is Joan in her lounge in the garden.

This is the 'summer kitchen' and opens through a large sliding glass partition onto the garden.

Internet was complicated to come by but we've located a bar that has wireless so we're set!

Hope you are all well. We are having a great time!

Joan and Chris