On the day after New Year's, we packed up the kids and made the 8 and a half hour drive from Nice to our house in Arthon. The kids, by now used to the long car trips, did great, and the trip was very easy.
The house was dark and cold when we arrived, and all of our things were still packed away in the chateau (recall that one reason for our vacation was that our landlord had a pre-existing booking for other folks to use the place during the week of Xmas -- so we had to move all of our belongings out and pull up stakes for a week or so). But we were each thrilled to be back -- we've grown quite attached to this old place.
Recap of Nice
Our stay in Nice was a great finish to our holiday. We struck a good balance between indulging the adults' desire to visit a variety of museums, sites and restaurants, with the kids' wishes to re-visit the same pizza restaurant for every meal and have at least three slap-fights a day.
Our day-trip to Cannes was a terrific success. We met Ceil's friends Annie and Gerald at their weekend place -- a lovely three bedroom apartment a few blocks off the water. The conversation was not easy, but we muddled through: for example, I think Gerald explained that they manage to cover all their annual expenses for the house simply by renting it out during the Cannes film festival. Apparently life in Cannes is turned upside down for 15 days each May and the prudent thing to do is to pull up stakes, live somewhere else of a couple of weeks, and charge Ben Affleck $20,000 to use your place.
Annie and Gerald took us for a drive in the mountains around Cannes where we took some Mimosa cuttings (I was hoping for the champagne and orange-juice cocktail, but in this context, Mimosa refers to a flowering tree which blankets the hills with delicate yellow blossoms early each spring). Keeping with the theme of fragrance, we then visited the town of Grasse, a center for the manufacture of perfumes, soaps and 'smell-well' products.
We took a drive to Monaco the following day. It's only 30 minutes or so from Nice, but we took the scenic route, hugging the coast-line and eschewing the highway, so it took a bit longer. Monaco was lovely, but so were the three or four other towns we passed through along the way. So what makes Monaco a fixture in my imagination, while I've never even heard of (nor can I recall) the other towns? It must be their monarchy and all the stories of Princess Grace, Prince Albert; it must be the casinos and images of tuxedo clad spies playing baccarat; it must be the elegant food served in glamorous water-front settings. Surely these are the things which drew me to Monaco.
Well, surely or not, we managed to avoid each of the above during our five-hour stay, focusing instead on the local aquarium, a run down Italian restaurant on a back alley, and a tour of public parking garages as we searched for a spot, and later, our car. Joking aside, it was a great visit, though if I ever decide to vacation here, I'll stay down the coast in one of the other towns we passed through. On the way home from Monaco, we swung through Vallaurus to explore a few of the shops selling the porcelain the region is known for (known to who, I wonder?).
We had an uneventful New Year's Eve, staying in and devouring a feast purchased from Picard, a French purveyor of all manner of yummy stuff, frozen and ready for your microwave (see previous post). We watched a few DVD's, occasionally making half-hearted entreaties to the kids: c'mon, let's go down to the water and watch the fire-works at mid-night. Their responses were not half-hearted: no, leave us alone, we want to go to sleep.
We finally got to spend some time exploring Nice itself during New Year's day. Like so many places we've visited over here, the city is in the midst of a huge construction project, installing a new subway / train system. C'mon, Seattle, if Nice can do it, what's holding us back? During a walk on the beach, we ran into some other Americans -- from Sammamish, WA, actually, quite close to Seattle. Kids the same age as ours, husband works at Boeing -- egads, we've bumped into a cookie-cutter copy of ourselves 9,000 miles from home. Ahh, but the key difference: these poor folks are cramming London, Rome, Florence, Nice and Paris into a two-week vacation before rushing home, while we on the other hand get to take our time before making our way back to Arthon. And our neighbors. The cows. Hmmmm...
We checked out of our place on Jan. 2, snapping a few photos on our way out.
What's next?
With our holiday vacation behind us, our thoughts are turning to our next home-coming... to Seattle. We've booked our tickets -- we leave France on Feb 2, spend four days in NYC to catch up with Ceil and her brothers, landing in Seattle late on Feb 6. We're, each of us, far more excited about coming home than we are sad about leaving. I suspect the last few weeks will go slowly.
But first, a few more trips and tours: this weekend we'll fulfill our promise to Miles and celebrate his birthday in Paris. I'm booked to fly back to Seattle for some meetings in mid-January -- I'll be in town for a week, before flying back to wrap up the work here. If at all possible, I still hold out hope that we can make a flying tour of the Burgundy region -- I've got a handle on what "Bordeaux" means in terms of red wines, but "Burgundy" is still a mystery. And we've planned one last, long drive on our way out of France to visit Brittany and Normandy for a few days before boarding our flight.
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