From Avignon to Nice, France

Our morning started with a pastry from the bakery around the corner (there are bakeries around almost every corner!). After eating our nutritious breakfast we checked out of Hotel Colbert and found the bus stop for our short ride to the train station. We bought our tickets for the 3 1/2 hour train ride to Nice. Beautiful mountains and French vineyards, castles and cathedrals. Our train took us back to the coast where the tracks followed the Mediterranean.

We spent most of the day in transit between waiting for a bus, riding on a bus, then waiting for a train and riding on a train. However, it was a low key day which we need once in a while. Our train took us thru Cannes (film festival place) and pulled in to Nice around 3:45 pm.

Disembarked and followed our Rick Steves directions from the train station to the hotel - took us about 10 minutes to walk here. We are a few blocks from the water and the hotel is very nice. It had belonged to a nobleman back in the day and has been renovated. The room is quite small but has everything we need and it's clean and nicely decorated.

After settling in we took a 1 1/2 hour walk around Nice - it's a busy place. The sea is a beautiful color - like in the Bahamas. Finally got hungry so got some food to go and ate on the patio upstairs in our hotel. The wind has been blowing hard all day so after the umbrella blew over and almost hit me, we decided to retire to our room where we've been nailing down transportation for the next few parts of our journey. We won't have internet after this until we get to Siena on Sept. 22.

We are getting good at doing our laundry in the sink. Since we each have only one carry-on suitcase we have to schlep it on and off all the transportation we take. Every time I'm in a train or bus station and face more stairs I curse myself for packing too much, but at least it's all in one suitcase.

The weather is supposed to deteriorate significantly tomorrow and 100 percent rain and thunderstorms on Wednesday. Not good beach weather. The waves were really kicking up today.

We haven't tried too much local food just for economy reasons. The Euro vs. dollar rate is awful and when pricing anything, you have to 1 1/2 times the cost which is sobering. We usually just pick something simple up at an open air bakery or cafe. It would be nice to eat out more but have to save money somewhere. (Especially since Kristin is paying for most of her food, surface transportation and incidentals).

Not sure what we are doing tomorrow - we were going to sit on the beach - depends on the weather. Will probably take a day trip to Monaco on Wednesday and tour the castle there.

Au-revior from the Mediterranean!