South of France - Nice, France

We finally made it to the French part of the journey, but it involves leaving Switzerland, and entering Italy! We drove for 7 hours to reach the South of France in rain the entire way. The journey through Italy seemed quite long because of the rain, and it was night time... But the countryside was nice. We crossed into France and Italy from Switzerland, and while passing through France at one point we actually took the Mt. Blanc tunnel and got pretty up close and personal with the glacier... See below.

Well, not THAT up close and personal, but for being in the car and driving to our destination, this was quite cool! There are other pictures of the drive to Nice, France via Mt. Blanc in my photo gallery.

When we arrived at 11pm in the South of France the weather was great, a warmth was in the air... When we found some hotels in Nice, we finally settled on one right across from the sea. Settled and tired, we grabbed some South of France cuisine (ala the "golden arches of McDonald's) and went to bed.

Waking up in the morning, we thought we had ditched the rain, but not so... However here is the view from the room.

We headed out for some coffee on the run and headed to the train station to go to Monaco. The rain had washed out a hillside and it was blocking the train tracks, so we opted to take the train to Cannes. We arrived there within a half hour and explored the city. It was raining on and off and it was more or less much like Nice. We strolled the streets with umbrellas in tow and used them on and off. We headed back some hours later and headed into the streets of Nice for some dinner. We found a little cafe on a busy street and had dinner there... steak and veal, salad, and some wine. Not too bad... Sat next to two gentleman who were from the east coast. Nice guys... We chatted on and off for a while, then Claudia and I headed out for some gelato... And as we headed out from under the cafe awning, the heavens decided to open. It was raining pretty hard. We grabbed the gelato and sat and ate our dessert as the rain fell around us. It only rained harder and harder, so we decided to head back under the use of our trusty umbrellas.

Maybe 10 minutes later we were in the room, and feeling soaked and a bit cold. However, we enjoyed walking in the rain and I would do it over again. And the best part, as we were turning in for the night, Claudia yells, "OOH I saw thunder lights!" I thought, "what are thunder lights?" My reply to her, "Do you mean lightning?" ... I've learned that she has her own language over time...

We woke the next morning and WOW - check out the view now!

The day only got better! We loved the weather and found ourselves swept into the magic and allure of the South of France!

After sitting around and people watching we took a walk and soaked up the sunshine! Oh and don't think we didn't head out for Monaco! We sure did! We drove over to Monaco and took a tour of the city on a little city train and saw everything there was to see in a short time as Monaco is quite small.

This picture was taken in the plaza in front of the Monte Carlo casino... We went inside and played 5 euro each... No big winner here! Left without my 5 euros, as did Claudia...

The views all over Monaco were so amazing... Especially the drive to and from Monaco... I would love to spend some time along the water and work on a tan... or in my case a nasty sunburn. :)

We enjoyed our time here and took some great pictures... I think I posted all of them that are in the gallery, but I can't recall, so feel free to explore the gallery! On to Aix-en-Provence!