Day 10 - Nice and the French Alps

The sun is really coming in our window now, it's 8:06am and we're about ready to head into Nice for the morning, then continue North towards Dijon I believe. I can't wait to find my first coffee! We did manage to find some ice yesterday at a gas station - amazing! So our food and bevvies will be safe for the day, and we can pickup a few things at the market this morning.

The lifestyle here is far from sedentary, walking walking walking everywhere all the time. It is pretty much a hassle to do anything else. There also isn't a lot of fat French people, coincidence?

We walked Nice for awhile finding a café and a patisserie for a snack, then hopped in the car and drove around town for awhile until finally hitting the road. I carried the camera and took zero pictures. The city has a huge boardwalk sorta like Stanley park if you stretched it in a straight line. Normal sort of activities like jogging, roller blading, biking, walking etc..

It was Sunday AM so on our first pass by, there were a couple people at the beach. 90 minutes later on the way back, the beach was 1/3 full. I think we've had our fill of French cities, because Nice is supposed to be a nice one and I was ho-hum.

We headed for the Alps and a really twisty road Joanna had identified on the map. It turned out to be really twisty. There were a zillion bikes, and I'm convinced we were on part of a loop that the road riders take that must be a top ride in Europe. Joanna was really good, I figured she'd be ill, but she hung in there.

We stopped in Grasse which is the world famous fragrance region and checked out the Fragonord perfumerie. This place assaults your nose on entry but isn't as bad after awhile. We had fun smelling different frangrances trying to choose some.

Later, we stopped at some little mountain village and checked out its market and bought this great roule roti (Pork wrapped around a spiced sausage center and roasted on a rotisserie.) We also bought a loaf of awesome bread which we had the baker slice for us. A few kms and hairpins up the road we pulled over and made sandwiches in the car. Delicious!

We made it to Castellane, a cool little village and managed to find the even twistier super narrow out to the Verdon Gorges. The road had no lines, was a little more than a lane wide and was nice and bendy. No straightaways really at all. Fun Fun. That trip was a "there and back" to Castellane, the continuing on to Grenoble. We decended down from the high country villages to the lower laying areas and finally Grenoble.

Grenoble looks like a cesspool, but it was late, so that's where we're staying. Tt may look nicer in the daylight, but I kinda doubt it. %$#@-hole was the word Joanna used. L'Oasis in Narbonne le plage is now the 2nd worst hotel we have stayed in. This one takes the cake. I won't go into detail, because it sounds like whining. Enough said.

I really don't know what are plan for tomorrow is - besides get the heck outta here at dawn.