France & Monaco September 2002

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At Easter, we took a bus trip to Italy. Now, you'd think that Italy is half way around the world, but from here, it's pretty close. It actually wasn't that bad of a trip. So, with the Italy journey under our belt, we saw an add for the French Riveria, and a moment later, Kim had the trip booked. Our journey was to start on Friday at 5:00AM leaving Glasgow, and arriving at our destination the following afternoon. It wasn't the fastest way to get there, but it would only take two days out of our 10 day vacation. The mission was easy - head from Glasgow, to Hamiliton, down to Carlisle, hopping down to little cities as we pick up more passengers. No biggie. The problem was that the driver didn't know the towns in which we were picking up the passengers, and, as passengers, we obviously didn't know the towns either. The bus company had picked these really weird pickup points such as a parking lot by a castle, or the sheriff's office, rather than the normal bus stations. As a result, we missed our ferry at Dover by over two hours. The driver blamed the traffic, which was also horrific, due to the summer road work. We didn't know the exact route that we would take, as passengers you are pretty much treated like cattle - when to eat, loo stops at designated places, etc. Around 11PM, I looked over to my left, and guess what I saw? Come on, guess. You not even going to think about it, are you? Well, we saw the Eiffle Tower, all lit up. We didn't even know that we were going thru Paris, or else I would have had my camera at the ready. If you've seen my Italy pics, you will have seen the Leaning Tower Of Piza at 70mph. I tried taking a picture of the Eiffle tower on the way back, but all you could see was one road light. There are two skills that you have to master when taking a 36hr bus trip (three if you are a smoker). The first is controlling your, um, liquid control. The second is trying to sleep. You have all been in a city bus, so you know how uncomfy these are. Now, imagine trying to sleep. We both managed a couple of hours, but we were sure glad when we arrived at the camp site.

Now, how do I describe the camp site? If you check the pictures from the tower in Port Grimund, there are a couple of shots of the camp site. The site had litterly thousands of caravans. There was probably 100 from our travel agent from the UK, as well as about another 10 different agents from the UK, as well as others from France, Germany, the Chek republic and other countries around Europe.

Monaco & Monte Carlo - Our first day trip was to Monaco and Monte Carlo. We left the bus at an underground parkade, and walked up to the Maritime Museum. This is the back of the building. To the left is one of Monaco's many harbours.

This picture shows the size of the museum a little better. Unfortuantely we didn't have enough time to visit the museum. Outside, they had one of Jocque Custou's mini submarines.

From the museum, we walked up to the Princes' Palace. Monaco is still ruled by a prince. We were able to take a tour thru the palace, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. As you can see from all the brollies, this day was filled with liquid sunshine.

Here is a closer look at the palace and square. You are not allowed to go between the chain fence, or else the guard from his post will escort you out of the country. Only the Prince and his subjects are allowed to walk or drive on this section. The tour operator said on their last visit, they had 3 people that were flown home at their own expense.

Here is the palace in the center of the picture, the town to the left, and another harbour infront of us. In the middle left on the beach, they are building an olympic sized swimming pool. I think they have converted all of their beautiful beaches into harbours, so it makes it hard to swim in the ocean. As well, at this time of year, it gets a little nippy for the locals (only 23C), so the only ones crazy enough to swim are the tourists.

Here's probably the closest I am ever going to get to a yacht of this size, that even if I did win the 6/49, I could only put a teeny down payment on. On the top right is the palace.

As typical tourists, we wanted to get our passports stamped. I don't know why, we just did. The tour guide said "From the palace, take any road down the hill until you get to the post office, and then you will find where you can get it stamped". Well, this was the start of our search. The palace is directly behind us.

We are still on the hunt for the post office. Directly ahead of us was a square which held different government agencies, such as the police, and ministry of foreign affairs. In this square contained a little toy shop which was totally fascenating. From their small, but extensive selection, this was no ordinary toy shop - well, not one that I as a child had ever been to. They had old replica cars, about 40 different themed chess sets including Tintin and Asterix. The list went on and on. I was thinking about maxing out my Visa there, but then I came to my senses.

After leaving the toy shop, we continued down the street. We searched (and did the toursty thing) for about another hour or so, and then went to Monte Carlo. After the tour of Monte Carlo, we went back to the square ahead, and looked in every window for the passport place. After that, we gave up, thinking they must have hidden the passport place. We took a street parallel to the one (just to the left of this pic) and were able to find the post office (which is another long story for those of you who received post cards from Monaco) and post several post cards. Upon leaving the post office, we happened to look across the square, and guess what we found? The passport office. It's actually the building with the two hanging yellow lights. Now, where does it say that building is the passport office? Nowhere! So, we stumbled in there asking to get our passport stamped like little wet tourists. This must have been the highlight of the day for the desk clerk - her eyes totally lit up when we asked for a passport stamp.

We took a tourist train (it was actually a car with about 5 trailers to look like a train) from the Palace to Monte Carlo. Along the way, we saw this intersting and colourful set of flats.

Monaco is often referred to as "The Rock". The sourounding area is, quite mountainous. On the far right is the church.

Because of all the wealth coming to the area, the current harbours can't cope with all the boats and yachts. They are currently building a very large breakwater to allow more "parking".

This shot is looking west from the Palace. In the middle where the arches are, is the football stadium.

A little more of the city and the harbour below the palace.

And a closer look at the harbour with the football pitch just behind it. The yachts look impressive, until you notice the tiny vans and cars behind them. Then, the true size of the yachts really come into play. In the bottom right is a Smart car (2 seater cutsie type car), a couple of rolls', and the blue car, I believe is either a Morgan or a 70's 'vette.

And, a final shot of this harbour, west of the palace.

Here is a picture looking east at Monoco, and off to the right would be Monte Carlo. In the pictures above, I mentioned the swimming pool - here is a picture from above. The aqua green of the Med, is actually sand and other dirt from the construction.

This picture was taken from our tourist train. In the centre of the picture, under the green roof is the Monte Carlo casino (more on that in just a bit).

This was another quick shot from the tourist train. It was nice having the digital camera, because I took about 15 pictures of blury trees and a little city in the background. This one was definately a keeper.

A couple of pictures are we get a little closer of the harbour as we continue our trip to Monte Carlo.

On the lower left is where they are building the pool. Just infront is Monte Carlo.

Monaco - Monte Carlo - When I think of Monte Carlo, I think of three things: James Bond in the casino, the Formula 1, and the muscle car of the '80's. This is the casino that has been used in so many of the older Bond movies.

Here is more of the casino and some of the shops along side it.

Now, I wouldn't know if Monte Carlo is a posh place, but if you notice, the cars in front include a 40K Beamer, 100K Merc, 30K Jeep, a nice little Lexus, but, in the middle is a Bentley convertable. I am guessing that little car is worth, oh, 250K new. These are of course in pounds, so try multiplying that by 2.5 to convert it into $CND.

I think I just got the joke - this is a fat cat. Like someone who's totally rich. If you look at the pic above, you will notice it on the far left infront of the buildings, just above the red car.

Not only is the cat fat, but he's also pretty buffed. This cat has a pretty good workout program. There is an outdoor cafe and the casino is just behind him.

Now, from my top three list about Monte Carlo is the second on my list - the racetrack. This is part of the pit section, the rest of the racetrack has been dismantled. The Formula 1 race is in the spring, so, with a lot of persuading, we might be back to watch the checkered flag drop.

France - Cannes - One of our day trips was to Nice (which was nice), and Cannes. I have no idea why, but I never knew that the Cannes Film Festival was in France. I always thought it was somewhere in California. I can't really think of a better setting for an international film festival. Even though it was late September, there were still people sunbathing and swiming in the Med. The weather was brilliant.

The is Cannes' Fort, taken from the warf. We went to the end of the warf, and for 15 minutes we watched someone try and park his yacht. It was amazing. About 5 people appeared out of nowhere, ran to the back, and started throwing ropes to the warf. Another couple of people jumped onto the boat becide it, and tied the boat becide it together. We waited to see if anyone that we would recognize would appear, but they must have been sleeping or having their afternoon tea.

After trying to find the path to the fort, we stumbled up the hill to the fort. This is looking down toward the harbour from the first shot. By the harbour, they were having a car show, which explains the cars on the waterfront.

Another shot looking at the harbour. The boat that we were watching, is in the lower left. Pretty nice ride, eh? At the end of the week, St. Tropez was having a tall ship festival. In the middle of the harbour is one of the tallest masts that I have seen in a while. Around the bay at St. Tropez were 2 and 3 mast yachts cruising around the bay. In the top right is another fort on an island.

Here are a couple of pictures at the actual city. It's an older city with not many modern high rises.

This picture is looking directly inland.

This picture is looking west towards St. Tropez at the sail boats.

Voosh! A big gust of wind, and the sail boats are off!

One thing that you already know about the rivera is that there are beautiful beaches. It would be interesting to see how many people flock to the beach in the summer. This is just behind the marina.

While we were wondering around Cannes, we stumbled upon this church. It looked interesting, so we poked our heads inside.

One other bit of trivia I learned was: Where is Notre Dame? On this trip, we found the remains of Notre Dame in Nice, and here is Notre Dame De Bon Voyage. So, this could mean that there could be quite a few different hunchbacks, all with their own Disney movie.

And a little different shot than above pic, showing a little more of the side and back.

France - Prairies De La Mer - We only have two pictures of the actual camp site, and looking at them, they aren't even of the site, but just me trying to stay afloat in the Med. I actually did manage to swim out to the yellow bouys several times. I was trying to get out to the yacht, but as soon as I would get close, they would start their engines and drive away. The water was also quite shallow. I would guess that at the bouys, the water was probably only about 10 feet deep.

There were a couple of days that we got a little too much sun... here it looks like my arm is a little pink in the noon day sun. Our camera allows quick movies of upto 20 seconds, however, I was unable to put it onto the website because it is about 5megs (and the site only allows a max of 1meg files).

France - Nice - This is taken from a hill just east from Nice. Nice would be just behind the cruise ship. The old joke is they always say is: Nice is nice. Which it was. Nice has the second most expensive airport, next to Paris. And, from all the expensive houses and yacht's, I don't think anybody notices. The one large ship behind me is obviously a cruise ship, but I believe all of the other boats are either 'just' yachts or super yachts. We saw a couple really large ones here, but just wait until you see the super yacht in San Tropez!

Here is another shot of the bay and some of the yacht's. On this pennunsula is where they filmed "Dirty Rotten Scoundrals" staring Michael Caine, but I'm not sure which villa.

On my right, closer to Nice, high upon the hill was this castle. It looks 13th or 14th century. We didn't go there, and I don't know who now owns it, but I just thought it looked interesting.

When we were let loose upon the city, we started in this beautiful square. This is the main streets located on both sides of this park.

Taking a 180 degree turn from the fountains, and we have more of the park. I am not sure who this statue is of. It obviously described who it was and what he did, but, remember, this is France, and it was obviously written in French. My grade 7 (yes, that's all I took) French is very rust, and all I can do is count to 10 (and I seriously got that messed up as well, but that was on our Italy trip).

After leaving the park, we stumbled upon an open market. Now according to the tour operator, you can order any type of flower, and they will be able to get it to you in 48 hours. I asked them for a purple sunflower, but couldn't understand their reply. I think he said he would mail it to me.

This is almost at the end of the market. Can you see Kim anywhere? I can't. Kim... Where are you? I found Kim an hour later with a latte in one hand and some biscotte in the other. Much easier than dealing with the crowds. To be truthful, although it looked manic, it was just mainly people doing their daily shopping, just getting around. If you ever get the chance, I would definately recommend checking out Nice. I wouldn't recommend staying in Nice, but somewhere close as it would be really expensive to actually stay there.

We are at the end of the market. As well, people don't like just to use grey, white or dark grey for their buildings. This picture is a good example of the different architecture and colors that they using on their buildings. In the next couple of shots, we will be climbing that hill. It doesn't look that high, but that's only the wee bit that is exposed between the buildings.

Here are some flats about a block from the beach. The market would be to the left and the beach to the right.

This was looking at the city on the way up the hill.

The next four pictures are of the beach and city from various heights. All I can say is that it was quite a climb, and I am glad that we are the tri-athletes that we are, or else we would have never made it up the mountain!

Now, the interesting part is that I am not using any blue filters to enhance the ocean. It does really look like this.

On the ascent, we hunted down a rest stop (not that we were tired, but the people that we were with were quite exhausted.

In the bottom left corner is the market and it goes up to the middle left. That is where I took the picture with the two yellow buildings. The water fountains are almost exactly in the middle, with the bolouvard going diagonnally from the centre right to the ocean.

This is looking north from the top of the hill. On the top of the hill was a castle, but all that remain are some ruins, a couple of cannons, and a couple of monuments.

While we were standing ontop of this hill, we were awakend by a really loud horn. I can almost still hear it ringing.

This is looking north-west from the hill.

This is looking north-west from the hill. We are not sure what the dome in the center of the picture is, but it looks like a church. (Sorry - if/when we go back, we will ask for you).

Although the dome itself wasn't very large, it was quite colorful and intreguing. It really stood out from the rest of the city.

This house is none other than Gretta Garbo's house. It is right on the boulavard and the beach is on the other side of the street.

We were just wandering around the hill and came upon this :- the ruins of Notre - Dame. Now, if you remember, there was another Notre Dame in Cannes and the more famous one in Paris. If you can't read french, here's what it says:

Ville de NICE - Ruines Des Cathedrales Notre-Dame (X-XII-XIV Siecles) Edifiees Sur Le Site Antique De Nikaia (VI Siecle. Avant J.C.) Englobees Dans Le Chateau Des Ducs De Savoie.

I hope that helps.

The actual ruins of Notre Dame (the Nice edition) weren't actually that large. This shows about a third of the ruins. Now, either they weren't that big, or there is some ruins that have been destroyed, or there were other sections to the cathedral.

This is looking east from the bottom of the hill towards one ferry harbour and another part of town. The pleasure yachts will stay more in the smaller harbours

This is looking east towards one of the harbours from the bottom of the hill. This ends our tour of Nice. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. If you would like to see more of Nice, please send me 500GBP's, so that I will be able to return and do more site seeing for you.

France - St. Maxime - We took a cruise trip up to St. Tropez. Along the way, we saw famous people's houses (don't worry, their coming) and this yacht cruising along. Behind the yacht is St. Maxime, which is just across the bay from St. Tropez.

This little boat was cruising along at a good little clip, and was creating quite a wake. When he was close enough to take a picture of, he had slowed considerably, so his wake is now quite small.

France - St. Tropez - One of our excursions was on a chartered boat up the coast, then back to St. Tropez. Along the trip, our captain pointed out various famous people's houses, and told us of royalty and some of their escapades. Shocking what is actually kept out of the tabloids.

We noticed that where there was a free loacl park, there was men playing lawn bowling (or boche or whatever the French call it). I only ever saw one woman playing it. They were mostly older men, 60+, with the occassional youngster of around 40ish.

We were in Boots (local drugstore chain) and they were selling some "St. Tropez sun treatment". And on the front of the box was a tanned lassie and a beautiful sunset with the open sea behind her. I'll tell you now, there is no place in St. Tropez that looked like the box. Yet another bit of false advertising. On the plus side, it is one of the better fake tans out there. I don't need to use it, as even though we were only there just over a week, we both were noticably darker.

These houses really don't look very special. Some of them just hiding in the trees, some poking out to look at the sun. Well, there's more history than meets the eye. The house on the top is Bryan Adams house. Now, according to our tour guide, he gets his water shipped in for all his showers and drinking. Now to be honest, the water was a lot better than most places I've stayed. Does the house on the bottom right look familiar? Royal watchers would know it. Still not a clue? That is Al Fiatte's house - Dianna had her last picture taken on the stairway there with her children. It was actually on Al's yacht in St. Tropez that Dianna was spotted with Jodi so many years ago.

Here's a better picture of the famous stairway. Recognise it now?

Uptop is Bryan Adams house just peeking out from the trees. Now the other insteresting house is the one at bottom. I can't remember who lives there, but he's some big coke dealer. About a year ago, someone from Cyprus stole a yacht and a rocket launcher (do you see where this is going?) and decided to get revenge on this person. They fired a couple of rockets at the house, and it actually bounced off the roof. You can see that some of the tiles are a different color then the rest. No nice.

Coming back towards the town is the old fort. On the east side under the fort walls is a graveyard. Now, quick question for all those historians out there - what is different about this graveyard than any other graveyard? The answer is simple - bodies. Not because they died in battle, and they were never found, but, there was a really big storm within the last 10 years, and it washed the graveyard out to sea. Divers were able to recover tomb stones but they weren't able to recover any organic matter. The other weird thing was for the next several years, the fish were quite a bit bigger than normal.

This is the main city of St. Tropez, with the breakwater and the harbour just behind it. The fort is just on the top.

One of the larger yachts in the harbour was the Prince Of Bruni. I think this was worth over $60mil US. The price has a fleet of about a dozen yachts. Although this is big and expensive, it is only his second largest. However... it was not the biggest on the block.

Are you still wondering how someone could afford a 60 million dollar yacht? Me too. I think everybody I know had pretty much everything that they need - a house, yard, dog etc. Ok, everybody isn't stinking rich like the Prince or anything, but we all have enough to make our lives enjoyable.

And then you see something like this...

This is a super yacht. No - it is not a cruise ship. This is a yacht. It pretty much dominates the bay. There will be another picture of it in the bay later, so you can compare it to the Prince's boat and the other boats around. This boat actually belongs to one of the Onassis' daughters.

Here we are getting a little closer to the city.

Once we were off the charter boat, we were unleashed upon the city. Here we are walking along the breakwater just infront of the harbour. Now these boats we could actually afford, on a 10 year loan. We did snoop in to a yacht sales kiosk, and we picked out a couple that would suit our needs.

This was a beautiful little town with the harbour, and the little shops and caffe's along the waterfront. A little like Granville Island, but, a little like something else. Since being hooked on galati from our Italy trip, I had to have one here as well. I think I still like the Italian galati better, but that's just me.

We found a little walkway that ran along the ocean. The fort is just above the flats, and the belltower would be jost off to our right.

Here's a shot looking down towards the harbour. We were trying to find how to get up to the fort. We would have made it, however, there was a really bad storm about a week before we were there, and part of the walkway was washed out. We did make it almost to the top of the hill tho.

And, here's a look up the same street. The place with the red and white flag is actually a 4 star hotel. You wouldn't think just by looking at it. I guess it has a really good location and really nice rooms.

After climbing the hill, we were greeted with very spectactular views. The big white building (any guesses yet) is not a 8 star hotel, but their local tax office. Pretty posh for a tax office.

Some of the houses weren't as beautiful as the ones on the hill, but even these would house some of the B grade stars.

This is up on the hill (by the fort) looking towards the harbour and towards Port Grammod.

Port Grammod is far in the distance. In the middle, you can see the real size of the Onassis yacht. Even the Princes yacht is drarfed by the one in the bay.

We will leave St. Tropez with the sun setting, and us dreaming of returning, maybe in a yacht bigger than the Onassis one.

France - Port Grammod - Port Grammod is a very interesting town. The main entrance is a little single lane bridge over a canal with a guard, guard house and a traffic light. Port Grammod was actually built only about 10-15 years ago, and all of the canals were dug out.

This set of pictures were taken from the boat trip that we went on to St. Tropez. We are currently in the little harbour, and the church is in the middle right. The church has a bell tower and a lookout tower, which we climbed (pictures coming up).

Here is a little closer picture of the church. Notice that all the parking spots are filled with yachts. These belong to the minister's, their staff, and other admin staff. In the bottom corner is someone trying to find a parking spot in their little electric putt putt. Na, I'm just kidding, those yacht's really don't belong to the church, but that is a real electric boat. You can rent them for an hour or two (we didn't know this until our last night) and you can tour around the canals in these environmental crafts.

Some of these flats have had famous owners such as Peter Sellers and Joan Collins.

We had a few nights free, so the rest of the shots are just us wandering aimlessly around Port Grimund. This is on the beach looking towards St. Tropez. We spend a day at this beach. It was a nice quiet beach, and the water was brill.

I think this was one of the larger warfs in Port Grimund. A lot of people just have their boats either in smaller warfs at the end of their road, or just on the back of their houses. This is looking south.

Here is a shot from the side of the warf, looking west.

I think the biggest debate is power boat or sail boat. This is a beautiful example of a really nice sail boat. I personally like the powerboats, as you don't have to mess around with getting the sails right and you don't need as big of a crew. Sure, powerboats due require a lot of fuel, but you're guaranteed to get there sometime soon. I guess that's the beauty of a sailboat, is you will get there when you get there.

Got an extra million lying around? That's a million euor's, not canuck bucks. It's a different life, isn't it?

One night, we decided not to eat at home, and to go to Port Grimund to have supper. Once we got there, I had forgotten our camera, so this is the bridge that Kim was sitting on for 15 minutes while I ran back to the caravan to retrieve the camera. I hope you are enjoying the pics, cause, there really was sweat involved in producing them! I am glad to say, that there was no blood or tears tho.

This is the picture from the same bridge that Kim was sitting on. The next bridge doesn't look that far away. It all depends on how fast you can swim.

This is part of the residential part of town. To the right would be the ocean about 100 feet.

Here we are, a little further from the centre of town along the same canal.

The city square is to my left about 100 yards. All along the ground floor are businesses, restaurants, travel places, etc. To my right is a gelati stand. Can you tell where we just came from?

The next several shots are just us wandering around the town looking here and there, at everything and nothing at all. One of those typical lazy Sundays.

It must be really interesting to have a harbour or canal as your back yard. There were very few places that actually had some turf. Quite often if they did have some land, it would be infront of their houses, and they would park their car on it. The second most common use for their front yard would be to have a gravel garden. And, we saw a couple of places that actually had a nice tall fence, and had a propper grassy yard. Those were really rare, and quite small. As you can also guess, car parking is at a huge preimum. There's generally parking at the back, but even then, parking can be scarce.

This is taken from one of the bridges. On the right would be the church and little square, and on the right is the larger square, with restaurants and shops.

This is looking at the other side of the bridge. The church is just on the right, and just under the church is the electric rental boats. To the left would be the big square.

Here is the city square. On the left are the restaurants, and in the centre is the church.

The next seven pictures were taken from the lookout tower on the church.

This is looking north towards our caravan site. This also shows the different canals and bridges around Port Grimund.

The yellow building in the middle is one of the main archways and the entrance to the town. There are about 4 bridges and canals between us and our caravan site.

Right in the middle is a really nice square. They have quite a few restaurants. We frequented the red one on the right (just behind the merc) and the blue restaurant behind it. If you ever get the chance, I strongly recommend the rose wine. Num num. The sea food is also really good. A bucket of oysters was only 3 euro, but you have to know how to eat them correctly, or else you will look like a tourist.

This is looking east. St. Tropez is in the middle right and St. Maxime is on the middle left. You can also see the Onassis yacht just off the top by St. Tropez.

Another picture looking directly at St. Tropez.

Looking south, we have the rest of the harbour.

This is looking west towards the rest of Port Grimund.

On the upcoming weekend, they were holding a tall boats festival. Here is a fine example of one of them. We did see a lot bigger than this, with 2 and 3 masts.

The sun is setting, and all the Port Grimundians are returning from the beach - not to go home, but to go to the clubs. Good night all - the camera is out of film, and cameras aren't allowed in the disco.

France - Gorges - Our last excursion was a trip to the gorges. Now, I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, were these going to be deep cavernous pits, with unknown tropical wildlife at the bottom, with herds of buffalo's and elephants? No. This was more like a mini version of the Grand Canyon.

The gorges were about 2 hours away from where we were staying. Here is our first rest stop. This is looking north, at the mountains and the ravine.

This almost looks the same as the one above, but this is titled Mountain 1 where the last one was titled Ravine 1. See, they are different.

Looking west at part of the ravine.

Ooohhh. If you look closely, you can see me waving in the shadow. You can also see fish. No, honestly. About 2 cm's above the shadow, just at the corner. We watched them swim up and down the river.

This is the ravine and mountains looking east.

This bridge is actually one of the tallest bridges in France. There's Kim in red admiring the view.

Even though the bridge doesn't look all that high from the last picture, this is the view when you look down. During the summer, they do bungee jumping from here.

And this would have been the view that Kim was admiring.

There is a drawing similar to this picture on the 10 euro note. So, to save you the cost of exchanging your canuck bucks for euros, I've just saved you the commission charges.

The next bunch of pictures were taken from the window in the bus. I'll stop typing now, and allow you to enjoy the ride.

Now, in this shot, it was actually the tree that I was trying to take a picture of. Na, just kidding. The tree just jumped in the way. You can tell the tree jumped, because it is all blury.

Look at how close the bus was to the side of the cliff! Everyone was screaming yelling that we were going over, and it was total mayhem! Na, just kidding. We actually just had a little rest here, and the barrier got in the way. To bad the picture was slanted. Guess it was just the world spinning from almost going over the cliff!

Our destination was that lake. It is actually a man made lake, although there is no dam. There were a bunch of people that lived in the valley, but they have been relocated to the planes above. This shot is a little blury. Let me try and refocus.

Ah, that's better. It's has better focus.

Isn't that a beautiful lake? The water is almost a teal color.

When we stopped, our tour guide said that we had 2 hours to wonder around and check out the sites. Well, since it was late September, the burger stand and bathrooms were closed. (Honest - even the restrooms). So, what do you do with a couple of hours to kill? Well, we decided to rent one of those paddle boats.

We had a little problem with this waterfall. While someone was trying to take a picture, someone else was trying to drive the boat into the waterfall, so someone else would get wet. Luckly the camera stayed dry.

As you can tell by the slant of the trees and the slant of the river, this was a very fast part of the river. Either that, or the camera crew had been drinking. Actually, this was taken after a bottle of orange fanta. I'm not sure why this picture is so crooked. Makes it look arty tho, doesn't it?

They told us that the burger barn most likely would be closed, since it was no longer tourist season. We fortunately packed a light lunch. I can't think of a better location to eat your lunch, then floating down a river in a paddle boat. This made it really hard to get back onto the bus knowing that in two days we would be leaving the rivera. Wah. This is the end of our France tour. I didn't know what to expect when Kim booked the trip, but I would definately go back. Next time, I'll fly.