Hotel La Mandarine St-Tropez

It is Sunday and very wet and miserable here in Antibes. Quite a change from the glorious day we had yesterday. Ideal for computer work in fact... (Except that then things didn't pan out as planned and it is now Monday)

It wasn't my intention to have an entry before my departure but the response to my initial circular has been so overwhelming that I feel it merited an ...

... seen and spoken to, to date.
Set off mid morning to drive through Gorges du Verdon, again another stunning drive. This time though the weather was kind to us and we were able to get out for a hike after lunch. It seemed like a popular drive as we encountered several other tourists, one couple were eating lunch at the same spot we were. They packed up their picnic, took a swig out of ...

... tour for monday and spent the day seeing 5 different castles.
Our first castle was chenonceau, which remains my favorite. if i'm ever a fairy princess thats my castle. I think what made it so incredible was actually the fog. it was so ridiculously foggy you could barely see the outline of the castle which added to the surreal feel of all of it. unfortunately we made it back to the van late and our driver got all ***** and french at us. later ...

... Table wine....

But first, a little commentary on our observations. As I mentioned from Germany, the European people love station wagons. We have all seen them at times in the states but they are everywhere in Europe. We saw the German versions right off, but through the rest of the countries we visited it is also clear that the wagon is the car of choice. All sizes, all makes. In Italy, Fiat, Lancia, and ...

Cannes is not as glamrous as we thought it would be, it still has all the fancy smancy stores along the beach, but there were definitely no red carpets rolled out when we were there. We did a day trip to St-Tropez, its was the end of a hge sailing competitiona and tons of ...

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... it on a hot day. It’s not quite the same type of wine Aunty Mary but it is pink! We also had some good food at the same restaurant for 2 nights in a row.

Last day in St-Tropez we spent the day on the beach. The beaches are broken down by different beach resorts. There seems to be very little in the way of a free beach so it is worth paying to be at one of the beach front resorts. We picked one and lounged all day. This was the clearest ...

... French Riviera, we were equally nervous to drive. The left hand side drive experience was new to us, so we were very careful. Armed with our TomTom navigator, we punched in our first destination, Cannes, managed to get out of Nice city and made it to the freeway unscathed. The drive along the freeway was great; both ways there are three lanes and all we needed to do was follow the instructions from the ...

... avoided eye contact and spat some mean-sounding French I couldn't quite understand, followed by a very clear "je don't care." I'm not making this up, people. (Me, exasperated and drenched in "travel sweat") Eventually I asked a young European man for directions, and he told me to take a left at the pharmacy sign that was about a block from where we were standing. He left me on my own but reappeared a couple of minutes later, telling me that ...

... tossed a 2 Euro piece at her and said ONE, grabbed my ticket and change and ran. She yelled something to which I responded "Merci!" (still don't know what she said) and I leaped into the bus as the lady pulled off. She dumped many of us into the middle of nowhere and we began walking. The walk to the beach from there was nearly 20 minutes. What the hell? Why can't the bus take you down there? There was a perfect little cul-de-sac at the end and everything. We think they ...