Or, I've had too much wine. You decide.
Night cruise was noisy (and I am so happy I do not get seasick, knock-on-wood), but we were in Santa Margherita di Ligure this morning, spent a little time in Portofino, and now we are off to the Cinque Terre tomorrow.
So let me leave you with this video of my sister-in-law checking out Ligurian lace making, and Paolo telling a story about the lacemaker's family:
The cathedral in Monaco. It's small, and plain, but hey, all the Grimaldis are there.
Monte Carlo. It's very ornate!
My sister-in-law, with Paolo. I think that's a magic wand in his hand.
View of St Paul de Vence, a walled medieval town in the hills above Nice. "Chagall was here" is written in big letters...ha, just kidding.
Street view at St Paul de Vence.
Why we can't do something cute like this around our utilities, I'll never know. Isn't this great? I mean, how hard could it be?
It's a chocolate truffle mouse! Part of the evil plan to fatten everyone up.
Let's take a minute and admire Francoise's shoes
Someone please find these on Zappos and order them for me. Size 7 1/2.
Francoise was our bus driver the last two days, and no way is she wearing any bus driver uniform. First day she was stylin' in a skirt, jacket and black heels with ribbon ties. Second day she was loading luggage and driving impossible streets and just generally being Super Francoise. Here she is with Paolo:
Yes she's wearing pearls.
Me and the honey in Nice. Like my hat? Sure you do. Bought it in St Paul de Vence...just up the road.
A quick catch-you-up, since I've been stuck with a super-slow hotel network, which was restricted to one login per person per device, so transferring photos from phone to iPad for blogging was a challenge.
Spent a little time just keeping an eye on the Mediterranean for you. You're welcome.
Landed in Paris, connected to Nice, transferred to the Montaigne Hotel in Cannes. We remain a bit puzzled by the time spent in Cannes - there truly isn't much to do there, although we can hardly complain, right? Weather has been fantastic, and the Côte d'Azur is indeed very azur.
View of the very modern principality of Monaco. Yes, yachts are everywhere.
Day trip to Monaco, which is tiny, modern, and takes about an hour to tour. Maybe less. The cathedral, best known for Princess Grace's tomb, has one of the plainest interiors you will ever see. We did not have time to tour the palace, but did see the changing of the guard, which takes about five minutes. They were starting to set up for the Grande Prix, which was cool, and we did go to Monte Carlo and that was definitely worth a walk through, very very different from American casinos.
Today we went to St Paul de Vence, a walled town above Nice that was home to Chagall and a favorite of many artists. A classic medieval hill town with very narrow streets and stairways, lots of shops to explore, galleries, restaurants, and, of course, the cemetery featuring Chagall's grave.
People leave stones with inscriptions on the grave, a Jewish tradition
We boarded the ship today, and I'll fill you in on that tomorrow. We stay in port at Nice until tomorrow night, and I hope the Matisse museum will make it into my schedule tomorrow afternoon. Until then, I'll leave you with this picture of our program director Paolo. He says he knows the gesturing is an Italian stereotype, but he tried to keep his hands in his pockets once and no words would come out of his mouth. Ciao!
Well, I will be, anyway. And soon! Arethusa is Greek for "waterer" , the name of a water nymph in Greek mythology, and is the name of the 50-passenger ship we will be cruising on in the Mediterranean along the coast of France and Italy.
We will be on the ship for 7 nights, off for 7 and the really long list of places we will see is like this:
Cannes, Saint Honorat, Monaco, St Paul de Vence, Nice, Santa Margherita Ligure, Portofino, Cinque Terre, Porto Venere, Marina do Carrara (and Carrara marble quarries), Bastia (Corsica), Portoferraio (Elba), Livorno, Lucca, Florence. (3 days!).
Whew! Stay tuned.