We're back from France!

The wife and I got back home at 2 a.m. on Sunday after three weeks visiting her relatives and the various sights in France. The weather was hot and air conditioning was not often available, but we had a great time.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of the trip...

Spent the first week in Nice with bed and board furnished by a cousin, who lived just four blocks from the Med beaches. Yes, we saw a few topless sunbathers. *grin*

Managed to make trips to Cannes and Monaco. Yes, we gambled there. A little. At the cheap casino, not the one where the cost of admission was arriving in a Ferrari, Lambergini, or stretch Mercedes. And with the minimum bet at blackjack 200 french francs, we limited our gambling to 1 ff electronic slots. :-)

We stopped by St. Tropez for half a day on our way to Digne to spend three nights with the wife's sister. It is an interesting town, but the traffic jams we had to endure to get there made it not one of our favorite stops.

We took two days to go from Digne to the wife's mother's place 40 miles south of Paris. Spent our only night in a hotel in Beaune (just south of Djon). Was a Novotel. Almost a clone of a Holiday Inn. The wife enjoyed the pool and we both enjoyed a night of sleep in a/c.

During our last week at the mother-in-law's place in Boutigny Sur Essonne -- a typical French village, we managed to make three trips up to Paris. The highlight of the trip was the Sunday, July 29, journey to Champs Elysees to see the end of the Tour de France. American Lance Armstrong won the world's most famous bike race for the third time.

I survived 2400 km of French driving. Rented an Opel Zafira wagon. Nice car. And it did 160 km/hr (that's 100 mph!) easily on the autoroutes.

We ate well. We walked a lot. We had fun. We spent less than we budgeted. I'm ready to go again.