The French Riviera

We are here now at the beautiful French Riviera. The first vacation day has been great in every possible way. Even if we have had high expectations we have not been the least disappointed. The is ever so blue, the wine is good and the sun is shining.
We drove from Nice where we landed early afternoon and check out our rental car to arrive at the small coastal village called La Ciotat where we are staying our first night. I am still amazed that it is possible to reach places so fast here compared to the US where distances are so far. Here you go from one place to another and it is just a short drive or at least it seems so to us that are used to having to travel far distances. This is the old harbor we are staying at with all the lovely sailing boats.

We are at the moment in white wine region. All a long the way as we drove we passed fields of grape bushes.

This is our view from our hotel room. I just let out a big wow as I stepped out on our balcony. The most charming part of the city and the old harbor is right at our feet. Today they had this street market going on, people, vendors and live music going on. We sat here on our balcony admiring the view just soaking up the spirit of vacation and being here on the French Riviera.

Boats, boats, and more boats. All kinds of them, small, medium and super large. Fishing boats and elegant sailing boats. This is boat lovers paradise.

Old beautiful churches.

We just had a great dinner down by the harbor. They just had some great fish. I had a fish soup and some salmon and C had some other white fish. It was all really good. The French is going so so but so far we have managed to both get to the right place and also get what we wanted when ordering from the menu. So it is working out somehow.

It is interesting to see how the French hang their laundry outside their balconies in this way. Many of the old buildings would need a slab of new paint and some fixing up but in some way the old worn look adds to the charm in a way.