We said goodbye to Waldemar, our wonderful host for the past three days, and left for Paris at about 6:15 am. We needed to drop the car in Paris by 3:00 pm, so we didn't have to pay for an extra day. The GPS told me that Monschau was only about 12 minutes out of our way, so we made a half way break there. When we visited Germany in 1986 we thought Monschau was the prettiest little German town we saw on that trip, so it was nice to revisit it. It was still pretty ...

This morning we said goodbye to our wives at the Montpellier airport, which is about an hour drive from Avignon. Little did we know that we would see each other again sooner than expected! About half way into our drive north to Strasbourg, I received a text from Sherry saying they had missed their connecting flight in Paris and would be spending the night at an airport hotel there. After confirming that they had two rooms, Jim and I reset the GPS for Paris, thin...

Today we visited the Pont du Gard, the 2000 year old aqueduct built by the Romans. It was an incredible feat of engineering. I remember learning about it in my architectural history class way back. It's roughly equivalent in height and length to the high level bridge, built entirely of stone without any mortar. Seeing it up close was a great experience -- definitely a highlight of the trip so far. Next on the agenda was Arles, where we planned to have lunch, b...

We spent the day today in Avignon, which has some incredibly well preserved structures dating from the middle ages. First was the Pont St-Benezet, the bridge of the famous song. It was built in the 12th century, but largely destroyed by floods in later centuries. You can walk on the part that still goes part way across the Rhone river (see pic) which we did. Next was the Palais des Papes (Pope's Palace) where several Popes resided in the 1300s. I didn't know that...

Another travel day, this time from Nice to Villeneuve de Avignon, a small village just across the Rhone river from Avignon. Our first stop was to be Antibes, be we had a parking lot incident there (a longer story) so we just left. Next stop was Ste. Maxime, where we had some drinks and picked up some things at Carrefour (a large Wal-Mart like grocery store). Then it was on to St. Tropez (of Briget Bardot fame) for a quick look around. Very much a resort destinati...