After another memorable stopover we departed Nice at 7.30am. We headed north through the scenic countryside past Mt Victory - Cezanne's landscape painting regioThen north of Marseille the largest port in the area, home of the foreign Legion and a leading team in football (Soccer) and onto Avignon where the Papal Palace sits atop the hill and also the famous St Benezet Bridge ( Pont d'Avignon ) We enjoyed our lunch stop here and are now on the way to Lyon and Beaune our destination for an overnight stop. We are following the Rhone river - Alps to the right snow capped ,Rhone to the left and Masif Centrale in the centre I guess.!.?The DVD about the Eiffel Tower is playing as we proceed on our journey. Interesting that after the expo for which it was built it was going to be pulled down . I am so glad they decided to use it as a radio mast instead. We arrived late afternoon at Beaune , had a stroll around the town, shops and church and Carrefour store and went back to the hotel for dinner. A long travelling day today so bed was welcome.

Another new day and excitement at the prospect of getting to Paris today. We stopped at Versailles after having had a stop to purchase lunch. We had a little delay as we drove from the road house stop someone had left their hand bag - oh dear we had to turn around to go and pick it up - fortunately it was there ok! What a lavish place Versailles is. We had a look around and then wandered up the street to the church and then returned to the coach via a little cafe where we enjoyed a coffee and then we set off for the big smoke of Paris.We settled into our hotel the Marriott Courtyard on Victor Hugo Blvd. We had a dinner at Brasserie Lorraine in Paris. It was a delicious dinner after which we returned to the hotel. The next day we went on a sightseeing bus trip with a guide around Paris ending at the Eiffel Tower. I went to the top and really enjoyed the view. After this jaunt we went for a walk to the Opera house and Galleries Lafayette where we had lunch. The coach then returned us to the hotel. We went out to our final evening dinner after which folk went to Moulin Rouge show, after returning to the hotel, we packed up as we were leaving at 7,15 am in the morning.

We said our farewells to our travelling companions at breakfast. Patrick made a list of addresses & emails and gave us a cd of photos which we were grateful for. We left at the appointed time ,being waved off by some of the group who were travelling to differing places. We dropped some of the party at Charles de Gaulle airport and then headed for Calais. We arrived around 11am, were checked through customs and awaited the arrival of our ferry. We duly boarded the P & O ferry to Dover where Dave & Jo Burgess were going to pick us up. We had a nice lunch and in no time we were there. We alighted , boarded a new coach which had our luggage on board and drove to the dock building where we were pleased when Dave & Jo came around the corner .

We have spent the last few days staying at a great B & B in Blean near Canterbury . So great to spend time with the Burgess fam . Great food, great company, great sightseeing - Canterbury, Whitstable, Margate, Faversham, an Air museum ,a garden centre. and an outlet centre at Ashford plus more, It"s been a lovely time, We are off to Harwich on the morrow and then to Hook and to Amsterdam - looking forward to meeting the HTVP friends for another adventure on our travels. We are on the countdown to heading homeward.