Sunday 8 December 2013

Dec 8 2013 Juan les Pins

NJuan les Pins is next to Antibes which is close to Nice and Cannes. I think it is good place to base explorations of the French Riviera. We visited Cannes and Nice. We saw lots of nice boats. Some boats were so big I can't imagine what they do with them. Yoly likes the big Rivas from Italty. Were going to get one right after we make a Billion dollars in the casino.
We have been having trouble finding misadventure as things are going quite smothly, (french lessons?) so we took my friend Maurice's advice and visited Italy. I have found in the past that Maurice'sadvice generally leads to misadventure. (Anybody remember the GPS advice.) Turns out French lessons don't make a person fluent in Italian. The poor Italian folks that tried to figure out what we were saying had quite a time of it. I can't speak fluently in three languages add Italian and mix it all up and try to make sense of it? Luckly the waitress could speak Portuguese to add more to the mix, the end result was some fine wine and an excelent lunch in an Italian trattoria. We also got some scissors, thanks to a nice young ladies' spanish lessons, in a store that we have been missing since leaving Canada, The Loonie Store. 
We had to get to Paris to meet Hugh, so the SNCF went on strike, again. Last time they went on strike we had to get Marseille for our meeting with the immigration department. We got to the train station and found our train had been cancelled due to the strike. The train before ours still hadn't left the station so we took the SNCF agents advice and got on that train. Because I like symmetry I chose the same seats and train car that were printed on our  tickets. Turns out they were empty so we sat down and rode the train to Avignon with out incident. In Avignon a lot of people got on the train and they had paid for our seats. I gave the seat beside me, recently vacated by a guy who had to make a phone call, to a nice lady who wanted to go to Lyon but ended up going to Gare du Lyon in Paris because the train didn't stop in Lyon. Yoly, on the other hand, showed the Lady who had paid for Yolie's seat her ticket with the same seat and car number and the nice lady seached for another seat finding one a couple rows away. Moments later the guy beside Yoly said that he too had the same seat number as Yoly on his ticket. When he went to the bathroom I took his seat. Ok, yoly says: our train was completely cancelled therefore all the pasangers for both trains have to be sardined into one train. There were people standing, people siting on luggage, people sitting on the stairs, and the restaurant was full. I blame the guys who were on strike for making the train ride unpleasant for so many people, but not for us. 
Paris was a mess, the RER trains weren't running so we decided to walk. Yoly spoted a bus that took us two thirds of the way to our hotel, it cut my hour and a half march into a 30 minutes stroll. It was Grand. 


Here is Al showing his disapointment on the red carpet in Cannes for not being nominated at the film festival.


But, hey! Theres always next year.


Here is Al being cranky because the little tourist train hasn't move in 2 minutes. So we left and walked for 13 km circuit for free and did not miss a thing that included a hill that the train could not get to.


A nice carrousell


There is still hope for Al in Pirates of the Caribean VI


Al thinks this is the boat.


Une petit pause pour le dîner.


Beautiful palm trees and green grass in december.


Big Carlton hotel



The big Carlton candy.


Nice Mercedes


A view of Cannes



Sail boats in Cannes


At the top of the hill.


Citadel in Antibes.



Yolys has become desensitized to Christmas cheer.


Nice the city.


Nice the beach.




Contemporary art museum in Nice.


Russian church, Nice.



Park Nice.




Rose middle of December Nice.





Nativity from Guatemala.


Nativity from Canada.






















2 comments:

  1. What a Beautiful Country you are seeing. Bud & Me Wish You & Hughie A Very Merry Christmas! How exciting to be spending it in another country.Happy New Year 2014! Looks like you are enjoying every minute of this Fantastic Holiday. We have LOTS of snow certainly a White Christmas for us. God Bless. Hugs & Love from Us Both.

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  2. Thank you Edie and Bud for keeping in touch with us and for the great wishes. We sure are blessed to be together for Christmas and see this part of the world. We too, wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas and new year filled with many blessings. Love From Al, Yoly and Hugh

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