Scott and I are now on the same sleeping pattern. Early to bed and early to rise. What’s really weird is that we are going to bed before bunny which I don’t think has ever happened before this trip. Anyway it was 6 am and scott asks me if I want to go for a walk. I had been looking at the map already for the nearest large grocery store for provisions that the local market doesn’t carry. So I suggested we just go to the nearest Carrefore (the French Fred Meyers). They open at 8:30 and its about a 50 minute walk. So we get ready to and leave at 7:30. We are following the direction from Google maps on my tablet. We get about 15 mins into our journey and I am now realizing that what was not showing up on Google maps was the terrain. We are proceeding to c!imb the steep hill behind where we are staying and then going down the other side. So while the distance to the store was only 1.4 miles it was also about a 1500 ft elevation gain and then down the other side. We did finally get to the Carrefour and get our groceries. It was great exercise and we got to see a lot of the town. The views from the top are spectacular. We took the bus home.
I just now started to track you, but it’s hard, for me at least, to get a clear picture of where you are. I believe you are in a part of Villefranche-Sur-Mer, east of Nice in some fairly substantial looking lodging down a road cobbled of thick flat stones who knows when. It must be an off-the-path, quiet, neighborhood of small rentals near or in the homes of locals. It doesn’t really matter how off the mark I am, since you should be off for Tuscany in less than two days. From what I’ve seen there the only place I got an idea you may stay at is Orlando in Chianti. It just seems reasonable. I just erased a bunch of nonsense. I left the nonsense above. Now I’ll write some more. I am here at the Mount Vernon Motel, Apt. 8, where 395 Ts into 26. My beat up 22 year old little Toyota pick up runs great. Gets me to the doc. Europe, to me, is a dream of centuries old cottages and peasants working a Van Gogh field and mud roads shredded by 60 ton tanks, canals lined by very green pastures and neat brightly shuttered farm houses. I also imagine general western worldliness too pleasant to accept, and a world I couldn’t reach. But, if you’re gonna get stuck somewhere, it may as well be Florence, Pisa, Siena. The food. I’m getting hungry.
Sorry it took so long to reply to this post, Tim! (This is Bunny) you have a descriptive, engaging writing style – love your posts. I must say this: while I enjoyed France, I don’t think the Riviera is my first choice for my next travel destination. We came here cuz I thought I might want to go to a french school in villefranche. But my knees cannot stand all of the hills and frankly I got tired of the surly french. Italians smile soooo much more. More on all this later…