Evening everyone! (daytime for you all naturally)

Glad to be back and posting once again after a couple days off..
quite literally in fact. It was almost like Mia and I took a couple days off! No camera taking photos, no travelling back and forth between places, no cooking or doing dishes in an apart hotel, no grocery shopping and no sight seeing..
Just two days of sun, pool, food and birds chirping!

We  initially thought that we would leave Nice and find our way to St Tropez, but what ended up happening is that the hotel we had booked was in Ste. Maxime, which is actually across the bay from St Tropez.. little did we know that Ste. Maxime was a shorter distance which meant less travel time  to and from there and yet was just a beautiful.
Our only real issue was that the hotel we were staying at, though lovely, was a bit out of the way.. in that we needed to walk a good 10-15 minutes to get to the town. This wouldn't necessarily had been an issue, but because of the complete lack of public transit, taxis, or even other places to eat around  our hotel, we were pretty much obligated to make that walk just to go and get food! This doesn't sit all that well when hunger interrupts your relaxation plans, but with some clever planning we ended up making it work somehow.

What a beautiful little area it was though. Lush green hills sloping right down to the sandy beaches and ocean. The weather was decent for the two days we spent there, and because our hotel had a very nice pool, we totally took advantage and grabbed some rays poolside.
We did manage as well to find some really nice meals within the small town which definitely made the  stay that much better.

What totally made us upset though is just how crap/pathetic/inefficient/worthless/crap the overall bus and rail connectivity is in this country. I mean we left this morning at 9am to be at the bust stop by 9:30. The bus arrives 35 minutes late ( by then we thought we were hooped for real) and takes us over an hour to get to the St  Raphael train station (had  to go back since there are no connections from Maxime or Tropez).
Finally we reach the train terminal, and oops, no trains going to Aix en Provence for 2 hours. Great.
So we wait some more. Finally the train comes and we hop on and then at Marseille we need to transfer again! No direct trains so then we wait another 35 minutes for THAT train.
Point being that we left at 9am this morning and had arrived at our destination, maybe some-odd 150km away only, at around 4pm. Yes, I kid you not. A whole day of travel just to barely go any distance at all.

Eeeeh.. anyway, we're now in Aix en Provence which is a smaller town about 35km outside of Marseille. Initially we wanted to stay in Marseille for a couple nights but after much looking there was absolutely NO decent accomodation anywhere to be had within the primary city limits, and so rather than spend our last days in France there with all the other tourists, we'd take some more time out off the beaten path. Which is fine by us as it would seem that this cute little place has more than enough to keep us busy for a couple more days.
Hopefully the weather will get better though as today was just pouring all day. Luckily enough we arrived at our Hotel no later today because a half hour after we checked in there was a downpour outside that would have soaked us through and through. Somebody up there is definitely lookin out for us I tell ya

So for our final days here in France (kinda good riddance) we're going to try and fit in a bit of everything..culture, relaxation and some good home cooking. Its SO nice to be able to cook in your room.. I love that Mia and I can grab some groceries and have breakfasts and dinner together.. its just so fun!

I have to admit though the reality of our upcoming time in Spain is exciting indeed. Of course, believe it or not, but the idea  of coming home to Vancouver is getting us kinda excited as well! Its always nice to come home after a long hiatus after all right?

So as I mentioned  there was not much in the way of photos taken in  the last couple days, but I will leave you all with a couple while we were still in Nice/Monaco. I promised Zsa a couple photos from Monaco and so I have to deliver!

Much love to all the readers.. we love to read  your comments and feel very  special  that you guys take the time to let us know you're out  there, even when you're all so busy.

Love Mia and Vlad

(as always, clicky for larger)
1st) the city of Monaco in all its glory :) Taken from the prince's castle.
2nd) The Monte Carlo Casino! We would have gone in, but its strictly black tie only. Shoot, forgot to pack my suit :(
3rd) Another shot of the city with our lovely model Maria
4th) Shot taken while at the Monaco aquarium which was fantastic..
5) Shot of me standing at "Le Chateau" which was one of the older sites in Nice (quite a walk up, but oh so worth it)
6th) Shot of the Beaches in Nice outstretched from Le Chateau