Well we've made it to the Cote D'Azure, and today is a very windy day in Nice.  Still beautiful though! We managed to get up to the rooftop pool and squeeze in a few hours of sunbathing already!  We did have to anchor down everything because it would have blown away. I would have blown away if I was only a few pounds lighter :)

Before we got here though we were first in Epernay.  It is a small city that houses some of the largest names in champagne, like Moet & Chandon which makes Dom Perignon, and we went down into the caves for a tour and a tasting. It was really incredible. I  had no idea how champagne was even made. Originally, I thought there was some special bacteria that grew only in the caves of the Champagne region but that is not the case. They actually select some of the best wines, and age them with sugar and yeast for at least 4 years, and up to 25 years!  We got to see the house that Napolean Bonparte stayed at every year to drink the champagnes produced.  They even have his hat! (we didn't get to see it) You can visit www.moet.com to understand and learn more. It was pretty cool.  The amount of champagne they house in those caves is incredible!  Millions upon millions of Euro's worth.  They even have the barrel of port wine that was given to Moet from Napolean from the 12th century!  That was pretty amazing. Unfortunately we kind of messed up because I assumed we could get to Lyon from Epernay, but in fact we ended up having to transfer BACK at Paris so that was definitely not fun.

But we ended up safe and easily enough in Lyon.  Lyon itself was really really lovely.The old town is listed as a UNESCO Old Town, and it was easy to see why. Cobblestoned roads, random alleyways that led into beautiful courtyards, it was GREAT! Unfortunately it had rained for the first part of our day in the city,but we took refuge in the neatest little miniature museum. Matt, you would have LOVED it! It had recreations of every situation you could imagine! They even had within that museum, an exhibit of film, where they had props used in classic Hollywood movies like "V for Vendetta" (they had V's mask) and the gun from "The Bourne Identity". Very cool museum.  To have a peek of your own mini world check out their website. http://www.mimlyon.com/# .

Later in the afternoon, the clouds parted and we had great weather to go and view the amazing ( and I mean amazing) Roman cathedral that sat on top of the Old Town. It was such a glorious display of beauty.  Every little detail was taken into account. The mosaics speckled with gold, the ceiling foiled in gold everywhere, the marble carvings, it was magnificent and took our breath away!

So we have moved on here to Nice.  Cute enough town, but very typical touristy coastal town, which is exactly what we are looking for!  Just a chance to relax by the water. Tomorrow we are going to Monaco (YES Zsa Zsa, Monaco!)  for the day, and we are both very excited about it.  I think I may do my makeup, I don't want to look like too much of a hobo for all the wealthy people who live there! :D

Hope everyone on the wet - ahem, I mean West Coast is doing okay. (I'm sorry for your poopy weather, hopefully when we come back we will bring the brilliant Mediterranean weather with us!)

PS. French people are annoying, and Italian people are the most annoying.  Just for reference :) But Vlad is the least annoying out of everyone in Europe.  And no, we haven't killed each other yet!

Love Mia and Vlad


EDIT:  I have a quick question for you all..

Imagine that you are sitting outside eating a Haagen Daas sundae.. an expensive Haagen Daas sundae, errr lets say in Nice, and a bird happens to drop number 2 right into it from a height of what would appear to be 40 -60 feet up with a heavy wind presence and a sundae diameter of no more than 2 inches. With this information would there be any way to figure out the odds of this happening? ?

Just curious... carry on.

(yes, this seriously happened)