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 After
a week of running around all over western Austria, we settled into
Club Med at Opio in southern France, near Cannes. It's an all-inclusive
resort: food, lodging, entertainment are all paid for. We likened it to a
land-locked cruise ship. We got to just relax and enjoy some time off.
Like a cruise ship? But how about some shore excursions? Here we are in
Provence / Cote d'Azur, and we might as well be in Palm Springs! What's out
there?? You guessed it: we jumped back into the car and started driving around.
 It
started with a simple visit to the
Fragonard perfume
museum in the neighboring town of Grasse, France's perfume capital. We saw
how they extract the fragrances from flowers and other substances and blend them
into a variety of products. We took care of some Christmas shopping. But that
wasn't enough for us, oh no!
The next day we headed west, towards Nice. We couldn't get near Nice because of
the heavy traffic, so we headed up the Var river valley. A sign invited us to
visit the canyon of the
Vésubie, a smaller river which joins the Var. The scenery was superb! We
stopped for lunch in the town of
Utelle,
perched on the side of the hill. We continued on up to the top of the hills to
the shrine of La Madonne d'Utelle. Off in the distance a herd of goats sent up a
faint clanging of bells and subdued bleating. The air was heavy with the scents
of the sage and other herbs. Here was a real taste of Provence!
That was such a great day, that the following day we headed
north through the hills and valleys along the
Estéron river. It is an area of twisted rock cut by fast running streams.
Now we were on our last day before we had to fly home.
We drove west, past Aix-en-Provence to visit the medieval town of
Les Baux de Provence and spent the night in a bed
and breakfast outside Cavaillon. The next morning we flew from the
Marseilles/Provence airport at Marignane to Amsterdam.
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However when we got to our gate for the final flight home out of
Amsterdam, this gentleman was looking at one of the engines of our plane. A
short while later a blue truck pulled up. That's when we knew we wanted to
fly in some other plane. In fact, we were delayed for a couple of hours
while they found a replacement. |
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