Tour de France

We've been gone from Barcelona for less than a week and have already done so much I can't keep track of it all.  Right now we are in Cannes and it is raining, providing a little break for some blogging!  I hope everyone caught Jonah's post.  After he posted it, he got caught up reading through my earlier posts.  It made me smile to hear him laugh several times.  And, it seems to have inspired him, as he says he plans to post something else soon.

Thanks to Tom's careful planning, our own tour de France is off and running.  Before it officially kicked off, we did get the chance to see the Dali Museum in Figures, Spain, which was quite a wild adventure.  We also spent a night in the lovely coastal town of Roses, where we even got to play some beach volleyball on a court with a net!  Very exciting for the volleyball fans in the family (3 out of 4--Jonah did reluctantly play along, however.  He's working on his sets).

 Our own Mr. Yellow, enjoying the beautiful beach in Roses.

One of Dali's grand projects, viewed through the special viewer at the top of a very strange staircase.

After leaving Roses, we drove into France, where Sierra and I were relived of the job of family communicators/interpreters (a job for which we are both fairly ill-equipped---especially me), and Tom, the fluent French speaker, took over.  I'm fairly confident now that we won't run into another situation where I think the guy just told me a table will be available in about 5 minutes, when, in reality, he told me that all the tables are reserved and they probably can't accommodate us.  Our first stop in France was La Ciotat, on the Mediterranean coast.  After being Rick-less (Rick Steves, that is) during most of our time in Barcelona, we are happy to be carrying his book again to guide us in our travels.  La Ciotat, unfortunately, was not Rickommended.  However, because we had trouble finding a place in the nearby city of Cassis, which he loves, we had to settle for sleeping in La Ciotat and taking a day trip to Cassis.  We agree with Rick that Cassis has far more charm than La Ciotat and we enjoyed our day there immensely.  The drive over along La Route des Cretes was magnificent and would have been enough to keep us happy for the whole day.

Once in Cassis, however, things did not start out so well.  As we arrived in town, we remembered that it was market day, which made parking nearly impossible.  After nearly getting our new leased car wedged in a crowded parking lot, and failing at another effort to secure a spot when a flock of angry French drivers were barreling down on us, we finally found a temporary home for our little Peugeot.  I was sweating and grumpy after that, and may have even spoken a non-blog-appropriate word or two.  Luckily, we found a delicious lunch at the market and I had pretty much recovered by the time we finished enjoying our picnic on the beach.

We then headed over to our primary destination in Cassis, the calanques.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term (as all of us were prior to this trip), calanques are Mediterranean fjords formed, in part, by the movement of glaciers.  Rick promised that we'd find the hike along the calanques breathtaking, and he was right.  The water was many incredible shades of blue and green, the flowers were in full bloom, and the rain showers that threatened to dampen our fun dissipated just as we set out on our hike (after a 10 minute interlude in our car to allow a small squall to pass).  Enjoy these amazing photos by Sierra for a little taste of the beauty of our walk.

 That's all for now, folks.  Stay tuned for the next leg of our Tour de France, coming soon!