Bonjour, Mes Amis

We woke up to find ourselves tendered in Villefranche, France at our fourth port. The view was gorgeous. The town of Villefranche is nestled into the mountains, right at water's edge.
We chose to visit a town called St. Paul de Vence, out in the French countryside. Since we weren't leaving until noon, we had a chance to walk the charming town of Villefranche. We worked our way to a beach, walking along the harbor/coast. I must have taken about 500 pictures. Every time I looked up there was a more spectacular view.
We walked on the Cote d'Azur, we can tell our grandchildren. Hopefully we'll do it more than once. Only next time I don't want to see the nude sunbathers. After seeing that, we left the beach and headed back to the town.

The guys decided to take off on their own for a little bit. That was just fine with K. and I. We had some shopping to do.

I found the most beautiful leather handbag (dare I say it was better than the Italian leather I bought when we got to Italy?) and I used it this entire past fall and winter. I'm going to use it next year, too. I heart it that much.

We found some bracelets and some pretty soaps. And I bought a pair of white capris. Everyone wears white on the French Riviera. I had to fit in, right?

While we were shopping, we met up with one of our friends, S. from Canada. She was doing a bit of browsing herself. We got to hang with her for a while until we had to go meet the guys.
To get to St. Paul de Vence, you have to go through Nice, about ten minutes up the road.

We saw lots of famous things here. Roger Moore owns a home here. We saw the pink castle where "Beauty and the Beast" was filmed. We went by Elton John's home. And, oh yeah, we saw the Prince of Wales home when he visits Nice.

Unbelievably large. Like, WOW, large.
The French have a reputation for not being friendly but we didn't find that to be true at all. Outside of the people in the Netherlands, the French were the nicest people on the entire trip. They made great efforts to talk with us in their language, were very patient and seemed to like visiting with us.

We're planning on visiting France again. Soon, I hope.

St. Paul de Vence is a medieval fortified city. Very pretty to walk around in. Narrow cobblestone streets.

You can't get lost in this village.

While there were tourists milling around, it wasn't too crowded and there were lots of times we didn't see anyone on a side street or in an alley.
We had a bite to eat in a little patisserie. I got to use some French I remembered studying many years ago.

J. and K. helped since they took French in high school.

The Man was very impressed with us. He was just happy that we were able to order him something to eat.

J. and K. told me to order a crocques m'sieur, some sort of delicious buttery, cheesy ham sandwich.

Holey cheese sandwich, Batman. That thing was the best cheese sandwich I've ever had.
There were flowers everywhere. I could have snapped away all day long.

But you-know-who (or should I say whos) thought I was slowing everyone down and made me hurry my shots. I told them to keep walking and I'd catch up. Whew. They're tough on me.

We did not want to leave this beautiful port.

France was the best port we visited. Hands down.
From my journal:

"Got back to the port and we went to a sidewalk cafe
and had a couple beers and a Sprite for J.
J. and K. walked down the street to get some glace for her."