Our last adventures...

Wendy must love driving....she loves "hot" cars and has driven everything from Toyotas to BMWs to a Lexus. She kind of liked that little Mercedes we were renting, so she was all for driving to Italy. After all, it was just across the border from Monaco, right? I wanted to hop on a train, of course...thought it would be a lot easier!

But my vote lost out and we headed out, stopping first at a perfume factory in Grasse. After all, Grasse has been famous for being a "perfume capital" since the Renaissance. They say 75% of the world's essences are produced here from the tons of varieties of flowers that are grown here, in an ideal climate.

We learned that it takes 10,000 flowers to produce just a kilogram of jasmine petals and almost a ton of petals is needed to distill just a liter of essence. No wonder perfume is so expensive! We saw bags of flowers (note the lavender)....

..... the essential oils extracted and distilled in huge vats....

........combined into all varieties of perfumes, after being smelled by only a select few "Noses" who train years longer than a doctor....

......and VOILA! Perfume......all on sale for the tourists. How could we resist that????

All of us emitting different scents, we headed east for Italy, less than an hour away, but not counting on a number of toll booths to stop us every few kilometers. But, we could see the Alps ahead of us, and we stopped in the first town, Ventimiglia. It was a quiet little town on the Mediterranean, filled with palm trees, pasta, and people who were not so "fashion-conscious" as the French. We felt a little less intimidated.

The beach was a typical Mediterranean beach.....full of small stones, never washed enough to turn into sand....

After a pasta lunch at a sidewalk cafe, we headed back to see Monaco, driving along the beautiful coast. The first view of Monte Carlo was pretty impressive with its tall modern buildings and harbor filled with yachts and cruise ships.....

We just "happened" to be there the same week as the Monte Carlo Grand Prix race through the city, with the time trials going on that day we were there. Streets were closed off, of course, but we maneuevered around the detours and found a parking garage (which was filled with mega-bucks cars). We had to walk around barricades to see the Casino, as the race went right in front of it.
With the sounds of speeding cars roaring through the streets, we barely got a glimpse of them through all of the barriers (you needed tickets, of course). We walked along the immaculate Disney World-like streets, admired the fancy stores and the playground of the rich and famous, and felt a little out of place. We headed back to Grasse, taking a drive through Nice, and relaxed.

Our last day on the Riviera started with a visit to the Rose Festival in Grasse.....

.....lunch at the harbor in Nice...

.... and a plane ride back to Paris.

I had a list of things I still wanted to show them in Paris, but how do you do it all? We did get to Bon Marche, the fancy department store, but my planned walk in Luxembourg Gardens was cancelled because an unpredictable rain shower stopped us. So we headed over to Notre Dame and had a tour in English, with a choir practicing for Sunday's service chanting in the background. It added to the ambiance, but it was hard to hear our tour guide.

We spent our last evening out with Lyle (with his four women)at an Italian restaurant

walked home under the blinking lights of Tour Eiffel....

spent Sunday on the Champs Elysses and toured the Louvre....

They saw a good part of Paris and France, for that matter.....and we said our good-byes the next day, Memorial Day, as they lugged their suitcases into a cab to take them to CDG. As I sat in the empty apartment, I regretted not showing them this and that, but still was glad we could do so much and that they all were able to come and visit. It is always so nice to have company!