French road trip

Wow, it'll definitely be a challenge to recap the last few days in this post. It's been pretty amazing!  We picked up a rental car on our last day in Paris, and headed south.  That in itself was a challenge, because our GPS proved completely worthless in France.  We've spent the last few days reading actual maps, road signs, and using our intuition. (the iPad has been a bit of a God-send too, when we can find an internet connection).  A brief review of the towns we explored on our road trip:

Beaune- a recommendation from Patty Coffey (thanks Patty!), it's a quaint little wine village with cobblestone streets and some of the nicest people we've met so far.  Everything is in walking distance, and it felt a bit like a cobblestone maze. We spent some time with the sweetest French woman who runs a little wine cellar and sells wine from only very small vineyards in Burgogne. She didn't charge us a thing for the tasting or her time, and we learned so much! Of course we couldn't leave without buying a few bottles.  We also toured the most amazing wine cave called Patriarche, that spanned 5km of underground wine storage, and housed 3 million bottles of wine!


Enjoying wine and gingerbread ice cream in an underground hotel bar



Annecy- this town was a total surprise. We planned to stay there as a stop along the way, but knew nothing about it or what to expect. It was so wonderful! The streets are all walkable, surrounding these little canals and lined with sweet little shops and restaurants. There is a lake full of paddle boats for rent, and the backdrop is a skyline of beautiful mountains. I should also mention that the drive itself was amazing. We had no idea the french countryside was so lush and gorgeous, with so many different types of terrain. The roads are also very well kept, which is apparently funded by the extremely high tolls they charge. Oh well, it was worth it. ;)



The streets and canals of Annecy

 Aix-en-Provence- It's really quite amazing how different each town can be from the next.  Aix is known as the city of a thousand fountains. There is a much higher population of young people in Aix, and they clearly take pride in dressing well and looking good.  Loads of people gather at pubs in the town squares, and there's plenty of people-watching to entertain you for hours.  We also found there to be (unfortunately) a distinct feeling of snobbery, and for the first time on our trip, didn't feel completely welcomed with open arms. Once we got past that though, we were able to enjoy an incredible dinner of foie gras and beef tartare. It was absolutely divine! I'm sure Aix has more to offer than what we experienced in our short time there, but we were ready to move along.  Our next adventure: the French Riviera...

One of the thousand fountains in Aix-en-Provence