Lover's Weekend in Nice, France

First off, I'd like to dedicate the song at the top of my playlist to my hubby. He's my "Tally-HO!"

Tally and I finally took a VACATION, not a TRIP. Let me explain the distinction - A trip is with kids, a vacation is WITHOUT kids. Or KID in our case. Of course the kid in utero came with but he's pretty easy going at this point. We drove down to the French Riviera over Europe's "labor day" weekend. The GPS said it would be 5.5 hours, but with all the crazy Italians out there also going to the beach, it took us 8 hours on the way there. At least we didn't have to worry about having Kelsey in the car all that way. And despite the traffic, it was well worth making the trip. We've been doing a lot of sight-seeing since moving here and it was great to just relax and not have an agenda.

We stopped in Monaco on the way to Nice. We had to pull over before driving in to get a pic of this view.

An unobstructed view of Monaco

Tal in front of the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco. We went in, but no gambling.

More views of Monaco

View of Nice from our hotel, Le Meridian. It was nice and best of all, it was right across from the beach.

On Friday night, we took the advice of our hotel receptionist and took the train down two stops to Villafranche. We LOVED this quaint and beautiful little town which is set in a small cove. The strip was lined with nice restaurants and you could look out at all the yachts parked in the marina.

Plus, there was this cool lighthouse across the bay.

More Sights of Nice

We walked up to Le Chateau that overlooks Nice. It used to be a castle but now it just has a big waterfall.

A kiss at sunset, looking at the waterfall

Looking from the waterfall out over Nice at sunset.

Me and my pregnant self

For dinner on Saturday night, we made reservations at the Grand Balcon. Le Petite Mansion was booked and we were a bit bummed about that. However, we really liked the food at Grand Balcon and the atmosphere was cushy elegant with Renaissance self-portrait paintings on the walls. I wish we had gotten a picture of our food! This was after we finished off the shrimp-avacado appetizer.

The Market

The rocky beach. This part wasn't very crowded at all. That was the great thing about going in May. That's Tal's shadow and I kinda like the look.

The UPs and DOWNs of DRIVING

On the way home, there was so much traffic that we went up through Torino and then over to Milan. However, this "shortcut" took us through the mountains (beautiful, and cool towns along the way) and added 2 hours to the trip. We think that actually saved us time b/c we would have sat in more traffic. It was much better to be continually driving instead of sitting watching tail lights.

Can you believe this is considered a TOILET!? For the most part, I'd say Europe has toilets much like you'd find when driving across the states (some even better, but you may have to pay a bit). That's why I was floored when we pulled up to a relatively nice gas station and I walked into the bathroom stall and saw this:

Do you know how hard it is to squat when you're 7 months pregnant, have stiff legs from being in the car, and can't see over your huge belly? And to top it off, I was wearing sandals. Yummy.

Once we headed North again for a few hours, we sat in traffic at the Gotthard tunnel for 3 hours (great Swiss engineering - It's the 3rd longest tunnel in the world. There's a light at the beginning of the 16km tunnel and it only allows a certain amount of cars in at a time. There's only one lane going each way and it is the only way from the Northern canton of Uri to the Southern canton of Ticino.). Once we got through, there was no more traffic and the scenery was too gorgeous for words. I love this time of year in Switzerland. We didn't get home until 11pm and Jenna was great to keep Kelsey for another night.

It was our first time leaving Kelsey, and she did great. My friend Jenna and her husband and two girls took great care of her. They are like her 2nd family now. She was still glad to see me when I picked her up on Monday morning.

Here are some pictures of Kelsey's weekend. The Todds took her with them to Konstanz, Flower Island to meet up with the Perry fam. Looks like they had a lot of fun!

Breakfast with Mia

Chocolate Fondue - made with avacados!

Popsicle treat

A Kiss for Baby Eden

Playing with Elisa

Down the slide with the girls

Fun on the boat

Can't take her eyes off Eden

Kels with the beautiful flowers

So curious - what a cool boat ride

Mmm...ice cream

Jarrod quickly became Kelsey's favorite

For more photos, click here.