A new day, a new adventure. Sunday morning we got out (some sooner than others) and toured around Aix-en-Provence before we had to pack up and get out of the hotel (noon ckout). We had a nice brunch of huge omlettes, fake hamburgers (max will explain) and then headed back out to head to Valbonne and the Laffargue's. It rained on us some as we drove to Cannes and followed Emmanuelle's recommendation to get near Valbonne and call as we would never find their house. We did and she came down, found us and led us back to their house. There house was beautiful and so were they! We had a little family huddle with drinks and appetizers before we mounted up (boys in one car, girls in the other) and drove via windy roads down to Antibes for a shoreline hike. And it was neat! We then proceeded over to Cannes to the famous beach lined avenue (where the Cannes film festival is) for dinner.

Monday we had a great morning around the house- after a great "french" breakfast, the kids hit the pool, the adults (minus Jon-Michel, who had to work) hit the small villlage of Biot. After yet great french lunch we bid adieu and headed west to St. Margharita Italy- near Genova for the night. We had a whale of time finding Hotel Europa. We did find a Hotel Europa but this one was a 4 star one in apparently the wrong town. We finally found it, had dinner and went to bed.

Tuesday we drove on into Florence, with a stop on the way in at Pisa- to see the leaning tower, and tour the baptistry and cathedral. It's simply amazing that we found it without maps and or direction signs- we just kind "felt" our way there. Let's see- find the town, find the old part of town, look up! We had lunch and toured and shopped before heading on to Florence.

Our hotel in Florence was right in the middle of old town- right in front of the Duomo cathedral. That is great for a location, tough for finding it and driving a car to it. We did pretty well after I decided to cave in and activate a data plan (with GPS) on my IPhone. That did make it considerably easier.

Today Wed. we hit the famous Uffizzi museum early at 8am because it is typically sold out and has humongous lines if you don't have rsvns. We didn't. We got into the museum on the second shift of walk-ins however and according to the kids, they have now had a lifetime supply of midevil art and sculpture. We also walked over the Pointe Vehicco to the Petti Palce- the home of the famous DeMedici family. They thought the palace reminded them of our house- NOT. Had lunch and kind of took it easy this afternoon- some shopping, gelato slurping, etc.

More later.
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