Learning French?

While Jimmy and I were in St. Gallen, Ashlynn was in the South of France supposedly practicing French and learning about French culture. Based on her photos, I think she mostly goofed around with her friends.

This is where they stayed--lucky kids!

Exploring the City Center...

We easily located the shopping district, where we searched and found an affordable black leather jacket for Ashlynn (apparently every model needs a black leather jacket). Afterwards we wandered around in search of a quaint area for dinner. Along the way we saw this funny centipede wearing lots of colorful shoes...

...and this bizarre billboard.

We finally found a few restaurants on a hill with a view down to the harbor, where we had a good pizza and pasta dinner.

The historic district was rather run down and not at all charming, which was quite disappointing. Frankly, we were relieved that we were only spending the one night.

We weren’t the only ones listening when Veronica played some Coldplay at the Marseilles train station.

Along the Marseilles Coast...

The Old Port is guarded by two forts, which made for a few nice spots for photos.

On the top of the hill overlooking the Old Port is the Notre-Dame de la Garde. There were a lot of restaurants along the harbor, but they lacked the charm of many seaside cities. Perhaps that’s because most of the Old Port had to be rebuilt after the Allies bombed it in 1944 in preparation of the liberation of France.

Overnight in Marseilles...

This photo was taken as we prepared to leave Port Grimaud.

We drove to Marseilles, where we would be spending one night before catching a train to Paris. I was surprised to learn it’s the third largest city in France. We saw a fair bit as we got lost trying to return the rental car and then took a long walk to meet the girls at our hotel.

Our afternoon explorations took us past the beautiful Marseilles Cathedral, completed in 1896. Ashlynn was especially thrilled that I was satisfied with merely photographing the outside.

The mirrored walls of a nearby museum made for a cool reflection shot.

Friday’s Party...

Friday night Terri and Chris hosted a dinner on the hotel’s rooftop. The food was delicious and the champagne was flowing. Lauren looked adorable with her new haircut and a glass of bubbly in her hand.

We managed to pull Terri away from her hostess duties just long enough to grab a quick photo. It was a pleasure meeting her parents. Her father is quite a Photoshop guru and vowed to help Jimmy who explained that I keep catching him when he tries to hide things on the cover of Going Dutch, like a spaceship or an alien.

The views were amazing during the entire evening.

Back to St. Tropez...

Terri doesn’t turn fifty until November, but that didn’t stop her and Chris from throwing her big celebration at their house in Southern France during the summer. They invited family from the US and UK and friends from all aspects of their lives, including a large group of us from Holland. They took over the entire Kube Hotel just outside of St. Tropez. This was the beautiful view from our room.

And here’s the pool at the front of the hotel, which overlooks the Mediterranean.

We flew down with Frank and Johanna early Friday morning so we could maximize our weekend away. After checking into the hotel, we set off on a walk along the beach towards town.

Jimmy opted to walk in the sea, while the rest of us managed to keep our feet dry. We had a nice lunch overlooking the water. The following day we headed back into town to visit the market. Jimmy and I bought some lovely tableclothes for our extra-long dining table.

Lunch on the Terrace...

Just outside our guestroom on the 4th floor was a lovely terrace where we had a great lunch of fresh tortellinis from the market. It was the perfect way to end our visit. Thanks to Curt and Vero for hosting us!

After our late lunch, we drove back to Port Grimaud where we spent our last night of our vacation relaxing.

Aix-en-Provence...

I was impressed that the girls wanted to spend the afternoon going to a movie in French. After we dropped them off, Jimmy and I went in search of lunch. Ironically, with all that fine French food to chose from, we ended up eating burritos at a dive café; after spending six months in Boston, the owner returned to Aix determined to open a Mexican restaurant for some strange reason.

The market in Aix was really good. While Ashlynn and I had an egg on a crepe, Veronica opted for Nutella.

Curt and Vero live right in the historic district, which made wandering around easy.

Exploring Aix...

On Friday while Curt and Vero were working, we wandered around the historic center of Aix. It was a bigger city than I expected, which made me realize just how independent Veronica was to have explored these same streets last summer on her own. We had no luck finding her a cute French dress for her year-end dance, but we did buy some DVDs of The Simpsons so the girls can learn French in style.

Photobombed by Ashlynn

Meeting Nils...

Veronica was so excited about seeing Nils again and we were thrilled to get to meet him. Of course, it was great to see Curt and Veronique as well. While I hadn’t seen them since their wedding in August 2010, Jimmy visited them in Aix on the day that they moved into their house in March 2011.

Nils is definitely one adorable kid! It was fun taking him to the park.

Veronica and Ashlynn babysat him on the second night of our stay while we had an adult night out.

Geocaching in Aix-en-Provence...

Our final destination for the day was Aix-en-Provence, where Veronica spent a week last summer. We arrived a bit early to head to Curt and Veronique’s, so we parked the car and headed out to do some geocaching. Ashlynn found this travel bug in a wall at a park.

Ashlynn also found this micro cache behind a pipe on the side of a building.

Geocaching in Cassis...

After our boat ride, we did a little bit of geocaching. We found this cache on a wall at the beach.

The Calanques of Cassis...

Cassis is renowned for its steep-walled inlets formed by limestone called calanques. The tour boats were running, but we were warned that the sea was rougher than usual (although you can see that everything was calm in the coves). We took our chances on a one-hour cruise to see this lovely coastline.

The high point for Jimmy and the girls were pretending to surf on the boat once we were back out in the choppy sea.

The Port of Cassis....

On Thursday, we set off to Aix-en-Provence to visit Curt and Veronique. On the way, we stopped at the coastal town of Cassis (the liqueur creme de cassis actually comes from Burgundy). We had a picnic lunch at the port before taking a boat ride.