Day two started a little late. Sleeping in was hard to prevent after our little middle of the night party with Avery. It worked out well though since it was raining. We checked out of l'Hotel Alpexpo with smiles and headed over to the mall (right beside our hotel as luck would have it). Breakfast was made up of some fabulous yogurt in a clay pot and crepes.
Afterwards we drove out to Murianette to revisit the house Brad stayed at while in Grenoble.
Then it was on to Avignon! We should have planned for a whole day there. It is a huge medieval village that protects a palace used for the popes in 1400-1700. The village was enormous and the old buildings were breath-taking. The palace was awe-inspiring with its size. We took a tour inside and got a great glimpse of what it must have been like to live in a castle once upon a time. It was magestic, but pretty dark and drafty too. The stairs were so narrow, I wonder how people ever walked up and down them in cloaks and dresses with out tripping.
We also went up to see a park at the top of the mountain. It was beautiful! And of course the view of the surrounding area--and the bridge of Avignon--was fabulous.
We made it to our hotel in Cannes late tonight after some high winds on the highway and lots of crazy driving on one-way streets here. Cannes is a lot busier than any of the other places we have visited. It seems like a fun place; we are looking forward to exploring it tomorrow. Brad is interested in making friends with the owners of the super yahts to see how he can get to ride on one . . . or maybe vacation there for a few months. (He found one with a huge flat screen on the deck with a bed to lounge on.)
Brad at his old place in Murianette. No one was home, but their old car was still parked in the bushes.
The wall outside Avignon. It is really incredible to think about the vast size of this city, and to know that it was FULL (with apartment buildings) in 1500! People still live there. 
One of the many hotels in Avignon. The archetecture was incredible.
One of my favourite windows! I loved the variety of the archetecture here!
One of the charming street scapes in Avignon. They had galleries, high-end boutiques, and quaint cafes and restaurants through out.
The Palace de Papes and the church in the background. It was massive!
The gates all had iron works like this flanking them and on top of the fence/gate. I certainly wouldn't want to be trying to climb over those gates!
The bottom of the garden was gorgeous with pathways and gardens criss-crossing all the way up. The garden was beautiful. It had a duck pond with fish, several fountains and caves with pools. They also had some playgrounds for children scattered through out.
We found some little duckings in the park on a stone wall. Their mother asked them to jump off the wall . . . one landed flat on his beak!
Avery wanted to know if we were going to ask her to jump off a cliff.
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