Lifestyles of the Rich . . . and fastest!

After a wonderful night's rest in our gorgeous hotel (seriously, it pays to have a nice place to rest and recover in after a hard day of sight seeing), we awoke to a hearty French breakfast . . . in bed. Free of charge. Truly, you just can't beat that!

Melanie and Avery set off quickly for the boutiques and soon had to ban themselves from ever setting foot in another one again . . . or at least one for children's clothing, namely girls. Every store seems to have cuter and cuter things in it! Avery may never have to wear a single outfit for longer than one hour!

Once a cruise ship hit town, we fled town. (Brad didn't want all the French people here to think that we were tourists like those "tacky" cruisers. ;) )

We drove along the coast through Cagnes-sur-mer, Nice, Villefranche-sur-mer, and finally ended at what Melanie considers paradise, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. It was beyond description. Truly, gorgeous in every way. It is the secret hide-away of the incredibly rich and probably very famous.

In fact, we ran into some old friends on the beach . . . you may have heard of them. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and the whole Pitt-clan! Avery had such a good time romping around in the water with Shiloh. We didn't want our time here to end (nor did the Pitts) so we looked at some real estate and found our dream villa--only 2.5 million euros. (We are taking some donations now to help fund our "cottage" if anyone has some extra cash.)

Well, we really didn't run into the Pitts, but we did find their massive villa, and saw their body guards standing guard around their pool. As if anyone could really scale those cliffs!

On the beach we stumbled upon a school class taking some physical education time. They were kayaking and there were even some young kids sailing tiny sail boats! What a contrast when you saw them beside the grand yachts in the bay and habour.

We ate lunch at a cafe by the harbour and then went on a hike around the farthest edge. It was breath-taking. Seeing the spectacular villas and the cliffs around a picture-perfect park was something out of this world, for us anyway!

I think I am going to have to get a second (or fifth) job so we can afford to buy something here one day . . . or at least spend our next French vacation here. It was so relaxing and peaceful. A big change from the craziness of Cannes.

Since we were out east, and had braved the "worst" traffic (so we thought), we decided to keep going along the coast and drive up the Moyenne Corniche to Eze.

For the record, Brad has done some incredible driving in his past, tackling Manhattan without a hitch, even Mexico's crazy drivers and rough roads, and of course France complete with the tiny, unmarked one-way streets of Cannes. But nothing could prepare him for the Corniche. Thousands of feet above the water while being sandwiched between a tiny stone wall and one row of crazy European drivers going about Mach 4. I truly felt our lives were in danger. But, Brad prevailed, barely. And for his reward, we continued onward to Monaco . . . where driving actually got worse!

Monaco hosts the Grand Prix every year during the last weekend of May . . . and clearly, there are remants of the racers left. We have never seen so many Ferraris and Porches in one area . . . and certainly not seen them all wizzing around a tiny and busy European city like that!

And instead of having horse-drawn carriages to take you around the city for a tour, they had Ferraris for hire to show you the sights. It was pretty tempting.

We made a quick getaway and thought we were safe in terms of easy driving since we found a highway that was a little straighter than the corniches. However, we soon realized that the Grand Prix was behind us when a Ferrari was riding our tail . . . followed by a porche, both going full speed and neither looked to be slowing down for us.

Our hotel was such a nice sight tonight!