South of France

It's not often (for us Americans anyway) to have a whole 2 weeks off of work - all at once. In June, before we left London, we had time in between and decided to take advantage of it with a holiday to the South of France.


The first week we spent around St Tropez, and the second in Provence (more about that in a later post).

St Tropez is everything you imagine it to be ... beautiful beaches, delicious food, chic clubs, fabulous shopping - there's no better use for the phrase "Over the Top"! Except perhaps Monaco - which has a bit less sand but a lot more money on display in the form of jewels, designer duds, and fast cars.

Believe it or not, it was an incredibly relaxing experience - we woke up, went for a run, had coffee & croissants next to the pool, then went to the beach and sat in the sun all day. We went to some very posh beach resorts where gorgeous women lounged in teeny bikins & covered in bling from head to toe (who carrys a Louis Vuitton handbag to the beach after all?!) but they were really fun - great music, well-toned cabana boys stopping by to adjust your umbrella and bring you bottles of rosé, and the constant entertainment of vendors walking up & down the beach, modeling their silk wraps for sale.

If we were feeling especially motivated at the end of the day, we'd get dressed up and go into town to enjoy a fabulous dinner - if not, we'd just sit on the patio and open yet another bottle of wine. I'm not sure what heaven is going to look like but my version will be pretty darn close to St Tropez!

We took a day trip to Monaco - quite an experience. Halfway there, we stopped in Cannes and Nice to take pictures and sit on the beach for a bit. After getting back into the car for another 2 hours of driving it hit us - Monaco isn't is France. It lies on the French/Italian boarder. Boarders usually require passports. Mine was in the hotel. Ugh! As it turns out, you don't need a passport to get into Monaco BUT you do need one if you want to get into the casinos (the reason most people go to Monaco to begin with!). Much as we tried begging & pleading with the girl behind the desk, she was not about to budge (I appreciate the thought - but I'm pretty sure I don't look under 18 anymore) So, we agreed that Tim would go in by himself and I'd wait outside. Given that 'outside' featured a row of shops with names like Prada, Versace, Hermes, etc... Tim spent all of about 6 minutes in the casino and we met for a coffee in the piazza afterwards.

Here is where things get interesting. Take a look at this picture. Who does he look like to you? Yes, we thought so too! Once we thought we'd made a celebrety sighting of the great Louis Hamilton himself, I instructed Tim to follow him round & round, pretending to take pictures of the cars (but secretly taking pics of Louis!). So what do you think - if it's not him, this guy bears quite a striking resemblance, no?

*note, I cannot post pictures right now so I'll have to come back to this later. In the meantime, pics are on shutterfly ...

Cannes & Monaco: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8CZMW7lo2cMUK

St Tropez: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8CZMW7lo2cMUo