Nimes, France

Friday May 3rd we spent in Nimes.  Nimes is a very old city in France and has been inhabited for thousands of years.  The Romans were there and built many large structures that are still around today.  And those were our main focal points of the day.  

Jardins de la Fontaine

This was not a Roman creation, but was built in the 18th century on the recently discovered ancient site.  It was very much French in its creation--the statues and vases. 

It was so green and beautiful!

Pont du Gard

After walking around Avignon, we drove out to Site Pont du Gard (still on May 2nd).  

It is the Roman aqueduct of Nimes out in the countryside that is very well preserved.  

Avignon, France

After taking forever on the road in Cannes, we made our way to Avignon.  We parked outside the old city walls, and then walked around inside the old city.

Cannes, France

Thursday May 2 started out pretty nice for me.  Paul had woken up early to get me a couple presents for my birthday.  He got me caramels--I LOVE caramel!  He also got me a corsage.  (And of course he got all of us some yummy pastries for breakfast.)

Italy

After our short visit to Monaco, we continued across country lines into Italy. 

Monaco

Still on Wednesday May 1st, we made our way into the city/state of Monaco.

More Mediterranean Coastline Driving

We continued our drive along the Mediterranean Coast...on our way to Monaco and then to Italy.  

We really enjoyed the beautiful views.  And seeing the beautiful homes and gardens, I think we all agreed that we could live there.  Now I know why so many people DO live here--it's absolutely gorgeous!

Nice, France

Wednesday, May 1st we had in Nice.  In the morning, Paul, Glenn and I went walking around to find a patisserie to get some yummy pastries for breakfast.  But shop after shop was closed.  We couldn't figure out why but then we remembered that it was le Premier Mai, of May Day.  We then went back to the hotel, got Mom and Dad and went driving around the city.  Mom had lived here 50 years ago when she was a little girl.  Her Dad, Grandpa Thibault had been called on a Church-Building Mission for the LDS Church and they lived there for 3 years.  We found a parking spot near one of the schools that Mom attended and went walking around.  

Marseille, France

After seeing Carcassonne, we continued to drive along the Mediterranean Sea to a small town near Marseille, which was called Bouc Bel Air.  Our hotel was pretty nice.  It looked like it was at an old estate.

Carcassonne, France

We arrived in Carcassonne, France on Sunday evening.  We checked into the hotel and then went looking for dinner.  How different things were in France.  We were so used to having restaurants open really late for dinner in Spain.  In France we were lucky to find the one that we did!  It was a bit more expensive than we normally would go for, but we did experience some fine French cuisine.

On the Way to France

After spending the morning and afternoon in Barcelona, we headed north into France.  We thought about going through the small country of Andorra, but due to the weather and leaving later than planned, we went the more direct route to Carcassonne, France.

(Sorry for the bad photos in this post...I had a black smudge in the camera and it shows up in a lot of the pictures...and we were driving so there are some blurry ones.)

This is the sign post to show that we passed into France...it came up a lot faster than I thought.  But there you have it.  

Barcelona (part 2)

Sunday morning (April 28th) we spent in Barcelona.  We planned on going to Sacrament meeting there and then doing a bit more sight-seeing.  We found the church and went in.

Barcelona (part 1)

Saturday April 27th in the late afternoon we arrived in Barcelona.  We had some trouble finding our hotel, parking our car, and even checking in.  So we lost some sight-seeing time due to that.  But once we got all of that figured out, we headed out even though it was raining.

(This was the view from our hotel)

Countryside between Valencia and Barcelona

We drove north along the Spanish coastline from Valencia to Barcelona.  It was beautiful!  Not only did we see the Mediterranean Sea, but we also saw castle ruins on the surrounding hilltops, and we saw thousands and thousands of orange trees!  

Valencia (part 2)

Saturday morning, April 27th, we packed up and went to a little patisserie close to our hotel and then headed to the downtown area again.  We drove through the old city of Valencia and it was beautiful and quaint.  We were greeted by the old city gates.  They are huge!

Valencia (part 1)

The next morning we got a late start on our trip.  Paul got up for work at his normal time...but I didn't get up until 10:15; Glenn got up later than that...and Dad got up even later than that!  Needless to say we didn't get off when we expected.  And then after picking up Paul from work, we hit traffic and it was kind of slow-going for awhile.  But we were on our way and there was no turning back!

My Dad Arrives in Spain!

On Thursday, April 25th or "Grandpa Don Day", my Dad arrived in Madrid!

That morning Paul didn't go into work so we all could go to the airport to get my Dad.  We took the metro down to the airport and had assumed that Dad's flight would come in at Terminal 4...but it actually landed in Terminal 1.  We didn't have a way to communicate with him--we had talked prior with him saying that we would meet near the metro entrance at the end of Terminal 4. Poor Dad.  He didn't know what terminal he had arrived in and so he was looking around to find out where he was so he would then know where to go.  After awhile and trying to talk to people and someone selling him a phone card AND THEN telling him there was a FREE bus that connected terminals, he made his way to Terminal 4 and to the metro entrance.  We saw him and then gave him some money to get a metro pass.  It was a bit confusing and he didn't really understand the kiosks very well and had to keep coming over to ask us what to do.  We didn't want to exit the metro area into the airport because it would cost us 3 euros to exit and to enter again.  And we just didn't want to spend that.  So finally Dad got it figured out and we were on the metro again.

Videos from our time in Spain

So I was looking through my pictures and videos and realized I was only able to upload two videos of the many we took while in Spain.  Now that we are back in the USA and things have settled down a little bit, I will upload those now for your viewing pleasure. :D
I'm realizing also that several of them are too big to upload.  So unfortunately you won't be able to see all that I had intended to post here.  But here are some.

This and That

With this post I will be up to date-yay!  Tomorrow my Dad arrives from Utah!  My Mom’s passport didn’t arrive in time for her to make the already-purchased airline tickets.  So we are still hoping and praying that it arrives before her rescheduled flight.  We have been looking forward to my parents visit for a long time.  We have a lot of travel planned and we’ll have a lot more to post about, so I’ve been trying to get caught up.  This post will be a little of this and a little of that.  I will have to do another post when we get to the USA with videos.  The internet here is so slow and it takes forever to upload a video—and most times it won’t ever load completely.  But I wanted to show the day-to-day pictures we’ve taken too—to show what it’s like to live here in Spain.

We found this yummy spread in the store—it’s kind of like Nutella.  We’ve already gone through one and are on a second jar.  We may bring home another jar… :D

Templo de Madrid España

Last Friday—April 19^th—we went to John and Maureen’s house for dinner.  They are from the UK and are here in Madrid for a little while.  We met them at church and wanted to get to know them better—so we had dinner with them.  Maureen made a delicious dinner and we talked and talked until late in the night.  I’m not sure how it came up, but they offered to watch Glenn for us while we went to the temple.  We had wanted to go but didn’t know who we’d get to watch Glenn.  We were happy to know that Glenn would be in good hands while we attended the temple. They have grandkids and were happy to watch Glenn.