Thursday, November 12

So a bit of a medieval village driving day today. I had read and heard from some locals about Gourdon a village a very short drive from Grasse. It was used in a couple scenes for the movie Les Miserables and is one of the most picturesque of all the perched villages. It’s rated as one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France (Most Beautiful Villages of France), and well deserves the title.

Of course you can not visit a beautiful perched village without driving on the fringe of a cliff side road. As we near Gourdon you begin to have it in your sights, it is perched on the edge of a cliff looking towards the French Riviera. First thing we noticed were the paragliders criss crossing amongst each other right in front of the cliff. There were a couple singles and tandems. Shelby commented that she thought it was pretty cool and would maybe find it fun. We parked and then walked to the main lookout and watched the paragliders for awhile. I can see why they come up to this spot, it was ridiculously peaceful, you could hear them as they glided past you and the views would be breathtaking.

View of the medieval village Gourdon on our drive to it, you can see the parasailing above the village.

I talk a lot about the cliff side roads, here is a view from Gourdon looking at the road cut into the mountain we drove in on.

We walked around the village and had a snack break. Shelby and I often toodle around together and Max and Justin usually go off and explore passageways and tunnels and stairs and anything else that can be climbed on or through, this way you don’t have to keep telling Max that he’s in a hands behind the back type of store.

After leaving Gourdon the plan was to drive to a village called Vence but along the way we drove through Tourettes-Sur-Loup and thought it looked pretty neat and so we decided to stop there. As usual we often arrive in places during the French’s afternoon siesta…many local artisan shops were closed, however most luck places were open. So after a quick wander of the streets throughout the village we decide to stop for a light lunch.

A view of the gps leaving Gourdon. I am not lying about the switchbacks!

We decide to skip driving to Vence and just head home so after putting in the coordinates in the gps for home we set off. We’re back tracking on some of the road that we came in on from Gourdon and then the gps warns us a left turn ahead in 200 metres, ok, then another warning at 50 metres well then the left turn disappears and it says we passed our turn and is recalculating the drive home. What the! there was no left turn, so Justin finds a tiny driveway to turn around in and  we head back to where we were supposed to turn. OK, so there is a road, but it’s a tiny road wide enough yet again for 1 car only and maybe a motorcycle to pass us. I’m thinking we should turn around and head back to the main road but Justin is ok with such drives so we carry on. We continue on switchbacks and tight roads for about 15 minutes and then eventually pop back out onto the road we left Grasse on heading to Gourdon earlier in the morning.

I keep thinking I’m getting used to the drives but everyday I am challenged yet again with the roads of France. Another thing I noticed today, which we’ve talked about even while we were in Servian is that the stop signs all say Stop, not Arrêt but Stop in english. So I just spent 20 minutes online trying to find out why, and I still have no answer. Some say it is because the french word stop is derived from the english word. Another thing I read was the that did say Arrêt up until the 60’s when they were changed over. Apparetly many other European countries use stop. Shelby also said that when she was playing a game with her friends in Servian she noticed they used stop also and not arrêt.

A good day in the medieval villages followed by some school work when we came home. Off to a market about a 12 minute drive away tomorrow. I can’t wait to see Shelby’s face when we tell her we’re heading to another medieval village for a local market, haha, I think she has had her fill. She did say today she liked Servian better because we did more stuff, for her and Max I think as opposed to all the driving around here visiting places. And she is probably right in her mind, as her favorite days in Servian were the ones when we just stayed home and did school work, and then mid morning she’d go buy a croissant and a baguette from the boulangerie then in the afternoon after lunch the kids would head to the Tabac with 20 cents and buy some candy. Then she would wait for her friends to show up after school so she could play outside with them till I called her in for dinner. Yes, I can see where that was a good memory.

I forgot to mention also a big thank you to Trevor for sending Max numerous letters from home. Shelby was once again miffed that she has not received a letter in the mail and Max is always super proud.

Max with his letter.