Fête des Fleurs

It's Springtime - time for the Festival of Flowers... I'm not sure that this is something typically done every where. In fact, I don't believe it is. This is in Haut Cagnes-Sur-Mer (pronounced oh-ca-nye-sur-mare) - translates to the top of Cagnes on the sea. At the very top, with a view of both the sea and mountains, is a small castle where the Flower Festival was held.































The exhibits and presentations were beautiful - certainly I had never seen anything like this done with flowers before.
















This is a view of the ceiling in the great room of the castle. I found this to be particularly strange as the horses and carriage look like its falling on you. I'm not really sure if there is some significant meaning behind it.

Gréolière & About

Judy and I decided to go and have lunch in Gréolière (pronounced grey-oh-lee-air) since this would probably be the last time she'd be able to venture into the mountains. The range is absolutely beautiful and it looks as if it goes on forever. It's nice to go to places like this as it reminds you that the whole world is not completely packed with cars, concrete & people everywhere.

















So, in Gréolière they have a ski resort - one side of the mountiain was completely covered in Snow - and then across the little valley there was nothing. This would leave one to believe that the snow was fake... but I'm not so sure. Of course, what do I know? I grew up in Georgia where it snows every 20 years.
















The drive there is quite interesting - not for those that get carsick easily.
























A really nice drive though!

















These are some ruins outside of the village. They just happened to be there - it's not a tourist destination or anything. I believe we could have hiked up to them, looked around and nobody would have stopped us.

















Le Cascade du Loup






















The only waterfall that I could find the entire time I was here...

I'm just guessing that there is probably more water later in the year when more of the snow is melting...

Easter

My "Resurrection" Egg.

No, not really, I just saw that in a Christian Bookstore today - and I thought it was funny... That's my easter egg... :-p

Hand-painted by a bunch of Swedish gals and myself. We figured these could probably go for top-dollar in some markets.































So this is my formal introduction of Johanna (on the left), my co-worker & activities coordinator... she helped me to avoid becoming a hermit.
















It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon... on the beach, having a picnic... cheap rosé, bread, cheese, fruit, olives... entertainment (painting eggs).
















And we decided that henceforth - we would continue meeting on the beach on Sundays for some time on the beach and a little R&R.

Horseback Riding

Please note that all these pictures were taken by my friend, Jeff. Hopefully, he doesn't mind... it's not like I'm selling them, so I can't see why he'd really care. Anywhooo, I wanted to share with you this most daring outdoor experience: horseback riding in the Alps.



We went on a three hour guided tour with some horses that did NOT want to listen to anybody but the guide (at least at first).


Ok, so I hate this picture... but it was the best one out of all of them (I've decided to stop wearing this shirt upon looking at this pic).


At the time this picture was taken, I was fearing for my life. I was grateful to know that horses too have survival instincts and prefer not to fall off the side of a mountain. However, I was pretty sure he'd throw me off if that's what he needed to do to survive. It was downright scary as the horses were pushing up against each other trying to force through the others.

At some point, Johannah's horse decided "to hell with this, I'll go another way" and the guide had to go get her and bring her and the horse back down. I'm sure Johannah was cursing me and my desire to do "outdoors-y" things when this was going on.




The first part was absolutely beautiful. It was really nice and sunny outside. We saw some houses along the way, I don't think anybody's lived in them for the last 100 years because the only way to get there was by horse. Finally, we get to the top of the mountain and look to the otherside, and this is what we see. It looked heavenly - and then I realized that would need to go down into it.










Our stubborn horses:



These outing took me about three days to recover from. My muscles were so sore the next day, it was difficult for me to get out of bed (as I've said before, I'm a skinny fat person).

The Nice Carnival

Here we have the "Festival of Lights" during the Carnival in Nice. It turns out that the "Festival of Lights" is really just a parade at night - and I guess they shine lights on all the floats so you can see them. It wasn't quite what I expected, given the name and all. I'm not really sure of what I had in mind. (Warning: There are a lot of pictures in the post, so it may take a little while to load)


Richelin Street
At first glance, I would say this is anti-american... but perhaps its just an expression of their love for American Hollywood Blockbuster trash. Is there a movie with this happening (a large dinosaur eating the statue of liberty)? If there is, I haven't seen it... but I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt. :-)








The Skeletons
These are absolutely my most favorite of all the pictures... the photos themselves look like drawings and not a photograph.
















Tall Chicks








And the others...
We (Johannah, Jeff, Squi and I) rather enjoyed the festivity - though I believe we were all confused about the themes for some of these floats. For this reason, I leave the interpretation of these floats to you...

Les Grottes de St. Cézaire

Approximately 30 minutes from Grasse, there lies a small Cave hidden in the mountains. During the summers, they have quite the crowds. However, if you go in March towards the end of the day, you'll have the pleasure of having a privately guided tour by a rather lively old man.



Perhaps you've grown tired of my pictures of dark caverns? I don't think there are *that* many - but I do admit I love to venture underground and see the many treasures (or oddities) that could only exists beneath the depths of the earth.



Taking pictures underground can be quite difficult, especially when you don't have a handy tripod. Of course, once you do have a tripod, you need to be speedy enough with all the settings on the camera - because most guides on tours don't really want you to take 10 minutes to get the perfect shot (can't blame them, honestly).


I saw these and I really wanted to touch them. Understandably, there is some fencing to keep people like me from fulfilling such a desire. I believe they called these "cauliflower" formations. I can't be sure: 1) my memory may be sketchy, 2) the tour guide loved to make a lot of bad jokes (we loved them).




Oh wait, maybe this was the cauliflower? Johannah, do you remember (a test to see if she still checks my blog)?

Of particular importance to this cave is the color of all the rocks, many of them are red and this is because of the iron oxidizing in the rock.



The common name for this formation is "the fish market" because it looks like a bunch of fish hanging up on a line waiting to be sold. While I, personally, have never seen fish sold in such a manner, I can imagine that at maybe some point that was done.

Prior to their paving the parking lot, they still had water dripping (he said waterfall, but I somehow doubt that he really meant that) here. Until then, they had no idea that that was the source of the water.




This is supposed to be chocolate milk or melting chocolate. Something of that nature.