We rented a car down here in the south, so our critical goal is to get our GPS to work for France...otherwise we're dead in the water.
However, the first order of business today in our new digs was to do a serious laundry and hang it out to dry...in the fresh air...the good old fashion way (apartments have washing machines, but most don't have electric dryers)...on a clothesline with clothes pins! Haven't seen either of those things in decades...but they do the job, and beautifully!
We also checked out our cozy private little garden where we could relax, but not sure we'll have time for that...
And anyway we'd rather relax on our terrasse, composing our Blog there and staring at the ships in the deep-water harbor right outside our windows...quite mesmerizing, and magnificent! 
As we got closer, there were two women sitting there...one of them had a big smile on her face and greeted us with a welcoming Bonjour! It was Mareille, one of the people we chatted with yesterday evening out on the dock at the marina celebrating their friend's birthday...another serendipitous meeting here of someone we sort of knew! She was sitting with her friend Annie having cafe, and told us that this is the oldest cafe in town, with the best cafe and pastry in all of Beaulieu...it's where all the real locals go, and everyone knows everybody. We certainly picked the right cafe! She invited us to join them, and shortly another friend Corinne Massa, appeared and pulled up a chair with us too...so we were an intimate party of five, pretty much taking up most of the chairs out front.
We actually wanted to have a quick cafe and croissant and get on our way to solve our GPS Issue. But when someone greets you like that, in a place you don't know, you just feel like you want to relax and enjoy the situation...these coincidences don't happen all the time, and we like to maximize our experiences by being flexible and going with the flow. In fact, talking to real locals is what we love to do best, and here was a wonderfully inviting opportunity.
So we chatted for quite some time, mostly in French, but Corinne spoke excellent English, having been married to an American and living in LA for 15 years. It was the usual and always interesting chatter about the US vs. France, politics and Obama, whom they lovvve vs. Hollande who they hate, family, travel, the local area and famous people living here, e.g. Bono, Elton John, Tina Turner, etc. etc. Mareille had travelled extensively, living many years in Africa with her then husband and where her son Frank, whom we had also met last evening, was born. Frank is this handsome late40ish curly blond and tanned swarthy hunk of a guy, so friendly like his Mom, who has his own sloop and takes people out on charter cruises...who knows where that may lead. Finally, we all had places to go, and so we did our kiss-kiss goodbyes, and we were off on our missions.
They had told us how to get to CAP 3000, the big shopping mall just outside Nice past Nice Airport, where the area's largest Apple Store is located. They also suggested that after we park we should walk down to the little local port area nearby and have lunch along the seaside promenade...so civilized!...what a concept! Isn't there a port near the Westchester Mall where we can go for a seaside lunch and promenade...or are we just dreaming!! So we drove right through Nice along the Promenade des Anglais, passing the famous Hotel Negresco.
Then we traced our steps back to CAP 3000 and found the Apple Store.
You'd pay an arm and a leg for a hotel room that had that view, right, n'est-ce pas?
Then we very carefully edged our car out of its tight parking space on to the busy Basse Corniche and drove about 5 minutes into our new 'home town' of Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Parking there is tight too, but we luckily found a legal space right in the center. We were on a mission to find a good Cafe, one we could pronounce as our new 'ground zero.' We didn't have to walk far because just opposite the main square, where a small market was in progress today, we spotted a nice looking awning and some people sitting outside having their morning pick-me-up...all good signs of a winner.
We actually wanted to have a quick cafe and croissant and get on our way to solve our GPS Issue. But when someone greets you like that, in a place you don't know, you just feel like you want to relax and enjoy the situation...these coincidences don't happen all the time, and we like to maximize our experiences by being flexible and going with the flow. In fact, talking to real locals is what we love to do best, and here was a wonderfully inviting opportunity.
So we chatted for quite some time, mostly in French, but Corinne spoke excellent English, having been married to an American and living in LA for 15 years. It was the usual and always interesting chatter about the US vs. France, politics and Obama, whom they lovvve vs. Hollande who they hate, family, travel, the local area and famous people living here, e.g. Bono, Elton John, Tina Turner, etc. etc. Mareille had travelled extensively, living many years in Africa with her then husband and where her son Frank, whom we had also met last evening, was born. Frank is this handsome late40ish curly blond and tanned swarthy hunk of a guy, so friendly like his Mom, who has his own sloop and takes people out on charter cruises...who knows where that may lead. Finally, we all had places to go, and so we did our kiss-kiss goodbyes, and we were off on our missions.
They had told us how to get to CAP 3000, the big shopping mall just outside Nice past Nice Airport, where the area's largest Apple Store is located. They also suggested that after we park we should walk down to the little local port area nearby and have lunch along the seaside promenade...so civilized!...what a concept! Isn't there a port near the Westchester Mall where we can go for a seaside lunch and promenade...or are we just dreaming!! So we drove right through Nice along the Promenade des Anglais, passing the famous Hotel Negresco.
We parked near the CAP 3000 mall, and walked over to the seaside and found a lovely restaurant on the promenade and had our first authentic Salade Nicoise, sitting out in the sun watching the people stroll by...fabulous!
Long story short: after speaking to several 'Genious Bar' techies, this Error 403 that I am getting when I try to publish photos (as many other people are complaining about on their Google Internet Forum) is a Google server problem, not just my App. There is no way to contact Google directly (did you ever try to?), and, therefore, the bottom line is that unfortunately THERE IS NOTHING TO DO!!! At least for now.
Soooo, our dear friends, it seems that unless Google fixes this problem once and for all, we will not be able to post pictures each day with our Blog. We will have to try and figure something else to do about the pictures...Or maybe just have a slideshow at chez nous (our house) when we get home...because now we are in some spectacularly beautiful places...wish you all could see...and the boobs on the beach aren't half bad either!
(As you can see, we got this photo-uploading problem fixed, and so you have these pictures now.)
Our GPS still isn't working for international maps though, so we drive all the way back past the Nice Aeroport to return to Europcar to see if they can get the Garmin to work. Long story short here is that they can't, and the GPS that comes with the rental car is impossibly complicated. To rent a hand-held one for our 3-week trip will cost another $16/day. So to temporarily solve that problem, we decide that tomorrow we will have to invest in a good road map...here we are in the 21st century, and we're going back to the dark ages with paper!
But Jill cannot navigate for Marty without some kind of tool, so this will have to do for now until we can talk to Garmin and get that Euream navigation map that we already had purchased with the device but for some reason has not been loaded. We're too tired to deal with this problem anymore today, so we'll see what we can do about it tomorrow.
But Jill cannot navigate for Marty without some kind of tool, so this will have to do for now until we can talk to Garmin and get that Euream navigation map that we already had purchased with the device but for some reason has not been loaded. We're too tired to deal with this problem anymore today, so we'll see what we can do about it tomorrow.
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