French Kiss

Below you have a sunset view of the highest bridge in the world, the viaduc de Millau.

We had a lovely time, stayed at Stephane's parents place and got to see our cat Lechat. His parents treat the cat like a little prince. The cat gets served mineral water while they drink tap. We had a bbq with Stephane's friends. Lovely fix-me-up house with a large garden right on the banks of the Tarn river. A little piece of heaven. Saw Kayaking tournaments. Millau is a very sport oriented town with lots of biking, water sports, and para-gliding. We went to the top of one of the mountains to see the paragliders take off (and also to look into perhaps daring to take a ride myself) the views were spectacular. (as you can see above) However we did see one unfortunate soul awkwardly take off for paragliding adventures only to quickly turn 180 degrees and find himself smack dab back into the side of the very mountain he had only moments before been leaping off of. Thankfully he only suffered a few broken ribs ( and probably a large dose of embarrassment). We also went swimming in the river with a friend of Stephanes. We saw snakes, ducks, trout, and crayfish (which I mistook for a lobster at first...)

After we went to Vence forStephane to meet my dad for the first time. My father was very taken by Stephane's welcoming nature and pleased to see that his daughter had not chosen some big "macho" type.Stephane then went on conference in Toulon. I spent the next three days hanging out with the family, went to the beach with Kenny and went to see him perform with his choir in the town square for Fete de la Musique. Also had some nice quality time with little Wanda playing in the garden with her horses.

All in all a very satisfying trip. However it was also extremely hot. It got up 38 Celsius. So I was actually quite thankful to return to the east midlands where a cool summer thunder storm awaited us.