Sept 13

This morning when I got up I was happy to find all the clothes that I had hung all over our apartment were dry. Yeah! There is another market on the streets of Annecy but it is still so much quieter than the weekend crowds and the market is smaller. Avi and I went out for a walk and brought coffee back from Haven, a restaurant that we discovered that had good coffee. We all got showered and packed, returned our key to the host and headed out for breakfast at Haven. It was a wonderful and beautiful breakfast. The food looked like art and tasted incredible. 

Breakfast over and bellies full, we got started on our journey. The scenery was absolutely beautiful on the drive and David drove the 130 km/hr allowed in France so the time went fairly quickly. We stopped at a rest stop about 130 km into our trip and were blown away. The beauty was amazing and the rest stop had a zipline for kids. It was lovely in every way. Avi did some of his callisthenic moves and then we headed out once again. About 300 km into the trip, we stopped at a rest stop that had restaurants and got sandwiches with the infamous French cheese and bread. Back on the road and we finished up the trip. Driving into Aix au Provence was impossible to imagine. The host told us we could drop our luggage off before parking so we found our place and checked ourselves in with the lock box and dropped off our luggage. Back to crazy traffic, narrow roads shared with pedestrians that feel like you shouldn't be driving on them. Trying to find the parking garage was a stressful nightmare. All of us had hoped for a peaceful time in Aix and realized that was not to be. Time to reframe and refocus once again. David is an absolute trooper at driving in these crazy cities and we finally found the parking garage and got our car parked. This garage has 1800 spaces and is so stressful in and of itself. Ugh. After we parked, we navigated back to our place and tried to regroup. The hustle and bustle of this city was just not what any of us anticipated. We rested a minute and then headed out for a walk. Stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant. I liked my food - pizza with burrata cheese but everyone else had just ok food. We got some recommendations from our host so we'll see how it goes tomorrow. 

Back at the room, settling in and we are planning a beach day tomorrow. 

We are all exhausted after the long drive and the constant change from city to city. Not sure if there is an easier way to do this. But I think no matter what, you have to continually manage your expectations. Crowds are very thick this year and it definitely diminishes the peace. But there is also something very special in the hum and buzz of excited people so we try to tap into that. 

This has been a crazy bread day for me. I think I'll be more careful tomorrow.