Day 1,631 of Traveling the World | La Seyne-sur-Mer/French Riviera, France | July 21, 2022

Aaaahhhhh – relaxing in the sun-drenched south of France! The world calls it the French Riviera. The French call it Côte d’Azur. We call it Utopia, since there is absolutely nothing to do and not much to see other than the beach and the sea. Oh, and people. Lots of people. We read that the French have been ecstatic that so many Americans have come to France on vacation. There are generally lots of Russians who visit during the summer, but with the war, of course they cannot come this year. Their places have been taken by Americans, with the visitor numbers likely enhanced by Western Europeans trying to cool off in the ocean because of the heat wave.

Our biggest decisions have been what to order at breakfast and what to do about dinner. Since it is so hot, we walk rather laconically and just look around as we get hotter and hotter. It is nice to not care about seeing anything in particular, as we then hightail it back to the hotel for the air-conditioned temperatures inside.

And so, for the first time…no captions under the photos. You can write your own! (Regarding the last photo, though – their idea of a “taco” is very, VERY different than ours!) These have been days of just lazing, reading, doing laundry, walking, sleeping, and catching up in general. We only have three locations left in France over four days before we return our rental car and catch the Eurostar (we found that nobody here says “the Chunnel” any more!) to London. We will be in the same hotel in London for over three weeks, so that will also be a welcome change to moving every few days. But we wouldn’t change our schedule in France for anything, as we got to see so many amazing sights and places that we couldn’t have dreamed of before we arrived.