Relaxing day in Villefranche ...... Not!

I had a busy few hours at the quilt exhibition and didn't manage to see all the exhibitions, I had about 30 mins left before I needed to locate the bus stop to start my journey back (I had allowed myself 40 mins to find it, experience had taught me this). So I spent my last 30 mins in the Merchants Mall - holy moley girls, think of our merchants mall at symposium and that would be a very small portion of this one, every Stall was different, some quite French, others American or English, a whole area devoted to 'country', I didn't even go in there, did a quick circuit and bought a few wee bits, a lot of stalls had 'no photos' so I didn't get any here. That done, I headed to find the bus stop, there were thousands of women milling around, I tried to ask one where the bus stop was but she was unsure I wandered aimlessly, hot, tired and hungry (I hadn't eaten since 7am and it was now 6.30), I approached a guy directing traffic and asked him he directed me down the road and around the corner, off I went, found the bus stop and sat down to wait, after 15 mins I was getting concerned that no one else was waiting, out of all those thousands of women surely there would be at least one other getting the bus to the train station, I then saw a bus turning the corner down the street, so I took off running, there was some ladies waiting, the bus pulled up and sure enough it was my bus, where we got on there was no signs, no shelter nothing to signify that it was a bus shelter, WTF! Anyway, I was on my way, caught the train to Strasbourg, and then the train to the airport, yay Air France were still flying my flight, phew. Got to Nice at 11.30pm missed the last train to villefranche so got a taxi, fell into bed. This is the shortened version of my travel adventure, needless to say I learnt a lot about travel in France and have learnt to read/guess French.

Got up to a scorcher, Jenny thought it would be a great day to walk to the gardens and villa of Rothschild, man it was hot, we were little bundles of sweat by the time we got there, the place was amazing and had the most beautiful garden.

 

There were some stepping stones to get across the pond,

This is as far as Jenny got, I got a fit of the giggles watching her trying, and she started laughing and couldn't go any further so had to go around the long way

They even had a New Zealand flax in the garden, labelled.

Got back, and raced to the beach for a refreshing swim, headed out to dinner at the restaurant that the others had been having breakfast lunch and dinner for two days, sensational