Bonjour!

We sadly left Mumbai and all of India on Thurs 1/28 and had a 9+ hour flight to Paris. The next morning we took a pleasant train ride to Montpelier, then a local train to Agde, then a cab right to our door on Rue de Noilly in Marseillan. We traveled through lovely rolling hills, little towns, vineyards, pretty church steeples. Saw a remnant of a castle above a town. So different from our India. The apt we rented from Denis and Janice is lovely, roomy and a short block from the water's edge. Sure, it's up 27 stairs along a winding staircase; won't D & J be surprised when they see the electric chair lift we have installed during our stay? 😏. The weather is mild; we are wearing jeans, turtleneck shirts and sweatshirt for our walks. The water we see is the Etang de Thau, then the Golfe du Lion, then the Mediterranean Sea. We are maybe a 3-hour drive to Aix en Provence, where Thom lived a couple years 40 years ago. We are about 3 hours from Carol and Marcia's beloved Toulouse. We had planned to rent a car for a week or two whenever we felt like it, taking trains and buses like we usually do. But since traveling and dragging luggage around is getting to be such a physical drag, we rented a car today for almost two months! We took a bus to Sete, an old port city that now is built up with lots of apts, hotels and tourists to the car rental place. The ride there is nice along beaches and park areas. We've got our wheels and will go tomorrow to Carcassonne and Toulouse. Then we plan to be in Spain and Portugal for a week. No tour guides now, we must find our own adventures.

Scenery on our train ride from Paris to Montpelier