I always take more pictures than I can use - there is a thumbnail gallery of the entire set. Enjoy!
This is the third part of James's trip, you can find the first part here and the second part here.
After viewing some picked vineyards, we saw a most amazing sight - huge flocks of birds! It was literally raining bird droppings.
 
 
 
I took lots of pictures. I was amazed - like I said.
 
 
 
 
Passing back through Nîmes, we made a stop at a well-preserved Roman aqueduct - Pont du Gard. Not bad looking for something hanging around from the 1st Century.
 
 
We met James's aunt Deborah, and her husband Robert. We went to his brother Jacques's home for a homemade dinner. The plot fully congealed as James's aunt arrived in a Deux Chevaux! Man, what a rat trap with a rich and interesting history!
 
 
 
The wonderful mussel soup followed by the infamous mushrooms.
 
 
I grabbed some shots of the elm lined country roads.
 
James was sort of overwhelmed by the freshly picked mushrooms. That night he craved vegetables.
 
We made a brief side trip to Russia.
We walked the streets around Montmartre, taking the funiculaire (that's funiculaire James) to Sacré-Coeur. We walked the same streets that Picasso, Van Gogh and others walked. We saw the cafe where Picasso and his friend's tied a paintbrush to a donkey's tale (and won critical acclaim). We met the spiritual cousins of the dancers portrayed by Toulouse-Lautrec (can you say Pigalle?). We finished the night with a late dinner at Bofinger - the first brasserie in Paris.
 
James left Saturday - left me to an airport full of strangers.