The journey continues Toulouse, Nimes and St Jeannet twice!

After leaving St Emillion, we decided it was better to stay in Bordeaux, so as typical tourists we figured we could just roll on into Bordeaux and get some accommodation. How wrong we were. There was a major congress meeting on and everything was booked solid- except for a place in the train station district ( lonely planet will tell you how dodgy these areas are). So again in true tourist style, when the brown stuff hits the fan, you go to a bar and have a drink to strategize. With a full size map of France spread across two tables we made a plan- much to the amusement of the locals walking by. I booked a room for us in Toulouse- over the phone- and I have to say this put my limited & very bad french to the test. Scary but true I did it, Annie thinks I'm a legend- and I tend to agree. It was now about 6pm and we had another 2 1/2hrs to go to Toulouse. Once we got there we found there was to be parking at the hotel -what a bonus. Our stay here was pretty uneventful as we were both very tired, having driven the equivalent of Wellington-Auckland in one day, sightseeing included. Next day we checked out and headed for Nimes via Millau pronounced Meeyo for the uninitiated of us!
The drive to Millau was a whole set of different scenery- instead of vineyards as far as the eye could see there was farmland and the roads were narrow and winding. We could feel the climate getting warmer as we moved further south. Millau is a relatively small village that has now become a tourist site due to this massive feat of engineering across the viaduct. A tip: don't go to Millau if you want to drive across the viaduct bridge. Entry on the bridge starts a lot further north and we should have taken roads heading for Marsaille. Anyway we ended up at the tourist /info centre underneath the bridge and it was just too big and amazing to photogragh thats what postcards are all about.
From there we soldiered on to Nimes, on the way it was Annie's turn to book accomodation by phone.Her french is better than mine and she made the mistake of giving the impression that she could understand it better than she really did- "fake it till you make it" can come back and bite sometimes. The lady at the hotel in Nimes welcomed us in rapid french which was met with shrugs and blank looks. Her english was slightly better than our french so trying to explain to us that there was no parking in the centre city made us really paranoid. I had managed to find a park close to where we were and what we thought to be outside the city centre, the problem was it was on a road wide enough for 3 cars- there were already cars parked either side. It was the parallel park from hell with a queue of traffic patiently waiting while I shuffeled the car into the space. There was no question about finding somewhere else- they were just going to have to wait. The french seemed ok with this when you stop to reverse into a park they give you room, unlike NZ where someone will pull up right behind you then complain about the hold up.
Next day we went exploring, discovered how to use a laundromat ( all instructions in french)cost us a few euro figuring out our mistakes. Then went on a tour of the Amphitheatre. This is the best preserved Roman collisium in the world, in fact with only minor modifications it is still used today for the bullfights. Nimes has a great atmosphere to it and after the tour bought lunch at a local patisserie, and sat in the park to watch the world go by.
Our GPS told us our next stop (the eagerly awaited ST Jeannet) was only 2 1/2 hrs away, so we figured we should hit the road again. Sure enough we arrived 2.5hrs later at a St Jeannet, but not the right one. We were 150km off course, in the right provence, wrong region. We explained this to our hosts in the real St Jeannet, and they were amazed there were two such places. I have to say the first St Jeannet scared the crap out of me, it was about 6-8 houses in the middle of nowhere and I swear I could hear the banjo's playing- a distinct "deliverance" feel to it.
After sorting out the GPS we were off again and the trip now took us closer to Nice (where we should have been in the first place) and on this stunning drive through the mountain ranges. The roads are excellent, but very windy with 300m drops & sheer cliffs. However this didn't seem to slow down the french who seemed to know this road well- they drove like bloody maniacs.
6:30pm we arrived at the real St Jeannet, about 400m above sea level and overlooking the city of Nice, and a wonderful village of about 1500 people