Luckily, Grandad's visit overlapped with a four-day weekend! We decided to rent a car and go to the south of France where Connor served his mission. The trip started off with a problem - getting the cheapest car possible also meant getting a car that didn't fit us all! We rented a Fiat 500 which turned out to be a convertible, which would have been great if the weather cooperated. Anyways, we were going to meet up with Connor's girlfriend Alexanne, and then were going to convoy for the rest of the weekend. We ended up having to put Connor on the bus to meet us in Perpignan, and then we ended up just parking the car at Alexanne's place and all going in her parents' car. We had a really nice lunch with her family before taking off!
We spent two nights at an airbnb outside of Aix-en-Provence in a town called Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. I think it was literally someone's place that they live in and just move out for nights that someone rents it! We didn't do much in that town at all but it was a good spot to stay.
On one of the days we drove to Saint-Tropez followed by Monaco. Saint-Tropez was really nice, but the weather wasn't amazing. In fact, it was raining 98% of the time that we were there, but it was great to walk around and take a few pictures. One thing was for sure - Saint-Tropez seems like it would be excellent when the sun is out! Maybe we will go back in a few months. We didn't do a whole lot as the town was pretty much dead, rain plus off-season equals everything being closed!
Next was Monaco. Our interest in Monaco was purely based on the fact that Monaco is its own country. We arrived in the late afternoon, and walked around. As is quite normal for us, our trip there was nothing special, but it was a lot of fun to walk around together, chat, and be in a new place. We covered a lot of ground, relatively speaking, which isn't hard - Monaco is only about two square kilometers. We saw lots of nice cars at the dealerships and outside of Casino Monte Carlo.
The last night we stayed in a sailboat in a marina in Cap d'Agde. Honestly speaking, it was much smaller than advertised! Getting the six of us in there was a bit of a struggle, and I don't think anyone had a fantastic night's sleep, but it was a great experience and will likely be more memorable than 90% of the places we have stayed! We got the drone out the next morning and flew it above the boats which I think made for some nice pictures. It was cold but really sunny! Grandad taught Emre all about boats, and Emre can now tell you what the names of different boat sections are - stern, bow, mast, boom, onboard, on-shore, it was really cute to see them walking around the boat. I'm not sure which of the two of them was the most excited!