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France has to be the land of Sycamore trees and Mistletoe, whch seems to be at hand from every tree everywhere.

The French train, the TGV, is incredibly excellant and causes us to bemoan how we in the US have decimated our transportation system. Upon arriving in Paris, however, it required almost an hour to get train tickets since the ticket machines were either out of order or were unfriendly to US credit cards and we finally had to Queue to a ticket agent.

The weather in France was excellant, especially in Southern France where we spent lots of time near the Pyrenees.

We first took the train to Cavaillon where we were met by niece Cathy and Axelle along with Vincent. She took us to Cavaillon and strightened out the snafu I had made with my reservation via the internet...grr.

We stayed at a delightful efficiency hotel -ETAP for several nights so that we could visit and get to know Cathy, Corinne , Alain who came to pickus up from Sarrmezan many hours away. Cathy anbd Dominique treated us to many dinners and good jazz since Domininique is quite a music lover and had all the latest stuff.

We day tripped to Avignon to see Chateau de Papes. Later we went with the entire crew to Fountain de Vaucluse - which was fantastic.

Then to Sarrmezan to meet Rita and family ....