Nice Train

I am traveling very fast through the Champagne and Burgundy French country side. I’m feeling the on-the-road excitement again being on a wonderfully comfortable fast train across a country. It’s a great way to see a lot of country in a short time. Just now the Paris to Monarco Train is wizzing through some gorgeous French towns. It’s a lot hillier than for our trip to the Loire Valley. It seems very agricultural too with sheds, tractors, pink blooming vines and wind turbines. But the buildings are a very similar old stone style with very peaked roofs. There is a lot of water like in Ireland and many rivers and lakes. The soil is rich brown and the rolling hills - bright green, dotted with goats , pigs & horses.
Ahh we get closer to Lyon I see a snow capped peak out my right hand window and notice it has got even hillier and rockier. Closer to the French Alps or is it Switzerland? Geneva is on my left somewhere close (my seat is facing backwards) apparently you can walk to Italy from Nice if you are country collecting….
Wow the countryside has changed now – craggy rocky outcrops with churches perched on the top, rows and rows of vineyards running alongside shallow rivers. I’m so tired from walking along over Paris and Blois but I don’t want to miss this.
Through a tunnel and out pops the Mediterranean sea! We must be passing through Avignon & Aix-en-Provence. Seems more crowded and hillier, lots of grafitti & car parks but still rocky cliff tops with churches and pink and yellow stone apartment blocks. People playing basketball and boules..
Meiwee(of course), the French Riviera appears. A well documented coastline. I am reminded of Miami - palm trees, expensive sports cars, crowded hillsides crammed with apartment buildings and the azure horizon with the beautiful Mediteranian sea. I am here.