Randy's wet jacket trying to dry in Esenboga airport, Ankara

The Prince's Island, Buyukada, on the left

Close up of Buyukada - seeing it from the air brought back many happy memories of our day there

Coming into Nice - airport is the beige peninsula in the middle

View of Nice from the air

Center square in our village of Haut de Cagnes with guys playing boules (on left)

Randy at Le Jimmy's finally chilling after a stressful day

Alice's pasta - grilled veggies with anchovies

View from our bedroom towards the sea

View from the bedroom towards the hills

My artistic picture of the day - detail of roof below our bedroom window

I am writing this in bed in a 13th century hilltop village in France (Haut de Cagnes) with the sun shining outside and the birds singing and a (small) view of the Mediterranean from the window.  However, getting here was not so easy.

After a final Turkish breakfast at Casa Dengiz, we headed to the Ankara airport (Esenboga) and tried to return the car.  It turns out that we were supposed to call ahead to arrange the car return (what??  We rented from National - a big company!)  Anyway we ended leaving the car in the parking garage (and paying an extra 8 lira for the parking entrance) in the hands of two guys at the National desk who did not speak English.  We hope the car actually got processed as returned! 
Although I was skeptical about checking the luggage from Ankara to Nice (through in Istanbul) because the Turkish Air girl at the counter did not seem to know how to do it, Turkish Air did not let us down.  The bags arrived in Nice.  We did have to repack a little at Ankara airport because we were overweight (the bags, that is, although we are overweight also).  Randy's water bottle spilled during the security procedures all over his jacket and they confiscated my candle (which had gone through many airports in the U.S.).  After a brief flight to Istanbul with great views of the Prince's Islands coming into Istanbul, we landed.  I left my Rick Steve's Provence guidebook on the plane which I had put in the seat pocket to read - oh well, we will have to do without Rick's guidance.  We changed terminals in Istanbul, went through security again and waited.  Our flight to Nice was about 30 minutes late (we were never told why) but we took off and arrived fine.  Note to U.S. airliners - Turkish Air served us a lunch (sandwich, salad and cake) with a drink on the 45 minute flight to Istanbul and a full hot dinner (with menu and choice of two entrees) including hot bread, cheese, salad, main course (kofte) with vegetables, dessert, etc. and drinks.  This was all in coach.
Our stress started in France.  Randy left his jacket on the plane so we were the last to get through customs although our bags were just coming out on the belt after immigration so that did not really slow us down.  The Herz rental car counter was closed in our terminal (#1) so we had to take the bus to terminal 2.  However as the bus queued to get into terminal 2, we were stopped.  Apparently there was a small wreck among cab drivers ahead of us in the queue and no one was moving (waiting for the police?).  Everyone else and us piled out of the bus and made the walk to terminal 2.  This would not be bad normally but were loaded down with luggage so it was a strenuous effort.  I had a real good rate at Herz through AAA (about 500 euros for a small Mercedes automatic for 2 1/2 weeks unlimited mileage) however to purchase the insurance (which we decided we really needed) was an extra 1000 euros!  Yikes!  But we did it and are fully covered.  The Mercedes is interesting - it is a diesel which turns off when it comes to a stop to save fuel.  That freaked us out until we realized what it was doing. 
Our trusty GPS ("Clive") did let us down.  He could not recognize the little hill town where our bed and breakfast is so we had fly blind.  This was not very successful.  After a few wrong turns we managed to get out of Nice and headed to Cagnes su Mer, the seaside town of our hill village.  As we exited, there was a toll booth.  Panic - we had no euros!  The American dollar was not welcome but - surprise- the toll booth took American Express (for a 60 cent toll charge).   That part of the trip was quick (about 10 minutes from Nice) but we could not find the way to the hill top.  We drove around for about 30 minutes, including some tense moments going the wrong way on a one way street, and eventually headed upwards.  Small and narrow does not adequately describe the streets in Haut de Cagnes.  It is a ridiculous place to try to drive.  We ended up in a small, filled parking lot and called our hostess.  She told us to keep coming up and she would meet us at the Grimaldi castle at the top.  I directed Randy, the driver, backwards out of this little lot and we made it to the castle and met Willy-Maria.  She walked to the entrance of her small street and we followed in the car where we parked after much maneuvering.  We schlepped the luggage to her place and Randy took it up two very narrow sets of stairs, one a spiral staircase.  He had about had it by then.  But, we still had to park the car for the night.  Willy-Maria and I directed Randy out of the little parking place and on to the road and we headed to the car park.  This is interesting.  It is built under the hill.  I thought Randy was going to have to park the car in this mountain garage but it is all automatic!  Randy pulled in a little room, put the break on and turned the car off and it was whisked away into the mountain.  Apparently it pops back up out of the mountain when we retrieve it (we will test this later this morning when we get the car).  All for 10 euros a night!

Feeling somewhat relieved Willy-Maria pointed out her favorite restaurant - Le Jimmy's at the village square and we headed there.  With a bottle of local red wine, a couple of large and very good salads and a couple of bowls of pasta (mine was vegetable with anchovies - yum! and Randy's was carbonara)  while sitting outside with an amazing view and seeing the local young men playing boules (their version of bocci ball) with the sun still going down at 9:30 PM was amazing.  We walked through the village (it is very small) and found our place.  Willy-Maria has an apartment upstairs in this village and rents out a suite with a bedroom, large bathroom and large closet.  It has washer/drier, refrigerator, microwave, flat screen TV, etc.  And, good internet!  Surprising being in a 13th century building in this ancient village with very difficult access.