Welcome to part 2! We pick up right where we left off, driving along the southern coast of France, and we head over to Grasse...

Welcome to Grasse. Grasse is a little city perched on a hilltop inland from Cannes. You can the Mediterranean off in the distance.

We all needed to get caught up on mail and so we set up shop on the terrace where they had wi-fi. This was my office.

Here is Francois working in his little cubicle. ;-)

Here is Mick working in the basement. Mick was probably waiting to see if his machine would even boot - he had huge computer problems on this trip. It was crazy.

Looks like it didn't boot. His face says it all - "Can you believe this?!" Francois and I made fun of his problems, and commented on all the email we were able to take care of. "We'll tell the boss you are out getting drunk, while we are at the hotel getting work done." This is the kind of witty banter that co-workers engage in. It's how we say, "I love you man!"

This hotel came equipped with a cat.

And a dog.

We had a nice cool beverage. This was a licorice (anise) flavored liquor that was cut with ice water. It's a regional thing, and it's very good. I need to ask Francois what the name was...

After finishing our work, we headed out to grab a quick dinner. Along the way we saw this old Cooper.

This was a dang good wine. Of course since it's all local stuff, you get a heck of a deal on it too.

Grasse is famous for it's parfumeries - perfume making shops. It's possible that the whole idea was perfected here. I'm not sure. Anyway, the whole town, all the way up the hill, is sprinkled with little factories like this. There are also tons of aromatic plants. The idea in Grasse is for things to smell good.

Grasse is a crazy place to drive - look at the roads! All the switchbacks are to get you up the hill.

You can see how the roads are narrow, and the town is just piled up on itself. In this town you definitely felt like you were in southern France.

We had a meeting with a small company in a small town - so we had to drive through the mountains a bit to get there.

I can't for the life of me remember which town this was in, but you're looking at the town square right here. These are the two guys we met with. This was their conference room. A nice reminder of how insane our current work environments are...

These guys were doing some maintenance. "Every two hundred years or so, we shore up the walls, whether they need it or not."

Mick and I exchanged looks that said, "How is there a business out here?!" and repeated our mantra: I love the glow of fluorescent lights.

The meeting was over and we headed back to civilization.

Yikes!

Francois took the wheel and we drove and drove and drove until we were in Riom. Click here to see the route we most likely took...

Same drill - drive for 7 hours or so, arrive at the hotel, log in and do mail for an hour or two. Then have a drink, eat dinner, and go to sleep. Repeat.

I had a hell of a time ordering wine from the lady inside. She was older and spoke no English. Eventually I succeeded, and Francois made sure that it was ok. After sitting in a small, French car all day, it is only fair that we would sit out on a terrace and have some wine while we worked.

Hours later, we walked into town to see if there was any food. Along the way we saw this old car, and its travel trailer. Mint.

Here is where we ate, and it was delicious. I'm utterly convinced that for one of my vacations in life, I want to just go blast around France and Italy and hang out in small towns and eat.

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Francois ordered some wine, and we all chose an entree.

This was the bottle - good stuff, as usual.

I had this. Potatoes, covered in cheese, and placed on a bed of salami and ham. It was a bit much. It tasted great, but was too big a serving. We finished dinner, then went to bed.

The drink du jour the next day was Hype.

It was the weekend, and after dropping Francois in Lyon, we headed into the Alps for a little R&R.

We headed to a little town called Mezel to see if we could catch any of the Tour de France. You can see how that went in Part 3. Thanks for looking!