We spent the next three days in an old walled own named Aigue Morte which is in the Mediterranean coast of France.  The city was founded by the Romans around 100 bc.  It was fortified by Louis the 9th, later known as Saint Louis as a place to launch the 7 and 8 crusades from in the 1200s.  He fortifications he had build still surround the city today and are in very good shape. We stayed in a hotel in the heart of the old city.

While we were there we took a trip to the city of Nime which was also founded by the Romans and has a very nice intact temple and coliseum both from around 100ad which we saw. Unfortunately they were having a concert in the colosseum that night so we couldn’t go inside as they were setting up.

The next day we took another day trip to he city of Baux to see the medieval town and the ruined castle there. The castle was at the top of the highest hill in he area and from it you could see miles in every direction. While we were there we got to see a demonstration of siege weapon use flinging balls of clay and a fight between knights. We were also allowed to climb all over the ruins and around the walls.

On our last day we went to Saintes Maries de la Mer where it is believed that Mary Salome, Mary Magdalene, and Mary Jacobe landed in France after setting sail from Palestine.  This was another old Roman town from the 4th century ad. The church there was built starting in the 9th century.  We checked out the church and then went on a boat trip into the Camargue, which is a large swampy area bordering the Mediterranean in this part of France. The Camargue is known forints wild cattle and wild white horses which we were excited to see (and we did in fact see some)

After this we headed back to Toulouse.

The boys standing in front of the Mediterrean

Closeup of the Colosseum

Colosseum in Nime

Roman temple in Nime

Well we made it to the airport and through security ok. Now were just killing time till boarding. Our plane is a 747 named Lady Penelope.

Only 11 short hours and we made it to London. It actually went a bit quicker than we expected as the boys were able to sleep for about 4-5 hours. I was able to catch a nap to but Brenda wasn’t able to – she has a really hard time sleeping on planes. She did load her iPad up with movies before we left to help her pass the time.

Once we landed and got through customs it took us about an hour by tube to get to the hotel.  We were all starving once we finally got all checked in so we set out to find something to eat walking by the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge before finally finding a place by the Thames to have fish and chips.

It was getting late after that and we were all tires so we finished out the day taking a hop on hop off bus tour. We just had time to do the circuit of he tour with hopping off so the driver let us ride for free. We did get 30 minutes at Picidully Circus as the bus always stops there so we walked around a bit and got some ice cream.

That was our first day.

Our plane

Gavin playing his ipad

Tristan reading

In the morning we headed back to Lahaina to go on the steam train there (the only train on the island).  It’s an old pineapple plantation train.  The plantation is gone now, so the train goes through houses and a golf course now.  We did get a good view of the ocean in parts though.  And it’s a train so Gavin loved it.

In the afternoon we spent a fun day at the beach with the cousins.  The beach we were at, which was just down the beach from our condo had some really good snorkeling.  Me and Tristan swam around for a while — Gavin was more interested in playing with the cousins.  One of the coolest things happened here, I was following Tristan around in the water and lost sight of him so I stuck my head up to look for him.  When I put it down, I saw a turtle ten feet away from me swimming right toward me.  I got out of his way (turtle wasn’t going to move for me, I guess he was used to swimmers) and he swam right by close enough I could have touched him.  Right after that I found Tristan real quick and we spent the nest 10 minutes following the turtle around until it got sick of it and took off.

Kicking back at the condo (not a train pick, but I didn’t have any other condo pictures)

On the train

Riding the train

Checking out their pictures

Brenda and the boys

The steam train