It’s probably hard to believe that with two weeks in France, we don’t really have much “free” time to go off on our own to explore. We’d done more of that during our previous trips, but too often it felt like we were shortchanging the family time and exhausting ourselves in the process. And with Stephanie’s dad now living in France, about 4 hours from Nice, the number of family members to visit had doubled.

So on this trip we made a conscious decision not to plan to do anything by ourselves. We were just going to go with the flow. Spend time with family. Enjoy meals together. Run some errands. By and large it was really nice. We spent good time with everyone, we never felt rushed, and we returned home feeling pretty relaxed.

That said, on the Thursday before we left, after we’d satisfied every possible familial obligation, there was a break in the rain, so we decided we were ready for some time alone. So we headed up into the mountains behind Cannes to a tiny town called Gourdon, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Gorges-du-Loup.

We had a nice long lunch at a humorously named restaurant, La Fringale du Petit Indien (the hunger of the little Indian). Our table had its own window looking out across the gorges all the way to Nice and the Mediterranean Sea. Afterwards we walked around the tiny town, did a little shopping, and took in the expansive views.