McKinlay Family Vacation Begins!

Waterfront in Nice, France

For the next phase of our Europe trip, Andrew and I flew from Vienna to Nice to meet up with Andrew's sisters, Penny and Clare. We had a day there before taking the ferry over to the French island of Corsica.

Unfortunately, it rained most of the time so we didn't a chance to do much. After getting rather wet just going out for breakfast, we sat in the hotel lobby for a while to wait out the absolute deluge that was pouring down outside.

The siblings -- waiting for the rain to at least slow down a bit.

We eventually headed out despite the heavy rain and by mid-afternoon the sun came out and we walked a linear park with some very cool wooden playground equipment that my 5-year old great nephew would have loved! It was all made out of wood and was in the shapes of various sea creatures. This whale was especially impressive.

Whale playground structure with slide at the front, a climbing wall on the side . . . 

. . . and various things inside to crawl and climb on. Lots of fun to be had!

We stopped in a shopping mall to dry off during the morning and figured this advertisement banner that encouraged women to get breast exams for early detection of cancer was probably a bit more risqué than what we might see at home.

The police presence was quite high. A memorial for the people killed last July during the Bastille Day attack was scheduled but postponed to the following day due to the rain.

I was very impressive with the backing up skills of this ferry captain. A relatively small space for a very large boat!

View of the Nice coastline from the ferry. Corsica, here we come!