From the sea to the alps

We have had 2 very interesting drive days. Yesterday we drove from Nice to Grenoble. It was only 320 kms but it took 8 and a half hours, including about 1 and a half hours stopped, for various reasons. So it was slow going but the scenery was magnificent. My driving confidence was much improved because I had had an idea overnight. I stuck some pieces of paper to the dashboard which indicated the cars position to the white lines on the middle and side of the road (well when there were lines) I had been thinking that I was much closer to the centre line than I actually was. So now driving was less stressful. One of my concerns had been on the many roads where there were deep drainage ditches right on 1 or both sides of the narrow pavements. Once out of the Nice area we were soon climbing and winding our way up the sides of valleys, over cols (passes) and into the next valley of the Alps Maritime. There were no Autoroutes available in this direction, so mostly the main road went through each village. The highest col encountered was at 1150 meters. The mountains opened out after a while before we hit the Alps proper. At one stage we had torrential rain/ hail but mostly the weather was cloudy with some sunny periods. We stopped for lunch in the beautiful small town of Castellane, which sits beneath a massive rock formation. On top sat a small chapel but we had no time to go there. A couple of kms north I came across, to my surprise, a Citroen museum. This I had to see. Luckily they were about to open and on entering I soon realized that I had read about this place. The owner had spent decades buying up low km post WW2 Citroens and about 40 were on display. All were in as found condition (I e not restored, but not needed to be) and all are road usable. One 2CV had covered only 104 km from new! Then we pressed on into the Alpine area with more and more snow covered peaks and amazing views. Our GPS got us to the door of our hotel in the fairly large city of Grenoble. It is situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains, mostly snow covered. The hotel Patrick was modernized and comfortable. We ordered in pizza and apple tart for dinner and finished it off for breakfast. I will leave today's trip because I have to watch now an interesting 1961 French film on TV.