Bonjour

Welcome to France.  We spent an incredible week in the Jura-Haut mountains (in the eastern part of France) near the small mountain town of St. Claude.  We journeyed to this part of France to join a friend and her family to attend her wedding.  During the week we crammed in as much sight-seeing as we possibly could.

We kicked the week off hiking and driving around the Jura Seven Lakes region, which Ted and I thought looked similar to the Smoky Mountains.

The awesomeness of this was that we had our own personal tour guide, since this was home to the groom's family.  They led us in a three car caravan from scenic viewpoint, to trail head, to country village without making a wrong turn!

Ted and I loved the beautiful waterfalls and could have spent much more time hiking here.

The first family photo of the week.

Pointing the way to the next waterfalls

The falls swelled with recent rains, and were simply spectacular.

We sat near the cascade (I'm getting French on you now) below, eating paninis, a weird hot dog sandwich (they jammed a hot dog through the center of a piece of French loaf) and crepes and learning how to play marbles with the groom's brother.  The kids had a blast!

And then we walked up the trail to the rock face behind this cascade where the water was coming out of a crevice in a huge gush.

While we were exploring up there, we found a fun place where water droplets were falling from high above us out of the rock.  We had a blast trying to catch the individual drops, and it was really amazing to watch them fall.

Time for another family photo...

and an individual pose from Little Lu

We also explored a nearby small village that had an Abbey dating at least a thousand years back, lots of pretty flowers, and quaint rock structures.

The whole area was truly beautiful and serene and a great way to start our week...