A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 1,087 (Sunday) 31 st May 2020 We both sunbathed for a few hours on the balcony but we lose the sun at around 2.30pm so next week we’ll be able to go to the beach for some more – yay! We walked down to the car park to do our recycling and Villefranche was busy! All the shops are open now Seb has pulled the shutters up on Le Phare (that’s Marie Claire, Seb’s mother) All the bars and restaurants are getting ready for Tuesday The café called Coffee Ship is doing takeaways and they’ve got their tables and chairs ready for Tuesday – I think these tables and chairs are far too close. This café is really going to struggle as their main customers are people off the cruise ships and I can’t see them coming back any time soon. This is Mere Germaine, the most expensive restaurant in town who asked for donations last week – bloody cheek but at least the spaces between the table are better. We were horrified to see so many people on the beach and in the sea – the beach is...

Day 1,086 (Saturday) 30 th May 2020 It was wonderfully warm and sunny this morning so we finally got to Eze Village – hooray. We took Kisbee to Eze Bord de Mer and caught the bus up the mountain and for most of the short trip we had the bus to ourselves. Every time we’ve been to Eze it’s been packed with tourists, even in the winter but today we had this gorgeous little town almost to ourselves – it was delightful. There was one takeaway café and a couple of tourist shops open and we discovered some new streets.   We walked down the mountain, stopping for a lovely cold beer halfway down. For the first half of the walk we didn’t see a soul but we saw about ten people in total. It was quite eerie seeing the town so empty and sad to see all the bars, restaurants and hotels closed. The Chevre d’Or is our favourite spot to have a ridiculously expensive drink on the terrace and it has the best view in the south of France but alas it was closed, as was the exotic...

Day 1,085 (Friday) 29 th May 2020 It was a bit of a nothing day today as it was cloudy so we didn’t go to Eze again. The forecast for tomorrow is great so we can go then. But good news from the government and from Tuesday we will have a lot more freedom. To be honest I think it’s a bit too much too soon so we will still be very careful and we don’t want to travel far, especially on public transport. BREAKING: France to reopen bars and restaurants and scrap 100km rule in June. France will continue to ease restrictions put in place to combat the coronavirus epidemic, the Prime Minister announced on Thursday, as the country prepares to reopen bars, cafés, parks and schools and scrap the 100km travel limit. "Things are looking good, but not good enough to return everything back to normal," said PM Edouard Philippe as he and other members of the French government presented the plan to reopen more of France from June 2 nd . That date marks the beginning of "p...

Day 1,084 (Thursday) 28 th May 2020 I had to get up early this morning and go to the dentist, Karine was as efficient as ever and I was happy with the result but I had a few injections so I felt a little sorry for myself. Huw very kindly met me outside so we went for a walk down to the beach. Our new friends Dom and Karen were on their balcony so we had a nice chat with them; we haven’t seen them since we gained a bit if freedom a few weeks ago. We were disappointed to see them rebuilding the private beach. But we were very happy to see people getting the beach bars ready – hooray!   This evening the Prime Minister is going to announce what phase 2 is going to mean for us. Yesterday The Local France predicted this… What can we expect from 'phase 2' of France's lockdown? The initial loosening of France's strict lockdown on May 11 th was a three-week phase, so as that moves to a close what can we expect from phase 2 of the 'déconfinemen...