A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 11 79 ( Mon day) 31 st August 2020 Today is officially the last day of the summer season and most of France has gone back to work, although the kids don’t go back to school until tomorrow. I’ve started to get a few work emails so hopefully I will get more students soon. Going back to that house I mentioned yesterday, which is just up the hill from the apartment we look after. You can’t see any of it from the road because of a high wall all the way around it and many, many trees. Huw found this article online yesterday while searching for some information about the Tour de France – enjoy! Villa La Leopolda is a large detached villa located in Villefranche-sur-Mer, in the Alpes-Maritimes department, on the French Riviera. It sits on 8 hectares of land and has had several notable owners including Gianni and Marella Agnelli, Izaak and Dorothy J. Killam and, since 1987, by Edmond (1932–1999) and Lily Safra, who inherited the villa after the death of her husband. It ...

Day 11 78 ( Sun day) 30 th August 2020 We went to Le Phare last night and there were a few more people than there have been the last few weeks and we had some fun with Christian and Simon. The restaurant next door had no customers whatsoever all evening – it’s so sad to watch these small businesses struggling after all the months of closure due to the virus and now the tourists are going home because the kids are back in school on Tuesday.    As much as I resent the tourists bringing the virus back to us after months of behaving ourselves I feel very sad for these small businesses. Badger attacked me big time this morning and wouldn’t stop until I got up – as annoying as this is it still makes me laugh. As soon as I got up he went to sleep in my wardrobe! We walked through the citadel to La Darse where we met Dee for lunch in the Happy Whale. We saw this gorgeous little yellow car in the carpark – it’s so cute! The café was packed and luckily Dee had ar...

Day 11 77 ( Satur day) 29 th August 2020 Shock horror – it wasn’t sunny today – it was hot but it was cloudy and a big storm has been forecasted. There have been storms forecasted all summer but we haven’t had one yet, so hopefully it will happen today to clear the air. I found these articles in The Local France (the photos are not mine) Police tell topless women on French beach to cover up After reports of police officers telling topless women on a French beach to cover up, we look at the law about what you can and cannot wear in public in France. For a brief period on Tuesday, the hashtag #seinsnus - bare breasts - was trending on Twitter in France, with hundreds of people leaving their comments on this French summer tradition. The chat was in response to an incident in the coastal resort of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer in south west France, near Perpignan, where two gendarmes had apparently approached several women who were sunbathing topless on the beach and asked them to ...

Day 11 76 ( Fri day) 28 th August 2020 After not providing you with any interesting stories about France yesterday I’ve decided to share a food vocabulary lesson with you today - bonne appétit (None of these photos are mine) Entrées / Starters Andouillette: roast spicy tripe sausage. Bouillabaisse: Mediterranean fish soup. Charcuterie: cold meats Consommé: a thin soup Croutons: bits of deep-fried bread, or fried or grilled bread with cheese. Crudités: selection of vegetable salads Cuisses de grenouilles: frogs' legs Escargots: snails Feuilleté: puff pastry wrap Jambon: ham Jambon de montagne, jambon cru: cured, uncooked ham. Paté: ground meat or liver paste. Paté de foie gras: very rich goose liver or duck liver paté. Potage: soup Quenelles: fingers or dumpling of ground white meat or fish, usually served with a creamy sauce . Salade composée: mixed green salad Saumon fumé: smoked sa...

Day 11 75 ( Thurs day) 27 th August 2020 Happy birthday to me! I can’t believe that it’s 26 years ago that I celebrated my 30 th birthday in Villefranche sur mer and Eze Village. When did we get so bloody old? Huw was very disappointed that neither of my presents had been delivered on time – we’ve had hardly any mail for the last three weeks so we weren’t surprised. He made up for it with some cute surprises from the magical shop Tiger and he bought me some more Marseilles soap from the money his lovely mum had sent me and wrapped the money around the soap.   He then cooked me a real sausage sandwich for brunch and it was delicious. We took Kisbee to Eze Bord de Mer and parked up and caught the bus up to Eze Village. There were quite a few people on the bus but it wasn’t too uncomfortable. We had planned to walk up to the exotic gardens and have a cold beer admiring the view but when we entered the old town we saw that it was compulsory to wear a mask in the old to...