A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 569 (Friday) It was a gorgeous, warm sunny day again so we decided to go to Luceram, the hilltop town that decorates the whole town with Christmas santons (little saints) and crèches, which I think means nativity scenes. We took Kisbee to Nice Riquer where we caught the bus up the mountain to Luceram. The views along the way were wonderful but the photos weren’t the best through the bus window. These are of L’Escarene, a town on the way to Luceram – it was so beautiful that we wanted to get off and have a look but as there are only four buses a day we couldn’t. It took just over an hour to get there and cost just 1€50 each and it was absolutely stunning at 640 metres altitude. As soon as we got off the bus we saw the beginning of the crèches and they were hilarious. I read a leaflet saying that there are more than 450 crèches in the town in all shapes and sizes – these were life-size and these are on a windowsill For a largely secular...

Day 568 (Thursday) It was another warm sunny day, wearing T-shirts outside – bliss. Pat and Dee came over for drinks and canapés last night to meet Badger. We were quite surprised that she was incredibly shy and spent the evening hiding under the bed. Ten French towns you'll likely pronounce wrong The Local The Local has toured France and found ten of the most tongue-twistingly difficult or deceptively tricky town names to pronounce, unless you're French that is. Have you ever told a French person about a beautiful town you’ve visited and they have no idea where you are referring to? The chances are you've been to a place in this list and pronounced it totally wrong. Just like how the French language has some  pretty unpronounceable words for many of us Anglos , it also has an array of hard to pronounce town names that might even put you off visiting.  From the ever-difficult rolling Rs, to names that look deceptively familiar but actually are qui...