A Year in Villefranche sur Mer - Moving to France

Day 993 (Thursday) 27 th February 2020 We had arranged our work this week so that we could go to the Menton Lemon Festival but last night Huw saw that it was rumoured to be cancelled due to the coronavirus and this morning I found this article confirming it – we were gutted! We’ve been for the last two years and it’s one of the best days of the year. At least we got to see the Nice festival. Nice Carnival and Menton Lemon Festival cancelled By Cassandra Tanti - February 27, 2020 This week, officials in both Nice and Menton made decisions to cancel beloved annual festivities in the name of public health. It was a disappointing week for local merry-makers and visitors alike when decisions were made to cancel both the last day of Nice Carnival due to take place on Saturday and the Menton Lemon Festival, which sits on the border with Italy and attracts a huge number of Italian guests each year.    The Nice Carnival sees upward of 200,000 spectat...

Day 992 (Wednesday) 26 th February 2020 The carnival was superb! Huw had checked the starting and finishing time before we went out and also the time of the last train. Thank god he did because the carnival doesn’t start until 9pm – there was no finishing time available and the last train to Villefranche was 11.05 so we had to take Kisbee. As lovely as the weather is by day it’s still pretty cold at night and bloody cold on Kisbee in the dark. We wrapped up warm and Badger has a lovely snooze on the lining of my Italian parka and I felt guilty disturbing him.   Because we were properly dressed it wasn’t too cold and it’s really not far anyway. We parked in Place Garibaldi and walked to Massena looking for a bite to eat and a vin chaud (hot wine) but we were out of luck and didn’t find either. We assumed that there would be food and drink stalls and toilets in the arena so we showed our tickets in went in. We were really shocked to see that there was not...