Monthly Archives: October 2017

A Visit to Italy Today ???

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The plan today was to visit 2 of the “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France”.  One of the focuses of our visit to France is to visit a large number of the 100 “Most Beautiful Villages of France”.  The goal today was to see Saint-Agnes and Coaraze.  Well the turn off from A8 highway to Saint-Agnes is only 5 miles from the Italian border.  Well we all of a sudden found ourselves going over the border into Italy.  Obviously we missed a turn.  We had to go another 5 miles before we found an exit.  We took the exit and paid the $ 3.00 toll and pulled over to figure out what just happened.  I immediately figured we could just take the road going back over the highway and then find the on ramp.  Thats how it works in the US .. right …  Well we found ourselves going higher and higher into the countryside and the road getting narrower and narrower.  It becomes apparent that we were going higher and farther away from A8.  So we turned around and got back to the area we exited off A8 and determined that the on ramp back onto A8 split into a West bound on ramp also.  We were on our way back to France.

We got on the road to Saint-Agnes.  The thing about these “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France” is that they tend to be way off the main roads and also on the tops of mountains.  So the roads to these villages tend to be very narrow and steep (kinda the price you pay for them being beautiful!).  Todays road to Saint_agnes was a long and narrow road.  When we got into the town we found a wedding going on.  Here are some of the pictures from that town.

A view of the town from the road below.

A view from the town of the road we came in on…

I ordered a “Double” coffee ???

Our little Lunch Buddy ….

So Lunch is done and its off to the next of the “Les Plus Beaux Villages de France”.  More about that town in the next post…

A Week in Review from Villefranche

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Its Friday morning.  Im on the veranda watching the sun rise over the bay in Villefranche.  The week started with Bunny going to school on Monday.  She was tested to determine her level of French language knowledge.  On Tuesday they put the students in classes based on how well they did on the test.  She was put in intermediate #4 class which REALLY surprised her.  She spent the day in that level and determined that she should be in a lower level.   She talked with the instructor the on Wednesday morning and the instructor dropped her into intermediate #3.  So down just one level.  She has LOVED the instruction so far and is really enjoying the class.

For me its been exploring Nice and Villefranche.  Monday was primarily stocking the apartment with essentials.  Like food, paper products and other essentials.  The apartment was short on some of those items.  On Tuesday I took a 8 mile walk over to Nice and the Promanade.  It is the same Promanade they had the tragic event happen several years ago.  On Wednesday I walked 12 miles almost to the Nice airport along the Promanade and back to Villefranche.  Thrusday I went to Mont Alban to view the tallest point between Villefranche and Nice.  I was able to get an outstanding view of both cities.  Today I plan to take it easy and plan out our weekend travels.  Also catch up on my sleep.  I was up at 3 am to watch the Thursday night football game.

Here are some pictures from my walking over the past few days:

overlooking Villefranche sur Mer from Fort du Mont Alban

Villefranche from across the bay

 

Fort du Mont Alban

 

Nice beach and promanade.  In the distance is the airport

 

Nice from Mt Alban

A view of Las Vegas from over the Pond

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Monday October 2nd

As Bunny was leaving this morning at 8 am Nice time it was 11 pm in Las Vegas.  The news was “an active shooter in Las Vegas”.  I walked to the Carrefour for groceries and got back at 1 pm or 4 am Las Vegas time to listen to the news report 50 dead and 200 injured in a shooting.

As the news progressed on Skynews (a European based news source) the convesation quickly changed to why the US allows people to have “War weapons”  It continued through out the convesations all day as to why the US is in the grip of the NRA and allowing weapons like this in the hands of private citizens.  Meanwhile CNN and MSNBC had NO conversations about the fact that the shooter was able to own a weapon of with this Massive killing power.

Whether you agree with the fact that the US allows people to own these weapons.  Its very interesting that there isnt any debate on the news channels here in the US.  Is ti that they are afraid to “politicize” the event for fear of a backlash from the NRA or other factions.  Not sure why ….

On another note I had both CNN and Skynews going at the same time.  It was amazing how much better the news reporting was by Skynews.  They seemed to have a better handle on what was happening vs the US news orginizations.  It was weird.

I didnt want to get political on this entry just wanted to make an observation from the other side of the world on events in the US….

This is a Sad day and Tragic Events …

Travel day – and a couple of stops

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Today (Saturday) was moving day. We had been staying in Robion – at a DEElightful little apartment. Here’s a pic of the shower:

Yes, it’s in the bedroom. It was shaped like a little tower, with steps up to it. How cute is that?

Back to moving day. We decided to take the back roads to see some more of Provence. We also wanted to see a few more “plus beaux villages.” Our first stop was Moustiers-Sainte-Marie.

PHOTOS OF MOUSTIERS SHOULD GO HERE

Marty is going to have to add photos because, for some cyber-silly reason, my tablet/camera is not uploading all of my photos – only a few, like the shower, above.

Suffice it to say, this little hill town was crowded with tourists for good reason. Beautiful, medieval (and older) buildings, enchanting cobble stone lanes, a centuries-old church (for some reason, Enya was playing while we were there!), set against a backdrop of cliffs and a tiny church high up in the hills (there was a path one could walk up to it but it was a Travel Day so, after our “plat du jour” lunch of a gratinee of gnocchi and salmon with an elaborate salad, we moved on to another tres belle ville, Tourtour.

MORE PHOTOS HERE 🙂

It was a quick (but delightful) stop because we were running late to meet our new landlady in Villefranche-sur-Mer. We called and rescheduled with her and hit the road. It was WILD trying to find this place! OMG! These drivers are NUTS. And the streets are so damned narrow that it is a miracle that the roadways aren’t littered with dented cars and mangled humans.

We finally found our place – and it is lovely. Here’s a view (with raspberry rose’) from our terrace:

It’s now Sunday – I think I’ll let Marty take over with his bons mots. I need to mentally/emotionally/culturally prepare myself for my French immersion tomorrow. HELP!

Second full day of “les plus beaux villages de France”

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This morning (Friday), our destination was Lourmarin because it’s supposed to be a beautiful town AND they were having their weekly “marche” (market) and we had heard that it was to-die-for. And it was! The town itself is beyond beautiful – my favorite thus far. The first three photos below are of Lourmarin (for some reason my photos aren’t all uploading; these photos do NO do it justice!). I had a “moment” in Lourmarin – while wandering the market I came upon a trio of musicians (two guitars and a cello) playing “Hallelujah”. Ahhhhh….

The rest of the photos (below) are of Les Baux de Provence, another beautiful village with castle ruins at the very top. The very last photo is of a chapel, one of very few intact buildings that were part of the castle.

The photo of the door? Just threw that in because I love doors. 🙂 All for now.