A Village by the Sea

Tim and Linda were up at 4 to pack for their departure at 5:15.  They'd scheduled a taxi to pick them up at the end of our street.  Their flight from Nice to Paris left at 7:10, then a 4-hour layover in Paris.  They were flying to L.A. from there, had another 3-hour layover, then landed in Seattle at 9:40 p.m.  Getting through customs took a bit of time, and then the drive from SeaTac to their house was another 1-1/2 hours.  Total travel time for the day, 27 hours. 

Meanwhile, we'd be going to the next town over, Villefranche-sur-Mer, sipping a nice rosé, and looking at the blue, blue sea.  Sorry.  That's not very nice, is it?  But our travel day would come, and we'd have almost as much fun as they.

So we all departed our fun apartment in Nice.  It had been a great place to stay, and an exciting and interesting neighborhood. 

Rick and I had a gap between the checkout from the Nice apartment at 10:30 and the check-in to the next place at 2:00.  The rental office in Nice, Riviera Holiday Homes, let us stash our luggage at their office in between.  We walked around another part of Nice to kill some time, and caught a taxi over to our apartment.

I mentioned earlier that we'd checked out our neighborhood in Villefranche, and we weren't very impressed with it.  We might have even been a little concerned about it.  Though the outside of the building wasn't impressive, we loved our little place!  It was decorated with antiques, which I loved, and the terrace had such an amazing view we couldn't believe it.

We looked out over the bay in Villefranche-sur-Mer, to Cap Ferrat

The apartment was full of wicker and antiques

The kitchen was small but efficient

The town of Villefranche is between Nice and Monaco.  It's a small town, and feels like one.  But there are plenty of tourists in town, and plenty of restaurants.  The harbor is full of big sailboats, and cruise ships will be parked out there every few days.  The old part of town is just a jumble of narrow lanes, most that won't accommodate a car.  There isn't a supermarché or a department store, so we'll be living like the locals and shopping at the specialty shops.

A street in Villefranche

Lots of motorcycles in town

We ate at a sidewalk cafe and had a nice dinner of grilled dorad (a kind of fish caught locally).  The lights from the harbor and Cap Ferrat provided a magical nightlight in our apartment.

Lights from Cap Ferrat illuminate our apartment