France again, 2014

So here we are again in France, our third year in Villefranche.  We arrived last Sunday and had three days of sunshine and pleasant weather.  We really hit the jackpot in terms of our apartment.  It's a lovely one-bedroom apartment in an old building in the "Vieux ville" -- the historical section of Villefranche. It's called "Le beau balcon," a reference to the little balcony off the living room that sits over an ancient cobblestone street/alley/staircase.  There's even a pleasant view out over the harbor and Cap Feret in the distance. Beautifully furnished, good heat (important this time of year), even a dishwasher and clothes washer.  We're delighted.  The pictures above are the view from our balcony and Carolyn enjoying breakfast a la francais -- the boulangerie is just around the corner and the bread, croissants, etc., are -- of course -- excellent.
      After a recovery day of moving in, getting over jet-lag, etc., we took off for a hiking adventure, which turned out to be more of an adventure than we counted on.  We took a couple of busses to a little "village perché" (a village perched on a cliff overlooking the sea) called La Turbie. This village was lovely, and had the most amazing cheese shop ever! We bought four or five varieties -- we couldn't resist! -- including a gouda sprinkled with truffles and an extraordinary Gorgonzola, the likes of which we'd never tasted.
      One of our books described a hike from La Turbie to another mountain-top village, Eze. Both are beautiful and evocative of the middle ages.  The hike, however, was something else again, as the directions and signposts weren't very good (we took wrong turns on several occasions and probably walked a mile or two out of our way). The view from the "Col de Eze," the pass separating the two villages, was spectacular. (Here we had our lunch of some of that cheese and bread, half-way through the hike.) The picture below shows the view looking out at the Mediterranean: the peninsula in the distance is Cap Ferrat, a beautiful (and unbelievably wealthy) piece of real estate.

 However, the "walk" down was pretty hard on the knees and toes -- relentlessly and very steeply downhill over rocks, through streambeds, etc.  You can get a sense of the elevation loss from the photos. But now that our feet and knees have recovered, we can say it was a good experience, though not one we want to repeat anytime soon.
 

  It's rained every day since our hike, but supposed to stop in the next day or two. We have invited a bunch of our friends from previous years to a "soiree" on Sunday night.  We're serving a "daube" -- southern France's answer to beef burgundy.  Then Tom starts school at the Institut de Francais on Monday, and Carolyn begins her series of daily tutorials. More later.