Hello everyone !
And here I am, writing the very first post of this blog 😀.
I thought it was important to explain how it all began. To do that, let’s go back a few years, to 2020 !
2020, a year everyone remembers…
And yet, despite all the difficulties that Covid brought, I experienced that year as one of rebirth and profound change. I’ll come back to that later, as there’s a lot to say 🙂 , but in the meantime, let’s get back to business !
September 2020
As we prepare for a new confinement after a complicated summer to say the least, with Eric – my lover 🥰 (we weren’t married yet at the time 😉 ) – we’re planning our first vacation together.
Our goal: to find some sun in December, for the end of the year.
Ambitious in the middle of Covid, you say? 😀
Admittedly, there are many restrictions on travel at this time of year, but it’s also a good time to treat yourself without taking too many risks by choosing a late cancellation option.
Our choice fell on Morocco, Marrakech to be precise, an ideal location during the month of December as the climate is mild and a change of scenery is always there.
Unfortunately, restrictions linked to the pandemic forced us to review our plans a few months later and cancel the trip. But life’s a blessing in disguise, and you’ll see that what awaited us was well worth the effort!
December 2020
While chatting with one of his American colleagues, and just as we’d written off a vacation in Morocco, Eric was offered the opportunity to rent a house in the South of France.
I still remember the video of the house, it looked superb: a real Mediterranean villa with an infinity pool! I also thought it must be overpriced and didn’t take the opportunity seriously right away. Wrongly 😉
The villa had been for rent for a short time but on stand-by with Covid. And the owner preferred his family, friends or friends of friends 😀 to occupy it. After a few exchanges, we finally agreed on a reasonable price for one week, at the end of December 2020 (Eric a fine negotiator 🤓 ).
“- What town did you say it was in?
-Vence.
-Don’t know it.
-It’s next to Nice, in the hills above Nice.
-Ok Nice I know 😀 Well I went once on the Promenade des Anglais when I was little with my parents I think…”
Anyway, it was all new to us and it was fun!
So much so that by the end of our stay we had negotiated and booked 4 weeks’ rental in the same villa in August 2021!
Why was it so great even in winter?
Of course, the house in Vence had a lot to do with why we fell in love with it. It offered an exceptional panorama 👁 overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the Baous mountains.
The sunset was also magnificent 🌄.
But not only that, everything was there to create a warm interlude: the climate was incredibly mild and we were regularly in t-shirts on the terrace in the middle of winter, and the highlight…we picked clementines in the garden for our breakfast 🍊!
Covid obliged, releases were limited to December, and I remember we were already looking forward to coming back in summer to fully enjoy the place.
So we might as well get on with the rest of the story without further ado 😏
August 2021
Here we go for 4 weeks of unforgettable vacations!
Still the same house, but this time in summer, so you might as well say that the pool was taken by storm as soon as we arrived.
The idyllic weather, the sound of the cicadas, the long summer evenings, the sunsets… what a wonderful summer 😎 !
As the days went by, we also discovered the town of Vence, which we ended up adoring and embracing: a medium-sized town neither too big nor too small, with a cute center, 15 minutes from Polygone 🛍 (I remember I loved the fact that this shopping mall had an architecture completely open to the outside), 20 minutes from Nice airport ✈️ and the seaside 🏖…I should mention that the house was ideally located in the Malbosquet neighborhood in Vence 🙃.
And then there were all the surrounding towns, from the seaside to the hinterland, whose diversity kept us dreaming all summer long.
But what if it was more than just a summer? The idea had germinated in our minds back in July when we were looking for a new cosy nest 🏡 for our family. And now that we were in Vence for the vacations, the idea had turned into a very concrete project: we wanted to find our home here ☀️!
The rest of the story has not been a smooth ride, but we’ve made it! If you too have been or are currently looking for a house in Nice, Vence or elsewhere in the 06, you know what I’m talking about!
Would you like to read an article on the subject?
See you soon !
Julie