When Anya and I had been married about a year, we took off for an adventure and moved to France to live on the French Riviera while I studied in an MBA program and Anya taught English as a foreign language, both at the International University of Monaco. We lived in a little village between Nice and Monaco called Villefranche-sur-Mer and we had an incredible four months. For those who knew our black lab Calvin, that’s where we got him as an 8-week old puppy (in the nearby city of Orange)! A lot of villages along the coast have “-sur-Mer” (on the sea) at the end of their names, so one of Calvin’s nicknames was Calvy-sur-Mer. When we lived there at the end of 2004, our time was cut much shorter than we had planned after I decided not to complete the program and we chose to move back to Seattle where I wanted to try my hand at actuarial science. Leaving after four months when we thought we might live in the area for years created a special sort of yearning to go back, so it was amazing after almost 16 years to get back here and reconnect with the beautiful southern coast of France while showing our boys our old favorite spots. Since Villefranche is pretty tiny, we stayed in Nice for a couple nights and used the train to explore Monaco and Villefranche. Nothing brings the memories flooding back like seeing an old favorite place in person!
So, enjoyed reading this post…looks like your a bit warmer now! We visited Antibes, Nice and Monaco back in 2005, and these photos make me want to go back! Hope you are all doing well!
It’s definitely worth a return visit—it feels the same as it did all those years ago!
What a sweet reunion! I remember being so inspired when y’all moved there. Thanks for sharing such fond memories and beautiful photos.
Thanks Sarah! The one thing southern France is missing is Dole Whips 😉