Our Day Off

Dear Friends,

We have tried hard to keep Wednesdays free from any schedule and so far so good.  As a result, today we slept in a little had a nice long breakfast reading the New York Times gazing out over the bay.  It was a little cloudy this morning so the sun was not too bright which made both the reading and the gazing more enjoyable.  Never fear by lunchtime the clouds had disappeared.

After breakfast we worked on our French.  Both Aude our tutor and Jean-Paul our conversationalist gave us homework which we skipped the first time it was given.  Today we did our homework for Aude and I worked a little on the homework from Jean-Paul.

After that difficult morning we decided to walk to Beaulieu-sur-mer, the next town east, about a 2 mile walk.  It is a beautiful walk.  Some of you may be interested in knowing that whenever we walk east, when we get to the base of Cape Ferrat, we pass a mansion called "Nellcôte".  Here is the beginning to the Wikipedia entry about it.

Nellcôte (often referred to as Villa Nellcôte) is a Belle Epoque 16-room mansion on a headland above the sea at Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte d'Azurin southern France. Nellcôte was leased from April 1971 to March 1972 by Keith Richards, guitarist of The Rolling Stones, and recording sessions for their classic 1972 Exile on Main St. album took place in its basement.^[1]

What the entry does not say is that the Rolling Stones were doing so many drugs that they were told to leave town or they would all be arrested.  Anyway that is the local folklore about the Rolling Stones and Nellcôte.  We can wave at the cameras as we walk past.  The number of incredible mansions on Cap Ferrat is mind boggling.  There is also constant construction.  All the real estate signs here are in French, English and Russians.  The locals say that the Russian oligarchs are buying up everything.

Anyway, our plan was to eat lunch at the Gran Caffé, an Italian restaurant on the main square of the town.  It had been recommended to us by several people.  We thought that we had eaten there last April when we were here, and we were right.  The food is basically Italian comfort food.  We sat outside and enjoyed the food and people watching.

Following lunch we went to the Super U, a huge grocery store with lots of other things as well.  We bought a couple of supplies that we could not find in Villefranche.  To prove that we were truly French we then used the self-check out lane.  We only had to ask the attendant twice for help and both times it was accomplished in French.

It was almost 5:00 pm when arrived back at our apartment, and we still needed to shop for our dinner tonight.  We wanted to go to Picard Surgéles.  It is a great store with everything you could ever want frozen.  We stocked up on soups and blueberries.  We then stopped at the vegetable market for some clementines and lettuce before heading to the delicatessen for a little blueberry tart.

As you can see, living on the Côte d'Azur is very difficult.  Now we must make our dinner.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal