Villefranche sur mer - Fall 2024-1

Dear Friends,

We are back in Villefranche.  Our first week has been full of adventures and recovery from jet lag.  

We arrived on a beautiful Saturday.  We got to bypass the worst part of our trip, carrying our bags up 40 steps to our apartment, because Danny a very nice, strong, younger man, appeared and did all the hard work.  It was a perfect start to our stay.

We changed clothes and headed out for lunch.  There is a small road that runs right along the shore of the bay where there are many restaurants.  That day we chose Le Trastevere.  We both had salads that were primarily a reason to eat a ton of burrata.

For dinner we went to our favorite restaurant, Le Serre, where we were greeted by the two fantastic servers.  We felt like we were home.

As usual we slept later than planned on Sunday morning.  There are many problems with doing this as many shops close at noonish on Sundays, and we needed to do a major shopping so we could eat.  On the other hand, it was nice to sleep until we woke up and in the process we discovered that the very small Italian café, Bakaro, on our street has fantastic omelets in addition to great croissant, pain au chocolat, etc.

Fortunately, the amazing frozen food store, Picard, was open so we could get supplies, including dinner.  All of this dinner is from frozen items at Picard, and they are very tasty.

Monday, we started our french lessons.  We meet with our tutor for three hours a day for three days a week.  On the fourth day, we spend five hours with her but go on an excursion (more about that later).  Aude, our teacher, has a plan for us which sometimes is more ambitious than our plan, and fortunately her plan wins all the time.  So each day after our lesson we have homework to do.

But on this day, we needed to go for a big shopping in the next town, Beaulieu.  Normally we would walk the 2ish miles to get there, but it was on the verge of raining, we were tired, and we had to take a cart to get everything back.  Also we wanted to try the new way of buying train tickets.  It is all online and once you are registered it works well.  The only problem is you need to say which train you are taking ahead of time.  That worked fine on the way to Beaulieu, but on the way back the train arrived at the station before I bought the tickets, and it would not let me buy tickets for that train, so I bought them for the next train.  We later found out that doesn't work if you get caught.  It is basically an honor system, but you can get caught if the conductor decides he wants to see your ticket.  Anyway, we escaped being caught and still felt like we were good people.

The shopping was very successful as we found everything we needed and discovered that the Super U, a large super market chain, had some good meat and produce as well.  We ate well that night.

By Wednesday we had almost run out of Nespresso pods.  We always leave a few here so we have some when we arrive.  Our landlady wants us to use only real Nespresso pods so we do which means we have to go to Nice to get them at the Nespresso store.  We are members of their loyalty program so we need to remember our Villefranche address to get credit for our purchases and for the promotions.  We arrived at the store only to discover that it was being renovated.  Fortunately, the temporary store was only a 10 minute walk away.  We stocked up and by chance got a discount and an extra sleeve of 10 pods of a new coffee.

The other reason we need to go to Nice is that we have discovered there is a huge difference in the exchange rate and fees at various ATMs.  The best way for us to pay for things in euros is with either our Visa or American Express cards.  If we need to pay in cash, the best way for us to get cash is at the ATMs at the Bureau de Poste, the post office.  In France the post office is also a bank.  It charges virtually no fees for giving us euros from our dollar based American bank accounts and uses the official exchange rate.  On the downside, they limit the amount of each withdrawal.  We now know where some of these ATMs are in Nice, and we visited one to stock up on cash.

As long as we were in Nice, we decided to have lunch at one of our favorite little restaurants in the old town, Bar des Oiseaux.

Jane had the tuna.

I had the veal with eggplant.

We also had to find the new and hopefully permanent bus stop for the 15 bus to return to Villefranche.  Between Nice and Villefranche you can take the 600 or the 15 bus.  Depending on where you are in Nice one or the other of these bus lines will be closer, except at the port where they are only a block apart, and you can wait in between to see which one is coming first.  The area where the 15 bus originates has been under demolition and reconstruction to expand a beautiful park for a couple of years and the stop has moved around.  We think this new stop is permanent, but as they say in France "on verra" (we'll see).

On Thursday, Aude decided that our adventure would be a trip to Contes, a village preché.  As you can see in the photo below it is perched on the top of a peak in the mountains.  There are a lot of ville perchée in France.  Around here Èze is probably the most famous.  

The easiest way to get there is to go to Nice and up the valley of the river Paillon, but that way was full of traffic jams so Aude drove us over the mountain behind Villefranche via small and very curvy roads.  She is very brave and fortunately a good driver.

You can of course walk up to the village top, but most people take the funicular which we did.  There are actually two of them to get to the top.  The first stop is for one of the town schools.

At the top there is of course a church, a beautiful square with a fountain, a very interesting museum and no tourists, except us.

We returned to Villefranche for a nice lunch at La Balienne Joyeuse (the joyful whale) in the working marina, La Darse, in Villefranche.  We walked back to our apartment along the sea.

We enjoyed a wonderful evening at home where Jane started with a non-alcoholic beer on the balcony before making a wonderful dinner.

Friday was my birthday, but after so many it is not such big deal.  It was a beautiful day, sunny with a little breeze and not very humid.  The perfect day to do laundry.  While we have a washing machine, like most local apartments we have no dryer.  So once the load was done, I hung it out to dry on the clothes lines provided.  The clothes are in clear view of the many people strolling by the sea so I have learned to be careful to hide  some items from direct view.

You can see that we have a terrible view.  If you turn a little bit to the east, you get this view.

If you look to the south it is to open water all the way to Africa.  

You can also see that we are lucky enough to have a propane grill.  The chicken, pork and beef here are really good and have actual great taste unlike at most stores at home.  We really enjoy using the grill for dinner most nights.

It is something of a tradition for me to go for a swim on my birthday.  Since it was such a beautiful day, and I had finished most of my chores, I went for a swim in the afternoon.  During the summer months and until the middle of October there is a temporary restaurant that takes up a prime part of the beach.  The owner must be a friend of the mayor.  Of course that makes the rest of the prime area rather crowded even in October.  Since I prefer less crowded areas, Jane and I walked all the way to the far end of the beach which is rocky.  My feet are generally happy to walk in the sand, but the rocks are a different story.  Nevertheless, I persisted.

We had a special birthday party dinner.  Aude, our french tutor, and her family came to our apartment for dinner.  They are, like most young families, very busy.  Friday evenings can be even busier than other nights.  On this night the 11 year old boy had football (our soccer) practice until about 7 and his 9 year old sister had rock climbing until 8.  So our party started at about 8:30.  We brought pizzas, salads and frites  from Le Serre and they brought desserts from a wonderful pâtisserier/chocolaterie in Beaulieu, Mesiano.

As my grandchildren will tell you, at dinner each child must say something about school and respond to the questions of the adults.  Since both of the parents teach french to english speakers, they both speak english very well.  The children, however, speak french although the 11 year old studies both spanish and english in addition to french.  So the evening was spent speaking french.  The kids are pretty good at understanding our french as I think that they have gotten used to us over the years.  We still have some problems following everything they say.  The 11 year is very kind to us because he articulates his words.  It turns out that unlike our grandchildren, Aude's children seemed to enjoy taking turns talking about school.  They even told some stories that their parents did not know.  It was a wonderful evening and great birthday party for me.

Since the next day was Saturday, that meant pétanque.  It is a smaller group in the fall than in the winter, but we had a great time, particularly since Jean Paul and I won handily.  Here you can see Monique being in awe of my form.

And here you can see how difficult it is to determine who gets how many points.

After pétanque and the usual stop at Chez Betty for a café, we had to find a place to have lunch because the cleaners were at our apartment.  We went to the Bistro de l'étoile.  It is not on the water but has a wonderful terrace, surrounded by beautiful flowers and very nice food.

By the time lunch was done, it was time for a nap and to get ready for dinner at La Turbie, a town about 30 minutes by car from Villefranche.  We ate at a wonderful restaurant, Café de la Fountaine.  Jean Paul and Melinda who live in Villefranche drove us and since it was my birthday also treated us.  We solved most, but not all, of the world's problems and found time to catch up as well.  It was a perfect evening.

So that is how our first week here was.  How lucky we are to be here!

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

 

Villefranche-sur-mer Fall 2022 - 1 Changes

 Dear Friends,

I can't believe we have been here for a week already.  After having been gone for seven months, we immediately felt at home in Villefranche again.  

There have been some changes.  Most of which are not for the better.  Our favorite boulangerie, Chez Marie Claire, has closed because Marie Claire has retired.  Unfortunately, we were not able to say goodbye.  Our wonderful memories of her creations and her personality will remain.  According to a small sign in the window as well as local gossip, a new boulangerie is coming that is not a chain.  This is very good news, if and when it happens.  

Another to retire is the local optician who was really great, both professionally and personally.  We got a chance to see him as he is still working with his replacement who also seems really nice and professional. 

Villefranche decided to upgrade the boats in its harbor which in my opinion has caused the harbor to lose some of its romance and charm.  Now there are fewer boats and close in the harbor they are all moored in a line.  Here are before and after pictures.

 Before

Today

Perhaps I am just showing how spoiled we are.

On the bright side, there is a new coffee shop, boulangerie, wine bar and deli just down the street that our apartment is on.  We have only tried the croissants and pain au chocolat both of which were great.  We will go there more to check out all they have to offer.  

Plus you never know when you will see something new.  Here is a spear fisher person going after octopus in the rocks along the shore just below our apartment.  You probably can't tell but those white things at his waist are several octopi that he has speared.

Of course a lot has stayed the same, so that our love for this place continues.

The full moons over the harbor as seen from our apartment.

Fortunately, it still rains occasionally just to break up the days on end of 60° lows, 75° highs and sunny or mostly sunny.  We take those days in stride.

Then there is the joy of having a wonderful meal outside.  Our favorite restaurant where we go the first and last nights that we are here as well as several times in between, is Le Serre,  It is a restaurant where the staff is fantastic, the ambience is local casual, the food is authentic, ranging from pizzas to starters and main courses of the day which are great.  We are so used to being there for wonderful dinners that we keep forgetting to take pictures.

The range of restaurants that we have enjoyed is very broad.  Here is a sampling so far this trip.

Spalato is quite a nice restaurant right on the quay that runs along the bay.  We had lunch there on the day we arrived.  

Aren't the plates great.  The wine glasses are not as big as they look in the photo.  

That is a huge serving of very fresh burrata on some wonderful fresh vegetables.  

Le Cosmo is a more casual restaurant but with good food and service.  You never go hungry here because even the salads are big.

Sometimes we will have our French lessons outside at a cafe.  La Baleine Joyeuse ("the merry whale") is one we frequent because it is close to our teacher's apartment, and they don't seem to mind if we sit there for several hours in the morning having just a coffee and sometimes a croissant.  One day last week we decided to stay for lunch.  I had mi-cuit thon (half cooked tuna).

Jane had a salad nicoise.

You would never guess that such food would come from this restaurant.

One of our favorite restaurants in Beaulieu sur mer, is La Maison de Beaulieu.  It was closed last winter for renovations.  It has reopened and is even better than before.  It is almost exactly a 2 mile walk from our apartment so we feel that we can eat freely when we get there as we will also have a 2 mile walk home.  Although in fairness we can take a bus so the walk is only about a half a mile.  While it is the most expensive of the restaurants in this series, the price to quality ratio is excellent.  You can see that in the presentation, and we certainly could taste it.  

Jane had a chicken caesar salad.  The Americanization of the name does not do it justice.

I had seared tuna again.  It is so great here.  Note the difference in presentation from the dish by the same name at La Baleine Joyeuse.  There is a significant price difference.

Since we walked all that way and because the waiter was very persuasive, we had a pavlova with fresh strawberries for dessert.  Just to prove we aren't complete degenerates, we skipped the lemoncello offered at the end of the meal.

Of course with all the wonderful places to buy fresh meats and vegetables, we do not have to go out to a restaurant for a great dinner.  Here is a sampling of meals that we made at home.

entrecôte

blanc de poulet

côte de porc

There are also two things that are eternal and never change.

The sea and one's need to swim in it.

And the dog poops (but at least they are artistically placed on the sidewalk).

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal 

Villefranche-sur-mer 2022 - 6 A Dinner Party

 Dear Friends,

During the time that we have been coming to Villefranche, we have met many wonderful people whom we are lucky to call our friends.  Even though we have a healthy fear of COVID, we try to meet with these friends outside or in small groups.  The other day, we had a dinner party to which we invited 4 friends.  We had a wonderful time.  

One of the fun parts of having a dinner party is planning, buying the food for and cooking the dinner.  Readers of this blog may remember an ill-fated dinner party a couple of years ago that is now universally referred to as the flying chicken dinner party when I let the chicken provençal fly out of the oven and onto the floor.  That history is recorded here.  Since this was our first dinner party since the fly chicken dinner party, we wanted it to be successful.

After planning the meal, we headed to Nice to do the shopping.  Our first stop was the Cours Saleya.  It is a wonderful market in Nice, known for its produce as well as flowers.

The only problem is which of the many stands, you should buy from.  They are all fantastic.  If you try to figure out which one has the best tomatoes that day at the best price and then who has the best artichokes at the best price and then who has the best raspberries at the best price, you will go crazy.  Unlike the much smaller Saturday market in Villefranche where we go every Saturday and have our favorite vendors, we are just occasional visitors to Cours Saleya, so we have no favorite vendors.  You really cannot go wrong.

After we got all the produce we needed, we headed off to find cheeses for the cheese course.  We came upon a fromagerie that we think was fairly new because we had not seen it before.  

The owner was very welcoming and professional.  He took time with us, both by speaking French all the time and by explaining our different choices.  We told him we wanted three cheeses for a cheese course.  He suggested a creaming cow cheese (Saint Félicien fermier lait cru), a less creamy chèvre (Rouelle) and a hard cheese (comté).  We also got some roquefort too because you can't really stop in a cheese shop and not get some roquefort.  Here is a photo of the owner explaining our choices to us.

Our next stop was a wine shop.  There is plenty of wine for sale in Villefranche but no real wine shop.  So we stopped at a Nicolas shop in Nice.  It is a chain wine shop in France, but very good.

I know something about French wines, but I have no idea about which vineyard, etc.  The person who helped us was perfect, he understood what we wanted, didn't try to sell us anything grossly expensive and spoke french too.  We got some champagne that was bottled under the Nicolas name.  It was great.  We then got some Chablis and some red Burgundy.  Both were on sale which put them in our price range.  All of them were great.  It is so nice when the people helping you are trying to get you what you want and can afford.  

That concluded our shopping for Nice.  We were hungry, and it was close to lunch time, so we decided to have a quick lunch at Chez Papa, one of our favorites for lunch in Nice.  Unfortunately, it was closed; but as is often the case there is a suitable alternative nearby.   We saw Posto 17 just down the block and thought we would give it a try.

They weren't quite open yet, but the owner welcomed us.  The only menu for food was on the blackboard.  You can see the prices are quite reasonable.

Jane and I each ordered the rigatoni sauce tomate maison - burrata.  It was perfect for a quick lunch.  When Jane asked him what was in the homemade tomato sauce, he almost gave her the entire recipe.

There was a separate menu for drinks.  I only include it here because from time to time we come across translations or the use of English words that are not quite right.  If you look under Cocktails, the next to the last drink is "Sex on the Beatch".  We thought that was a unique spelling.

Jane finished with a noisette (espresso with a small amount (a nut) of milk).  At this restaurant it came with a small cookie which served to keep the drink warm - another cute touch.

We felt a little like pack horses as we made our way home.  When we arrived we were faced with the issue of where to put everything that we had acquired.

We found room for everything although the refrigerator was overflowing.

All of that shopping was on a Sunday.  The party was Monday night.  On Monday morning, we headed to Beaulieu to get the chicken.  Yes, we were trying chicken again, but this time it was chicken Lucia on the grill with less chance of flying chicken.  The final stop on for our shopping was at our favorite boulangerie, Chez Marie-Claire.  Chez Marie-Claire is not far from our apartment.  She has of course bread, baguettes and pastries.  But she also has wine, eggs, butter and sandwiches.  Here is a picture of Marie-Claire as she was packaging the cake we had bought for the party.

The cake was absolutely beautiful, but we forgot to take a picture of it.  The taste of the cake was even better than its beautiful presentation.  This picture of the last piece shows what a perfect cake it was.  

The crust is a light chocolate graham cracker.  The light brown filling is a chocolate pots de creme (only lighter than what we usually make), the next comes a thin layer of something like blueberry syrup that is the consistency of jam, followed by a layer of a light, fluffy layer of blueberry pots de creme and a top layer of blueberry icing.  The great thing was that all the calories had been removed.

We finished the meal with a small glass of "menthe".  The best way to describe what we refer to as menthe is to think of limoncello only made with mint.  Our favorite local restaurant here, Le Serre, offers limoncello after dinner, but sometimes if Marie has had a good crop of mint, Sylvie will turn it into menthe.  Fortunately for us Marie had a good crop of mint, so we were able to buy a bottle of menthe from her to serve at the dinner party.  While we made a pretty good dent in it we did not finish it off so we can have some for ourselves from time to time.

                                                       

In the end a good time was had by all, and thankfully our French lesson for Tuesday morning was cancelled.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

For the chicken we went to our favorite butcher in Beaulieu.  He is a young man and takes his time with us and is a true butcher.  Unfortunately, I did not get a photo.

The last thing on our list was bread and dessert.  For that we had to go to our favorite baker in Villefranche.  We got a couple of baguettes for the cheese course and a beautiful chocolate and blueberry cake.