Tanya in Transition

Spring has taken her time to settle in here in Nice. Despite the psychotic periods of grey-then blue-then grey skies, I have been working hard at maintaining my sanity. D and I are working on a huge renovation project — we bought our first apartment in January — and most of my free time is […]

Summer has come to end here on the French Riviera.  Not that you’d know it by the number of people sunning themselves on the beaches.  The true, tell-tale sign weather-wise that we’ve left summer behind us is the increased number of rainy days.  Still, the rain only last so long before the sky is blue […]

D turned to me and said, “I will if you will.” I knew he was kidding and he knew my answer would be negative. We stood there watching these young risk takers fill out forms and put on their harnesses and I wondered why on earth would you willingly throw yourself off a bridge, in […]

D and I were recently told that there isn’t anything to see or do in Baden-Baden.  After less than 24 hours here we can’t confirm the accuracy of that statement.  Besides, what does that even mean? There’s always something to do wherever you go; it’s just whether or not that something is for you. If […]

A sunny weekend chez les parents included a day trip to the beach. Before hitting the waves D and I stopped to visit the Pont du Gard.

While many Canadians celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday yesterday I was thinking about Miami.  Why Miami instead of this woman, a monarch, who reigned for almost 64 years?  (I wasn’t even thinking about Charles and Camilla who were both in town for the holiday.) Well, this first long weekend of the summer reminds me of another set […]

Any reason to travel is a good one I say.  With D’s business partner in town we hit the road and crossed the border into Italy.  Our destination was San Remo.  Yes, we went to Italy for lunch! After our typical breakfast of coffee and pains au chocolat/croissants, the three of us into our rental […]

The year generally ends this way.  There’s always a project to complete or people to meet.  With that comes the prospect of getting away from Nice for a few days.  (This may not be a good thing where the weather is concerned, especially if leaving Nice means heading north to colder temperatures.) Our itinerary was […]

I called it a crazy road trip.  After all, we’re talking 3 stops in one weekend.  How often does that happen? First stop:  Coustellet (Thursday night). Things should feel like they’re winding down for the end of the year.  They should feel that way but they don’t…at least, not yet.  For D and me, it […]

The weekend was a good one!  All together now:  afternoon road trips in Provence! I told D that I was going stir-crazy.  I love his parents; I think they’re swell.  And really, they’re wonderful people.  I was slowly going insane with our routine of breakfast-work-lunch-work-dinner-digestif-bed routine.  I’m being serious here.  Yes, I know everyone follows […]