Bonjour,

I hope that you and yours are well.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been travelling in the south of France – to Nice, Cagnes-sur-Mer with its utterly gorgeous upper medieval village and fabulous Renoir museum, to Vence which also has a lovely old town – and the Matisse Chapel, and Aix-en-Provence where I walked in Cezanne’s footsteps as the town puts on the razzle dazzle to celebrate the artist who was born and lived here and immortalized its beauty on canvas. Stories and photos coming up in The Good Life Magazine – it’s free, you can read it here. Unusually for this time of the year it rained a bit in some parts of the French Riviera, though the showers never last that long and they don’t dampen my spirits – nature rules!

Claudette, my neighbour who is in her nineties and has never travelled further than 20 miles from her home (“everything I love is right here” she says), likes to hear of my travels, I tell her about the tiny pebbles that make up the cobbled streets in some places, the ochre-colored houses that are a feature of the south, the smell of the restaurants – warm garlic and basil, and of how much olive oil they loved to cook with in the south – I’m pretty sure that the DNA of the locals is 10% olive oil in Nice!

Bread Man always wants to know what cakes I ate and if something takes his fancy, he might add it to his repertoire, which is why in the far north of France, you may find a mobile bread van serving up nonettes (a speciality of Burgundy, which translates as Little Nuns) and even a pink praline brioche inspired by one I tasted in Lyon! Fish Man likes to know what fish I ate though he keeps to the local specialities. He arrives in the village once a week in his little van, stops outside the front door of his customers, opens a side window on his van and even, if it’s raining, pulls out a blue and white striped awning so that you can comfortably peruse the display of fresh fish from Boulogne-sur-Mer, our local port.

I love to discover France, it’s such a diverse country, and I find travelling solo by train easy and fun (my other half stays home to look after our (way too many) animals. But, there’s no place like home. When I finish a trip and get back, I open the gate to be greeted by an orchestra of dogs barking, chickens clucking, ducks quacking, geese honking, and cats appearing from all over the garden and throwing themselves at me!

Next week I’m off to Provence – I’ll be exploring the lovely Luberon area in Provence –  on a mission to check out the most beautiful villages and towns in the area – come with me via Instagram where I’ll share photos and videos as I go…

Wishing you a very bon weekend wherever you are,
Bisous from France
Janine
Editor

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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream,  My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online. Her latest book How to be French – is a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre.

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