Bonjour from Nice, France

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This is a different European trip—we’re not on the move, not cycling or hiking. We are staying in one town for a month enjoying the warm weather (sunny 19ºC today) beside the Mediterranean and working to improve our French.

We arrived on Saturday after a direct Air France flight to Paris and a quick connection to Nice (almost too quick with the long line at passport control in Paris). It was our first flight on Air France and I was impressed with the airline.

We have a small Airbnb apartment in the centre of town, less than five minutes walk to the beach and twenty minutes walk to the language school. It is an old building (the ancient elevator was an add-on) and like many city apartment buildings in France, it isn’t attractive from the outside. But the apartment was recently renovated and has all modern cons, and the location is perfect.

We are studying French at the Nice Alliance Francais. The placement test on Monday put us at slightly different levels. We are glad to be in different classes; a bit awkward to be in the same class as your spouse. The school is large so there are classes in progress at many levels. We are both in A2, an intermediate level, but at different stages in A2. The school is excellent.

After our month in Nice we’ll spend ten days in the Netherlands.

Here are some photos of Nice.

Nice airport. Good to know that the pilot has landed here before, especially in the bad weather on our arrival.
The sea side
A very brave woman swimming in cold water
The port
A bike shop / cafe we discovered at the port
Colourful buildings
Classic buildings
The modern art museum
Door to the language school

18 thoughts on “Bonjour from Nice, France”

  1. How nice to see you two ..holidays and study the language in between. And yes.. Ruud Dirkse would be proud !! Have a great time together!

  2. Quel merveilleux endroit pour perfectionner la langue française!
    Suzanne

  3. You two keep doing things that make me jealous!!
    Thanks for sharing so I can keep dreaming…..
    Au revoir!!

  4. Looks like a great change-up. You will both speak with elan when you return. See you then.

  8. Is there a way to comment on individual photos?
    if no –
    the image of the modern art is pretty interesting
    – the shot of the brave woman entering the ocean:
    a) is very cool the composition and texture of the water receding – all great
    b) the figure in the shot – um… looks a lot like Inge???
    juss sayin

    • Hi Sandra,

      Glad you like the photos but there is no way for individual comments.

      Not Inge in the water and I’m glad not. The water is cold at this time of year.

      R

  10. A lovely city and good to see you have the weekends off to enjoy it. I hope you speak only French to each other on your time off too 🙂 Mrs Putnam would be proud.

    Cheers
    Mike

  11. The colour of the water – Wow. How glorious to have a month-long stay.

    Cathrine

    • Yes, the first time I came here I suddenly understood why they call it the Côte d’Azur. The colour still amazes me every time I see it.

  12. As someone who would also like to improve their French I would be interested to know how you are going about that. Language school or what?

    • Hi. Yes, we’re going to Alliance Française in Nice–hence the last photo in the gallery. There’s a link to their site earlier in the article. Four hours of class each day–just enough to learn and keep it fun. Highly recommend it.

  13. Wonderful. Much like my trip to Italy last year. I love traveling this way. Did you do a house exchange?

    • No, we rented a little apartment through Air B&B. It’s working out well and it’s nice to be a residential building instead of an (apartment) hotel.

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