Category: Travel in France & beyond

Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Instant French

Amsterdam: bikes, canals, tall narrow buildings
Amsterdam: bikes, canals, tall narrow buildings, and English everywhere

When you move to a new country where the language is different from the one you grew up speaking, naturally there are going to be challenges. Not only do you have to learn the basics that you might know as a tourist, but now all of the nuances of how you say something or where you put emphasis come into play as well. Before we left the US, I had been studying French for a while and now that we live here I’m continuing with that online while Bill attended some classroom instruction with a live teacher and fellow students and has now gone the online route too. As effective as these classic methods are, we’ve discovered a simple, fun, and instant way to suddenly speak French. Continue reading “Instant French”

Unknown's avatarBob5 Comments
Travel in France & beyond

Narrow minded

Steep, narrow stairs
Steep, narrow stairs

When I think of people from the Netherlands in general, probably the last words that come to mind are narrow minded. In the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, persecuted religious groups elsewhere in Europe found refuge there and authors were free to publish their articles and books that might have otherwise landed them in jail back in their home country. Over the centuries that tolerant attitude seems to have expanded to all segments of their society, giving their capital city Amsterdam claim to the title of the world’s most diverse by hosting immigrants from 160 nations. With that background, while looking for interesting things to do on our recent trip there, it struck me that the word “narrow” kept popping up. Continue reading “Narrow minded”

Unknown's avatarBob
Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Buried treasure

Spring bulbs at the floating flower market
Spring bulbs at the floating flower market

With a blog post title like that I wouldn’t blame you for calling out “Arrrr!” with visions of pirates, bottles of rum, and the Flying Dutchman in your head. You’d be right on the money with that last item, and probably not far off with the second since we went to Amsterdam last month but the treasure we went in search of was to bring back here and bury: tulips and other spring bulbs. Continue reading “Buried treasure”

Unknown's avatarBob1 Comment
Travel in France & beyond

Feels like home

Medieval village of Camon. France city walls
Medieval village of Camon, France city walls

If you’ve read the posts over the past few weeks you’ll know that we made a lot of day excursions by car on this most recent trip to Carcassonne. Although we won’t have a car once we move, we did this time because the original plan was to use what has now become our new home town as a base to explore the area to find a place to live. Surprising what you find in your own backyard, so to speak. Continue reading “Feels like home”

Unknown's avatarBob6 Comments
Travel in France & beyond

In the market for a smile

Narbonne wine bar photo by Pete
Narbonne wine bar photo by Pete

On Tuesday we went to see Narbonne, a former Mediterranean seaport about 30 minutes by train from Carcassonne. The two towns have the similarities of population, Roman historical connections, Canal du Midi links, and being on our original list of places where we might move. Bill had done some advance planning on what parts of the city we’d probably want to visit with the first stop being the covered market. It was lively, clean, and despite having all the usual vendors of breads, pastries, fruits, vegetables, beef, pork, chicken, and fish, the only smells we detected were good ones. But that was not why we were there. Continue reading “In the market for a smile”

Unknown's avatarBob
Travel in France & beyond

In training

TGV at the Carcassonne station
TGV at the Carcassonne station

The weather forecast for today was rain so we planned a relaxing day in. That meant a bit of a sleep in, a leisurely morning with a full pot of coffee to go with a baguette and croissants, and nothing particularly planned for the afternoon. Then the sun came out and Bill said “Let’s go to Italy. There’s a train at 11:32”. Uh oh, the last time he started a sentence with “Let’s…” we ended up moving to France. This turned out to be just an exercise to see if we really could be spontaneous and take advantage of being within a 20-minute walk of the station. Continue reading “In training”

Unknown's avatarBob1 Comment