Joel Beighton Joel Beighton

Simple Pleasures

The warm morning sun is just rising above Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat and is starting to glisten on the azure Mediterranean Sea. The bay, littered with yachts and fishing boats, looks perfectly still at this hour. With very few people around, I always find it the best time to take photographs, uninterrupted.

The narrow red and yellow hued streets of Villefranche-sur-Mer cling to the steep slopes heading down to the bay, providing a perfect setting for capturing some archetypal scenes of a town on the French Riviera.

The warm morning sun is just rising above Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat and is starting to glisten on the azure Mediterranean Sea. The bay, littered with yachts and fishing boats, looks perfectly still at this hour. With very few people around, I always find it the best time to take photographs, uninterrupted.

The narrow red and yellow hued streets of Villefranche-sur-Mer cling to the steep slopes heading down to the bay, providing a perfect setting for capturing some archetypal scenes of a town on the French Riviera.

A calmness hangs in the air, and a sense of possibility for the day ahead lingers, along with the unmistakable aroma of baked goods coming from each boulangerie that is passed.


The church bells ring, and there’s a slight hubbub of activity down by the fishing boats. A small gang of locals, clutching café au lait, spectates from a nearby brasserie.

I finish my little circuit of the town and head back up the hill to our pink hotel, which wouldn’t look out of place in a Wes Anderson film, and feel grateful to have started the day with such simple pleasures.

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