Writing
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.
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.
As most people probably do, we always ensure we check reviews before we book to stay somewhere. A bit of due diligence before parting with hundreds of pounds is surely a reasonable thing to do?